When developing a social media marketing strategy, one of
the first decisions you need to make is which platform to advertise on. And
when it comes to Facebook vs. Instagram, there’s an additional layer of
complexity to the question, because ads for both platforms are run through the
same system in Facebook’s Ads Manager. Ads Manager gives users the option of
either keeping their Facebook and Instagram strategies separate, or running
campaigns across both platforms simultaneously. I’ve seen a lot of confusion about
this among people who aren’t familiar with the space, so I’m going to try to
clear things up a little bit and explain why, when deciding whether to run your
ads on Facebook or on Instagram, you will almost always see the best results
when the answer is “both”.
Why You May Be Tempted to Keep Facebook & Instagram Ads Separate
As a user, Facebook and Instagram are two very different
social networks, and they each have distinct user experiences, cultures, and demographics.
This can lead advertisers to believe that the best way to organize their
advertising strategy and maximize performance is to develop separate campaigns
for Facebook and for Instagram, with ads specifically designed to run on one
platform or the other. Another reason advertisers may decide to separate their
campaigns by platform is to test performance to determine which platform is
most effective for them, so that they can run their ads only on the platform
that performs the best. In theory, both of these strategies sound like good
ideas and seem to be logically sound. However, in practice, they conflict with
Facebook’s built-in optimization features and can diminish overall results.
Why You Will See Better Performance Running Ads to Both Platforms
Simultaneously
It’s helpful to think of it this way: with Facebook’s Ads
Manager, ads aren’t being delivered to the platform, they’re being delivered to
the person. When determining when and where to serve your ads, Ads Manager
prioritizes reaching the right people (users who match your targeting criteria
and are likely to engage positively with your ad) wherever they may be.
Say, for example, there is a user who matches your perfect
customer profile who logs into Facebook 4 days out of the week and logs into Instagram
the other 3 days. Each day, your ads enter the auction with the goal of serving
to this perfect customer. However, if your ads are only running on one of the
two platforms, you will only have the opportunity to reach this customer 40-60%
of the time. The rest of the days, your ads will serve to slightly
lower-quality prospects, because your perfect customer was not online on the platform
that the ads were serving to. This remains true whether you have only one
campaign running to a single platform, or multiple campaigns running to each
platform separately. In contrast, if your strategy allows Ads Manager to run
your ads to both Facebook and
Instagram, your ads will be able to serve to the optimal person 100% of the
times that they are online.
How You Can Optimize By Platform Without Keeping Them Separate
Ads Manager includes two important features which enable
advertisers to understand how the different platforms are performing and
optimize for each without keeping ads confined to only run on a single platform.
The first helpful feature is an option in the ad building tool which allows you to customize your ad based on placement. This tool enables customization of the media and text for any given ad, based on where that ad will be served. For example, if you want to run an ad on both Facebook and Instagram, but you want to use different image dimensions for the two platforms, you can use this tool to customize the image so that the version of the ad that appears on Facebook has a rectangular image, and the version that appears on Instagram has a square image. This allows advertisers to match their ad content to each platform without breaking up their strategy and keeping the platforms completely separate.
Customize by Placement – Placement Options
The second feature which enables advertisers to optimize by platform is the performance breakout capabilities available in reporting. Ads Manager can break down performance data (spend, impressions, clicks, etc.) across a number of different dimensions, including ad placement. This means that regular reports and performance check-ins can include comparing performance across platforms at a number of different levels. You can see which platform is driving the best KPI results overall, whether particular audiences may be more likely to convert on one platform versus the other, and you can even see if any individual ads resonate better on a particular platform. This provides a huge volume of valuable insights into how users engage with your ads and enables advertisers to extract key learnings about the differences between the platforms without needing to sacrifice efficiency for the sake of keeping the data separate.
Customize by Placement – Customization Options
Performance Breakdown Options
In Conclusion
Although it’s understandable to think that the only way to effectively manage ads across these two different platforms is to keep them separate, there are great optimization opportunities and insights available, even without splitting up your strategy. And, ultimately, overall performance is a game of averages, and for the reasons discussed above,shutting down or separating out one platform entirely – even if it looks like it’s under-performing compared to the other – will often hurt your average.
If you’ve spent any of your company’s time or marketing budget on SEO, you’ve likely heard about backlinks. Backlinks help determine how your website ranks in Google’s search results and for what keyword your website is ranked. While the concept of getting other webpages to link to your site is relatively simple, understanding how they interact with your site and with Google’s algorithm is far from straightforward.
