Facebook will be rolling out a new feature for users to see their activity and to allow them to delete their off Facebook activity beginning in June 2019. This means that websites and behaviors they may have been recorded from facebook pixels will now be able to delete the activity selectively. Their reason for the new control feature is to allow for greater transparency and user control of the information they provide to Facebook and 3rd party advertisers. Below is a memo released from our Facebook Advertising Representative.
Do you think this is a good business move? How do you feel about this new feature? Let us know on our Facebook post.
Preparing for the launch of our Off-Facebook Activity feature
We are actively investing in ways our apps and services work to give people more transparency and control over their data. These efforts are also consistent with changing expectations as regulation like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and upcoming laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) show how transparency expectations for businesses are evolving.
As soon as early June, we’ll begin rolling out a tool that lets people see and clear their off-Facebook activity. First announced by Mark Zuckerberg at F8 2018, this feature will let people view a summary of their off-Facebook activity, sent to us via our Business Tools (e.g. pixel, SDK). If someone exercises control, we will disconnect that information from their account. People can also choose to turn off our ability to connect this information with their account in the future.
We believe that offering people greater transparency and control will ultimately have a positive long-term effect on businesses using Facebook. When it comes to data and privacy, if people feel good about the information and control online services provide, it improves the way they feel about ads and the businesses they interact with.
Ahead of rollout (which will begin internationally in June and continue through the following months), I will plan to walk you all through the product experience and impact in more detail.
Improvements to Detailed Targeting
We’re constantly improving our targeting solutions to better support businesses and make ads more relevant to people. As a continuation of these efforts, we’re making updates to help you reach people that matter to your business.
- Reach more audiences to improve performance: We currently offer the ability to expand interests if we think doing so will get you better results. This allows businesses to reach people in interests they otherwise may not have. We are now bringing this option to expand detailed targeting, which includes additional audiences besides interests, such as demographics and behaviors. This allows us to adjust your targeting to help you reach more relevant people at a lower cost per result. Starting May 9, campaigns using this feature will see notifications in Ads Manager about this enhancement. On May 28, we will transition new and existing ad sets from interest targeting expansion to detailed targeting expansion.
- Using more onsite signals for interest targeting
As we continue to look for ways to improve our native targeting offerings, we’re expanding the inputs that inform our interest targeting to include more on Facebook engagement, such as following a Page. As a result of this update, some interests could increase in size. We will continue to make changes that help advertisers like you reach relevant audiences on Facebook. Please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions.
New video editing tools: cropping, trimming and overlays
In September 2018, we launched our video cropping tool, which allows you to easily crop existing videos to the aspect ratio of your choice (e.g., 1:1, 4:5, 9:16). In the coming weeks, we’ll introduce three additional video editing features — available in Ads Manager — to make it even easier to create video content in minutes:
- Automatic cropping: Identifies the best focal point of a non-vertical video on a frame-by-frame basis, and automatically crops that non-vertical video to a 1:1 or 9:16 aspect ratio within minutes.
- Video trimming: Offers the ability to shorten the duration of a video; for instance, you can cut down a 60-second video by selecting the best continuous 15 seconds.
- Image / text overlays: Allows you to add logos or text overlays throughout the course of a video.
Please visit our Ads Help Center to learn more about automatic cropping and video trimming, and let me know if you have any questions once the tools become available.
New tools for small businesses
- Automated Ads is a tool designed for small businesses, where they answer a few questions describing their business and goals, and based on the answers, the tool uses the existing images from their business Page (or they can provide their own) so they can essentially “set and forget” simple Facebook ad campaigns. We recommend that large businesses like your clients, continue to leverage Ads Manager, in order to have more flexibility and control over your bidding strategies, testing, targeting, and creative execution.
- Appointments on Facebook is a free tool geared specifically to local service providers with a small number of employees who can manage appointment bookings from their phone and Facebook Page. Larger services businesses would find greater benefit from using the Book Now CTA plus an integration with a full-feature third-party appointments product.
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F8 2019 Highlights
On April 30 – May 1, 2019, we hosted F8, our annual conference about the future of technology. This year, we celebrated the developers, creators, entrepreneurs, and innovators building on our platform, and showcased how social technologies can enable the best of what people can do together.
You can check out a summary of our announcements from Day 1 and Day 2, or click ‘Learn more’ to read more about each announcement and what they mean for businesses.
Changes to our API Offering and Policies
As part of our ongoing commitments to privacy and security, we are removing access to a number of APIs, updating our platform policies, and regularly evaluating an app’s access to user permissions. You can review this list to see which APIs will be removed from the platform, and determine if your app may be impacted — existing apps using these APIs will no longer have access as of July 30, 2019.
Additionally, our Facebook Platform Policies are being updated to include provisions that apps with minimal utility, such as personality quizzes, may not be permitted on the platform. Finally, previously approved user permissions that your app has not used or accessed in the past 90 days may be considered expired and access will be revoked. Developers can submit for App Review to re-gain access to expired permissions.
Making It Easier for Businesses to Connect with Customers on Messenger
Messenger has become one of the world’s most popular messaging tools, and we currently see over 20 billion messages on Messenger exchanged between people and businesses each month. Now, we’re introducing two new ways for your brand to more easily connect with people and get business done on Messenger.
First, we are making it even easier for your business to connect with potential customers by adding lead generation templates directly into Ads Manager. We have also created an appointment booking interface in the Messenger Platform API which can be integrated with your business’ calendaring system, so people can see the most up-to-date appointment availabilities.
