Facebook’s New Ad Transparency Guidelines & Your Business
Laura Donovan — November 1, 2017 — November 1, 2017
StockSnap / Pixabay
So much has been going on regarding the 2016 Presidential Election and the ads and hacked accounts on Twitter and Facebook.
Twitter announced an Ad Transparency Center in mid-October, giving users more information about how organizations use Twitter for promotional purposes.
Facebook has also recently announced it plans to increase its transparency efforts.
Earlier this month, Facebook VP of Public Policy Joel Kaplan provided additional details on what we’re doing to make advertising more transparent, increase requirements for authenticity and strengthen our enforcement against ads that violate our policies.
Facebook will provide a way for users to see all the ads a business is currently running on the platform at any time. They have added a new “View Ads” option for Facebook Business Pages.
“Starting next month, people will be able to click “View Ads” on a Page and view ads a Page is running on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger — whether or not the person viewing is in the intended target audience for the ad. All Pages will be part of this effort, and we will require that all ads be associated with a Page as part of the ad creation process.” (Facebook)
Facebook states that they believe people should be able to tell who is behind an ad running on the site.
While this is a direct result of the 2016 political ads that were hacked, and is a way to provide more information on who is running ads, this new option will also benefit businesses.
The ‘View Ads’ tab will allow users to access all ads that a business is currently running as well as an archive of ad runs. By simply clicking on the tab users can see that ads are coming directly from your business. They can also access ads that perhaps they saw earlier, but want more information.
This ‘View Ads’ tab will also be available for Facebook Users who may not be part of the targeted audience for your ads. They will have the ability to view ads for a business even though they are not receiving these add in/on their News Feed.
Another change that will affect politically-focused ads is that these ads will require a verification process to ensure the ads are coming from a real entity.
“As part of the documentation process, advertisers may be required to identify that they are running election-related advertising and verify both their entity and location. Once verified, these advertisers will have to include a disclosure in their election-related ads, which reads: “Paid for by.” When you click on the disclosure, you will be able to see details about the advertiser.” (Facebook)
While the new verification process is outlined to affect only politically-related ads, and it is unclear if typical businesses will need to complete this step, there may be some crossover initially, requiring your business to be verified. Though, at this time, it is not specified that the average business will need to complete this step the new procedure. However, it is good to be aware of this in the event businesses are lumped into this verification process.
Facebook will, however, initially require that all ads run are associated with a Business Page as part of the ad creation process.
Facebook is currently rolling out this new feature in Canada and it should start showing on U.S. accounts next summer.
“Starting next month, people will be able to click “View Ads” on a Page and view ads a Page is running on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger — whether or not the person viewing is in the intended target audience for the ad. All Pages will be part of this effort, and we will require that all ads be associated with a Page as part of the ad creation process. We will start this test in Canada and roll it out to the US by this summer, ahead of the US midterm elections in November, as well as broadly to all other countries around the same time.”
While these changes are good for our political process and country, it appears that these features will benefit businesses with some added exposure and tools. It will be interesting to see how it rolls out to business accounts.
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