Why are backlinks important?
To determine what and where your website ranks in Google’s
search results, they use a variety of factors, including backlinks. While you
can have the slickest, fastest, and easiest-to-use website in the world, if
there are no backlinks to it, Google may not rank it as well as it deserves
because no other website has given it a “vote” by linking to it!. So, if you’re trying to rank your
organization’s website, it would make sense to reach out to people to build the
backlinks, or alternately hire an SEO firm to build those backlinks. While both
can be good, indiscriminately building links either through your own efforts or
by hiring a third party can backfire, leaving you wondering “How can I get rid
of these spammy backlinks”?
How Bad are your Backlinks?
So, while you can build a multitude of really bad backlinks
really quickly and damage your traffic almost as fast, there are ways to fix
the problem. Namely Google’s disavow tool, which can help your recovery from
spammy backlinks. Google doesn’t encourage its use, and there’s a very
important reason why: Nowadays, not all bad backlinks cause ranking penalties. This
is because of Google’s Penguin updates, which separated the ideas of a spammy
website and a low-quality website. Spammy websites differ from
websites that Google ranks poorly because they actively attempt to scam a
user or manipulate a search engine. A low-quality website is just that –
low quality. Things like misspelling, bad grammar, bad user experience or a
poorly structured site doesn’t necessarily mean spammy, it just means that
search engines will rank other pages about the same subject higher; and links
from the low-quality domains will not receive nearly as much (or in many cases,
any) weight in Google’s ranking algorithm. Because of this, disavowing links is not
nearly as effective as it was prior to the Penguin update.
As a result, it’s harder to shape your website’s backlink
profile to what you need it to be – if
you’ve got a website with thousands of backlinks, and half are from low-quality
domains, that’s still a bunch of pages that you’d need to review in some way to
determine which to cut and which to keep, rather than only going by
industry-standard metrics like Moz’s Domain Authority to determine the
backlink’s value.
So, armed with this information,
how do you find the bad backlinks and disavow them? It’s actually relatively simple: you filter
backlinks with features in common that look spammy; this includes aspects of
the domain like:
Low domain-level scores on SEO
Tools
Lots of SEO tools give their own
rating to domains based on things like ranking, domain age, content length,
content quality, backlink quality, etc. Regardless if you’re using Ahrefs,
Brightedge, SEMRush, or another tool, find the lowest-rated pages and filter
out everything else. That’ll give you your initial pool of low quality and
spammy backlinks.
Spammy Top Level Domains
Top-level domains (TLDs) appear at the end of a domain name, for example the top-level domain for https://charlesriverinteractive.com is “.com”. More obscure top-level domains (like “.biz”, “.pizza”, “.info”) are cheaper to buy than more common ones like “.com”, “.org”, or “.net”. Because of this, spammers love less-common top-level domains, and they buy them in bulk. Some are almost entirely used by spammers – according to The Spamhaus Project , 94% of websites using the TLD “.gdn” are spam. Look for groups of domains with TLDs that are obscure and rate highly for webspam – these URLS are good candidates for disavowal.
Spammy Domain Names
While it’s not necessary that a
domain’s name match the content on the site, it’s easy to tell if a website has
a spammy domain name. Look for terms related to “adult” searches, (adult
videos, gambling, etc.) and other “spammy” search terms, like asbestos and
payday loans.
Beyond these types of terms, look
for “copycat” websites – they’ll have a
URL similar to a well-known, authoritative website, but with a different
top-level domain (think “washingtonpost.pizza” or “forbes.gdn”). These are most
definitely spam – it’s common for organizations to buy lookalike domains so
that they don’t get used by someone else, but they’ll usually never host
anything on those domains, or at most redirect to their real website. If
they’re backlinking to you, they’re most likely not legitimate, and you can be
confident in disavowing them.
Domains on the Same IP
The internet has greatly expanded
in the last 20 or so years, and while IP addresses were usually assigned to one
domain, it’s not uncommon to find multiple legitimate domains on the same IP.
However, any domains that meet one or more of the last three criteria and share
IP addresses are absolutely, no-doubt-about-it spam.
