digital elections

The Year of Change

Today, Facebook announced additional changes to political advertising on its platforms, including Instagram. Campaigns in 2020 need to understand what these changes mean and their options going forward to effectively reach their targeted audiences of voters.

Today, Facebook announced additional changes to political advertising on its platforms, including Instagram.

It’s really no surprise. Twitter, Spotify, Pinterest, and Google have either banned all political and issue advertising or removed audience targeting capabilities in some form.

Facebook and Instagram have now rolled out their policy changes aimed at expanded transparency and more controls for political ads.

Per Facebook, “In the absence of regulation, Facebook and other companies are left to design their own policies. We have based ours on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.”

Campaigns in 2020 need to understand what these changes mean and their options going forward to effectively reach their targeted audiences of voters.

“Facebook’s opt-out options for custom audiences and political issue ads will hurt the overall effectiveness of social media, which has been one of the best places to reach targets. With the new constant changes to digital and social media platforms, programmatic remains the only way to effectively reach tailored audiences and guarantee a 1:1 conversation.”
– Justin Hacker, Digital Sales Engineer, Majority Strategies

Let’s start at the top.

What is changing?
Here are the new changes coming to Facebook & Instagram:

Expanded Transparency in the Ad Library

  • Expected Reach & Target Audience Size
  • Improved Search and Filtering Capabilities

Expanded Opt-Out and Ad Preference Settings

  • Opt-Out of Voter File or Custom Audience targeting
  • See fewer ads about social issues, elections, or politics

This means Facebook users will be empowered to choose how an advertiser (i.e. your campaign) can reach them with ads. Whereas previously, users could hide all ads from a specific advertiser, now users will be able to block ads from a Custom Audience.

They will also be able to make themselves eligible to see ads that they otherwise would have been excluded from based on an advertiser’s Custom Audience.

What can (and should) 2020 campaigns do?
Programmatic advertising is really the only channel available for 1:1 political communications.

Programmatic advertising uses software to purchase digital ads, replacing the human element and the need for manual insertion orders. Artificial intelligence and real-time bidding create a faster and more efficient process that typically results in better outcomes.

“It’s never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket. Now, with Facebook’s changes its more important than ever to diversify. Majority Strategies’ solution runs on hundreds of thousands of apps and millions of websites to get more eyeballs on your ads.”
– Reid Vineis, VP of Digital, Majority Strategies

Majority Strategies’ programmatic advertising solution allows our clients to continue audience targeting and microtargeting with display and video advertisements. We automatically incorporate all devices associated with the target audience, including mobile, desktop, tablets, and televisions. We have an expanded inventory on more apps and websites, including premium and direct placements.

Our team is here and ready to help your campaign navigate through these changes. Contact us today.

Read more from Reid Vineis on this issue in Campaigns & Elections here.

You can read Facebook’s full announcement here.