Unless you spend most of your time under a rock, you will have heard of Facebook’s troubles regarding its cavalier use of its user’s personal data. Zuckerberg was grilled in Congress and they were recently fined £500,000 for their role in the big Cambridge Analytical data scandal, which saw some 87 million Facebook users have their data exposed and used to influence political elections.
Facebook’s Response
As reported by Ron Douglas, Facebook has responded by quietly taking away targeting options that were based on sensitive data they don’t want people to know they had in the first place.
These include options built on the data provided by third-party companies like Axiom or Experian. These options are called Partner Categories and are very powerful when trying to target users based on the behaviors they take outside of Facebook. This explains why you may search for shoes on Google and have Ads for shoes appear on your timeline a moment later.
Using Partner Categories, advertisers were able to target people who were frequent buyers, in the market for a new vehicle, in certain job roles, or likely to relocate. This behavioral data was super valuable when trying to meet users with the right marketing message at the right time during the consideration process.
What does this mean for you?
If you’ve been using Facebook Ads for your books, you may wish to consider three changes in regards to your Ad strategy:
1. Use your Facebook Ad pixel more. Stop relying so much on interest targeting and let them optimize your conversions for you by getting as much data into your Ad pixel as possible. The more conversions you have registered in their tracking pixel, the better it is at sending you traffic that will convert.
2. While normal Ads are usually too expensive for most of us, video Ads are still relatively cheap because the competition is low.
3. You may consider Messenger ads. Messenger has 1.2 Billion daily users but less than 1% of FB marketers are promoting their content in messenger. One of the reasons is that Messenger Ads are more intrusive that timeline ones. You can still use them to great effect, though, if you reach out to your followers instead of strangers.
Happy book marketing!
Cigarafterten said:
Facebook, a good social network for old people
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Lol–did you just call me old? 😀
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Charles Yallowitz said:
Reblogged this on Legends of Windemere.
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The Owl Lady said:
Reblogged this on Viv Drewa – The Owl Lady.
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robertawrites235681907 said:
This is useful information, Nicholas. I have started noticing the changes to Facebook.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Thank you, Roberta! So glad you found it useful 🙂
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kimwrtr said:
Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
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Stephen Geez said:
Thanks, Nicholas. I’ll reblog on the GeezWriter sites.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Thank you, Stephen!
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Pingback: Facebook Ads News: Changes in Targeting — Nicholas C. Rossis | GeezWriter Blog
Don Massenzio said:
Reblogged this on Author Don Massenzio and commented:
Check out this informative post from Nicholas Rossis’ blog on the topic of Facebook Ads News: Changes in Targeting
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Anna Dobritt said:
Reblogged this on Anna Dobritt — Author.
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John W. Howell said:
Every time I try to figure Facebook out things change. Not sure I will ever get to the bottom of how to advertise there.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
It’s like building on quicksand, isn’t it? Sigh…
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John W. Howell said:
With a cardbaord foundation. 😀
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dgkaye said:
I don’t use FB ads and still, ads follow me from spying on sites I was online shopping on. I hate the whole thing. There’s no privacy left anywhere. If there was an honest social site which allowed to chat with any one of our friends I would leave in a heartbeat. 🙂
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
I suspect you’re not the only one 🙂
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dgkaye said:
I highly doubt it, lol 🙂
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doublegenealogytheadoptionwitness said:
I’d responded to a similar thread, but can’t locate. On a slightly different note, competition bests legislation. As a beta-tester of Netscape, so long long ago, like yesterday, I highly applaud the below. I’d love to see you do one of your splendid posts, for it will affect it all.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90243936/exclusive-tim-berners-lee-tells-us-his-radical-new-plan-to-upend-the-world-wide-web
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Thank you for the link and the kind words. It’s a bit too technical for most of my audience, though 🙂
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Web Pro said:
People who were frequent buyers of certain products – this valuable information is now not available in my FB advertising / targeting feature. That’s quite a loss to gain insights as who can be my next lead / purchaser.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
I often joke that online marketing is like building on quicksand: everything changes every other month!
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thethinkersright said:
Facebook is getting shittier and shittier all the time. A freelance writer just shared with us his story of self-promoting his work now that Facebook’s biases are becoming more and more obvious.
thethinkersright.com/2018/10/19/banned-part-two-a-freelance-writer-on-how-facebook-is-messing-with-the-industry-social-media-geoege-orwell-mark-zuckerberg-censorship/
if you’re interested.
Thanks for sharing!
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Thank you for the link 🙂
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TheLaptopLifestyle said:
good article, Fb bots are AWESOME!!!, I recently started implementing one that I speak about in my blog & my conversions are thru the roof. I look forward to hearing more of your opinions on this subject.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Sweet! I wonder if the same is true about books, as most authors I know have given up on FB ads.
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