Generating a Disavow List
So now that we know the signs of a spammy domain, how do you get the list? The most straightforward way is also the most laborious – generate the list by filtering for these spammy domain indicators in Excel. However, it takes hours to do right and it might be worth engaging the services of a reputable marketing firm to speed up the process and ensure an accurate and effective domain-based link disavow list. If this is the case, don’t hesitate to contact Charles River Interactive! We’ve got the experience and technology to find spammy backlinks and create the strategies that elevate your business’ web presence and drive the traffic you need for business growth.
This is the third and final chapter of our dive into Facebook’s restricted topics advertising. So far, we’ve covered what Facebook’s Politician, Election, and Social Issue Advertising Policy is and how to complete Facebook’s authorization process. Once you identify an ad as falling under this policy, a few things will happen. Manly, the ad will look a little different from non-policy ads in Facebook and Instagram. In the image below, we call out these differences in yellow:
Now, let’s compare that ad to one that does not reference social issues, elections, or politics. Can you see the distinct differences in appearance?
Non-policy ads do not need to 1.) identify who is paying for their ads, 2.) have the extra “non affiliated with Facebook” copy, or 3.) have the information icon on top of their creative. **Note that advertising information including why a user is seeing a particular ad is still visual in the drop down of the see more icon (…) in the top right corner.
What actually topics count as Political, Social Issues, or Election Facebook Ads?
The answer depends on the country you are advertising in. Facebook is a global company and intends for this policy to fit each particular cultural and political climate where an ad will be served. As a result, there are different requirements for different countries. Below we list just a few.
For the United States, which has the largest list so far, affected topics (as of today) include, but are not limited to:
Abortion
Civil rights
Crime
Energy
Guns
Health
Social security
Terrorism
Values
In the European Union, the affected topics (as of today) include, but are not limited to:
Immigration
Political values
Security and foreign policy
Environmental politics
Your best bet is to bookmark this Facebook Help Center page to keep track of the latest updates. The actual list and how Facebook decides to interpret each category will continue to evolve. It’s best to think about how your content may or may not fall into these categories. As we discussed in our last post, the authorization process takes some time. Better to be prepared than to not be able to run an ad when you want to.
Some last minute notes about running Social Issues-, Politics-, or Election-based Ads on the Facebook Network
Currently, these ad authorizations can only be set up from a computer. So, if you are using Facebook’s Mobile Ads Manager App, you will need to sign back in to a computer to mark your ads.
These types of ads are not currently allowed to run on the WhatsApp, Messenger and Audience Network placements. Even if you select these placements in your targeting, they will not show.
Facebook’s machine learning is ever-evolving. If the machine or human reviewers determine that an ad’s content is related to social issues, politics, or elections, they will disapprove your ad. If you are already approved to run these types of ads, it is usually a simple matter of going in and clicking the declaration button at the ad level. If you are not, you will need to edit the ad to try and pass the test.
Even ads that were previously approved may be disapproved by this policy in future campaign reviews.
Any ads about social issues, elections or politics that target the U.S. will be eligible to be added to the Ad Library, even if the advertiser who created them doesn’t reside in the U.S., and/or hasn’t completed the ad authorization process. The Ad Library includes all active ads that are currently running, ads that have stopped running, ads that an advertiser deleted and ads that were active before being disapproved due to policy violations. For those of you looking to do a little research, the Ads Library can be a great place to find out what competitors are doing.
In Summary
The digital marketing world is always changing, and the Facebook platform is no different. As new technology develops, there will always be people who find a way to use it for good and others for bad. New Facebook policies like this content disclaimer will ultimately help the general public understand how and by whom messages are being paid for and delivered. Advertisers in the platform who present themselves honestly and think of marketing with a user-first mindset will continue to excel.
Having a great partner can make all the difference. Let Charles River Interactive help you with your digital marketing strategy. Reach out to us at info@charlesriverinteractive.com to start a conversation.
Facebook’s advertising policy is always changing. Where before, ad content discussing only political topics and then election-related topics were restricted, now broader items considered to be social issues may also require special permission to run. And the updates are not over yet as Facebook is consistently updating the policy. Last week, we shared some of the history of the policy and how to work within it. Today, we’re sharing the authorization steps you need to follow to run these ads.
How do I get authorized to run Facebook Network Ads about Social Issues, Politics, or Elections?
Overall, this a multi-step, but fairly straightforward process. Remember, when you are looking for an agency to help run your advertisements on the Facebook Network—which includes Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more—to make sure they are authorized to run these types of ads on your behalf (as is Charles River Interactive). The process is slightly different for each country. In this post, we will focus on the United States.
