Facebook Updates for Marketers & Advertisers – September 2021

Facebook is a big and fast-moving company, so the most recent Facebook updates aren’t always easy to keep up with.  We’re here to help you understand the new updates for Facebook, today. So, what’s the new Facebook update?

Facebook’s Ray-Ban Glasses

Big news out of Menlo Park this month is the launch of Facebook’s Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses. While not a Facebook update to the existing business, this is an update to Facebook’s strategy and sets a clear marker of where they intend to head in a future with Augmented Reality (AR).  

The impact of this launch for Facebook advertisers is essentially none, at this point, as the glasses do not have in-lens displays that would affect what a user sees. However, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg has indicated as part of the launch, this is a step towards a future where they think mobile phones will no longer be as important as they are today. 

In the meantime, the features of the glasses at this point are largely limited to photo and video capture, pointing to a strong benefit for Instagram. 

Limits to Targeting Teens Based On Interest 

Over the past few months, Facebook has announced and rolled out new updates for Facebook advertising, limiting advertisers’ ability to target ads to young users based on their activities and interests. 

The new Facebook update does look like a win for consumer privacy, particularly in safeguarding youth. However, some industry insiders do not anticipate that this will meaningfully limit their ability to reach that audience; they can still optimize based on proxy metrics.

Additionally, they believe this will help Facebook in its efforts to get advertisers to hand over all campaign strategy and management to Facebook’s algorithms. 

New Instagram Ad Option for Retailers

In late August 2021, Instagram advertising delivered a new update for Facebook advertisers with the launch of Ads in the Instagram Shop Tab. This new Facebook update enables retail advertisers to deliver ads to audiences that are already in a contextually appropriate mode for receiving relevant advertising (as they’re already shopping!).  

New Personalization Tools for SMBs 

One of the more recent Facebook updates is the availability of new tools to help personalize experiences for users on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.

Some of these new features are specifically meant to improve advertiser lead generation and customer acquisition. Specifically, a new feature in testing for Messenger will allow businesses to ask consumers pre-set questions, leading to the customers easily receiving a quote from the business. And, a new Instagram feature that will soon begin the testing stage will help Instagram advertisers more easily find and qualify leads.  

Detailed Targeting Changes Are Underway 

Updates for Facebook targeting have also been announced. Facebook will now deliver ads outside of advertisers’ detailed targeting selections when Facebook feels it can improve performance and advertisers have chosen to optimize for value, conversions or app events. New Facebook updates such as these can benefit advertisers trying to achieve performance goals but do also take some liberties with advertisers’ settings. 

Key Takeaways on the recent Facebook updates

The new Facebook updates include a mix of future strategy, near-term roadmap and immediately available product announcements!  It’s a good mix of news for those thinking about both their short term and long term customer acquisition strategies. 

As always, small to mid-sized businesses can also gain an advantage in their social advertising by leveraging industry leading audience targeting data, easily and quickly enabled by Deep Sync One!