Facebook’s Privacy Policy Changes And How It Will Affect Marketers

A Guest Contribution by Michael Dehoyos

Facebook has undergone intense scrutiny over the last few years regarding its privacy policy. The most notable incident occurred in the aftermath of the 2016 election where it came to light that Cambridge Analytica had gained unauthorized access to personal information of thousands of Facebook users and used that information to target individuals with ads during the 2016 election.

When this was exposed it became clear that Facebook had simply not done enough to protect the privacy of its users. It has since lost the trust of many of its previously loyal users and has also resulted in Facebook making large scale changes to their privacy policy. While this of interest or concern for many individuals one group of people, marketers, are left wondering exactly what these changes will mean for them and how it will impact their marketing efforts.

The following is a brief overview of exactly what aspects have changed and how it will affect those who use Facebook ads as an integral part of their business or service.

EU Privacy Laws And Facebook

A recent interview with Mark Zuckerberg had him express his interest in adopting the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation. If adopted this will have a very large impact on Marketers as the GDPR puts greater restrictions on how companies, in this case, Facebook, can collect, store, and analyze information. It also sets limits on the amount of information a company can gather without directly informing the user. The way users will be informed is likely to be a little consent checkbox which will need to be checked if the user wants to continue viewing specific content. “This extra action is likely to discourage many users from engaging with certain types of content. The end result of this will be a less complete user profile outlining an individual's interests, likes, and internet behaviors. While this may be good for the individual and their privacy, it impacts Facebook's ability to match advertisers with users who are most likely to respond positively to their advertisements.” write Kelly Bellew, a marketer writer at 1Day2write and Writemyx. It goes without saying that should these types of measures be put into effect it will have a negative impact on marketers to acquire qualified leads for their clients or business.

Less Data Means Less Targeted Ads

Traditional advertising involved putting advertisements in high traffic areas hoping that enough of one’s targeted audience will view it. The internet changed this approach drastically by allowing advertisers to directly target people whose past behaviors online meant they are more likely than others to click on a specific ad. This process becomes more specific the more personal information is collected about each individual. “As Facebook strives to have a less intrusive, and more privacy-focused, policy moving forward the result will be less targeted ads for advertisers.” Writes Stacy Donovan, a social media writer at Brit student and Nextcoursework. 

This type of concern puts Facebook in an interesting position. They make all their money off of ad revenue. Advertisers flock to Facebook for the simple fact that it is the largest social media platform around right now. Those who advertise on Facebook are more likely to reach a qualified lead than they are on almost any other platform. This being said, to attract the number of advertisers as they do they must maintain their position as the most popular social media platform. Acting with disregard for the privacy concerns of their users is not the best way to accomplish this. Facebook is performing a balancing act between the interests of its users and the interests of its advertisers.

Scandals Lower Trust

Distrust in the tech giant Facebook was already mounting and boiled over once the Cambridge Analytica fiasco was made public. One of the first features facebook introduced to regain user trust was a delete all activity feature. This feature gave users the option to permanently delete all posts, photos, check-ins, and all other content from their Facebook without deleting the account itself. This action deletes all the important information the Facebook Ads algorithms would have used to make sure advertisers are appropriately matched up with qualified viewers. The more general a product or service is, the less it will be affected by these actions. Those businesses which sell very niche products will be the most affected by this.

Michael Dehoyos is a content marketer and editor at Phd Kingdom and Academic brits. He has spent years working closely with companies in order to develop tailored marketing strategies and brand awareness campaigns. Michael has also written several publications on a variety of topics. Most of his articles can be found at Origin Writings.