What do we need to know about the FB Special Ad Category?

Has it happened to you too that FB rejected most of your ads from one hour to the next because your campaigns do not meet all the requirements and you have no Special Ad Category set? Facebook is enforcing rules and restrictions for ads falling into certain categories more and more. Until recently it only warned about it, but now it also limits ads and campaign performance overall if we promote products or services falling into certain categories. And there is nothing left for us but to adapt. In this blog post you will learn what exactly a Special Ad Category is, which categories of products and services fall into them, what it actually means for us and what we have to do so that FB stops rejecting our ads.

What the FB Special Ad Category is and why it exists

The FB Special Ad Category is a new classification of ads covering the following categories of products and services (some categories overlap slightly). Facebook created the categorisation to help enforce its policies against discriminatory practices in advertising and so prevent discrimination.

• Housing (ads for the sale or rental of property, property insurance, home mortgages, property valuation, property repairs)
  
• Credit (ads for credit cards, mortgage offers, refinancing, leasing)
• Employment (ads for full-time and part-time job offers, certification programmes)
• Social issues, elections or politics (ads relating to social issues (the economy or civil and social rights, for instance), elections or political figures and campaigns)

What this Special Ad Category means for ads

If your ad falls into the categories mentioned above, the targeting options you have been used to until now will change. These are the main restrictions:

1. We cannot use targeting based on age, gender or postcode
2. We cannot exclude particular audiences from targeting
3. We can use only limited interest targeting options
4. For location targeting we can use only a radius of more than 24 km (not less)
5. We cannot use our own lookalike audiences (instead we have to create Special Ad Audiences, more below)
6. We cannot use detailed targeting expansion for interests

Where do I find the Special Ad Category setting

The Special Ad Category setting is found in the settings at campaign level. After that we have to keep in mind the specifics of this campaign and the limited targeting options we listed above.

What Special Ad Audiences are

As we mentioned, it is not possible to use your own lookalike audiences. But fortunately we do not lose this type of broad targeting entirely. The lookalike audiences we know are replaced by Special Ad Audiences. These new special audiences are likewise created on the basis of the similarity of our customers' and users' online behaviour. So these new audiences are very similar to our lookalike audiences, but they suit and meet the restrictions of the Special Ad Category — certain information about demographics, interests and so on is removed.

Recommendations when changing the Special Ad Category

If you already have a historically active campaign with several ad sets, then in this case I would rather recommend creating a new campaign (unless it is an acquisition campaign with a lot of data), because after changing the category at campaign level you have to change all the settings in every ad set so that they comply with the Special Ad Category conditions we mentioned above in the article.

We hope this article helps you understand the FB Special Ad Category topic even better and that you find it useful. Should you have any problems or questions, do not hesitate to get in touch.