Nothing About Targeting is the Same

Nothing about targeting is the same as it once was. If you’re still trying to control targeting like it’s 2018 — or even 2021 — the changes have passed you by.

Consider just a few of the way things have changed…

Targeting Changes

When you provide detailed targeting inputs, they’re only seen as suggestions when used with 11 performance goals.

This expansion of how detailed targeting inputs are handled happened recently.

When you provide lookalike audiences, they’re only suggestions with 9 performance goals.

Meta made this update late last year. In each case, you can’t turn suggestions off. We don’t know how much your suggestions matter, if at all.

Age and gender inputs are seen as suggestions by default, but you can restrict both. Sure, you can, but you probably don’t need to. Even if there’s a problem to be solved, you should use value rules instead.

Some advertisers provide custom audiences as suggestions, thinking they’re remarketing. They’re not. But even if you restrict by those audiences, it’s rarely necessary. Meta prioritizes remarketing audiences automatically.

It doesn’t stop here. You’re probably getting location targeting and exclusions wrong, too.

What to Do

So, what should you do to catch up?

I built a free mini-course to help you master modern targeting. It consists of eight lessons to clarify best practices on all of these things. Subscribe to the Modern Targeting Mini-Course here.