Below are the steps you will need to take for your Facebook Page to be allowed to run ads related to political, election-based, or identified social issues (like healthcare and cyber security) on Facebook.
Page admins and ad account admins must submit a government-issued ID and provide a residential mailing address (to which the verification code will be mailed)
This verification process will come via a letter with a unique access code that only that individual can use.
As we approach the 2020 U.S. Election Season, Facebook has increased the information required by organizations. Advertisers will have five options for providing more information, three of which rely on US government resources. Advertisers who complete one of these three options and provide a U.S. street address, phone number, business email, and website will receive a “Confirmed Organization” icon that will appear on all of their social issue, electoral and political ads:
Option #1: Tax-registered organization identification number (ie. EIN)
Option #2: A government email domain (.gov or .mil) and a similar website domain
Option #3: Federal Election Commission (FEC) identification number
Advertisers who may not have those credentials, such as smaller businesses or local politicians, will still be able to run ads about social issues, elections or politics. Those advertisers will have two options for creating new disclaimers and their “i” icon will read “About this ad” instead of “Confirmed Organization”:
Option #4: Submit a different organization name, along with a US street address, phone number, email, and website that matches the email
Option #5: Use the Page admin’s legal name, as it appears on their valid government-issued ID (For this option, the advertiser will not be able to use an organization name in disclaimers)
There are a few requirements for each individual user be able to complete the process for your organization. You must:
Be a Page admin on the page the ads will be
running on
In addition to the Page admin who’s creating the
disclaimers, any person creating, modifying, publishing or pausing ads about
social issues, elections or politics will need to have their identity confirmed
through this process.
If you are not a Page admin and need to undergo
this process, leave a comment and we will be happy to help
Confirm your identity via a government ID (such as a US driver’s license, US state ID card or US passport) and submit a US-based residential mailing address where verification documents can be mailed to you
And finally, here are the actual steps you’ll follow to complete the process:
Confirm your identity
In Facebook, click on settings for your Facebook Page (either on the page itself or through Business Manager, if you have one set up)
Under Settings, click Authorizations
Update the Where Do You Live section
Under Step 1: Confirm Your Identity, click Get Started
Under Your Primary Country Location, click Confirm Primary Location
Update the Enter Mailing Address section with your information and click Send
This will trigger a letter to be sent to your home with your personal verification code.
Select the type of identification you would like to use (US driver’s license, US state ID card or US passport for those in The States) and click Next
Now you will need to upload images of your identification in either a JPEG or PNG file (at least 1,500×1,000 pixels)
Don’t worry if your address on the document is different than the mailing address you give, right now Facebook doesn’t care
Click Next after your image is uploaded. Approval or denial of your ID should be processed quickly
Answer a few questions and click Next
You are all done, click Finish and wait for your verification code to come in the mail (this usually takes around 3-7 business days)
Once your verification letter arrives:
Visit the URL provided in the letter
Enter your code under Confirm Your Identity
Click Submit Code and you should be done
Link your ad accounts (each ad account needs to be linked to your Page and a disclaimer must be entered for each one)
In Facebook, click on settings for your Facebook Page (either on the page itself or through Business Manager, if you have one set up)
Under Settings, click Authorizations
In Step 2: Link Your Ad Accounts, click Begin
Accept Facebook’s Terms and Conditions by clicking Accept
Select the ad accounts that you want your Page to pay for social issue, elections or political ads for from the list provided. You should see any ad account for which you are an ad account advertiser or admin in the list.
Create a disclaimer for each ad account added that includes who paid for this ad (example: choose either Charles River Interactive or Rita Business Kulis depending on who is paying for the ads)
These disclaimers must accurately reflect who is paying for an ad. In my case, I might build and run ads, but my company is probably paying for them so CRI should be listed, not me as an individual)
Review changes and click Submit
Authorize your Instagram account
In Facebook, click on settings for your Facebook Page (either on the page itself or through Business Manager if you have one set up)
Under Settings, click Authorizations
Step 3 is Authorize Your Instagram Account (this is Optional). Click Begin
Check Review this Instagram Name – if your two accounts have different naming conventions, you will have to explain why.
Click Submit, reviews are usually completed within 24 hours
Create Ads
Complete as you would normally, with the only added step being that you must click the ad disclaimer during ad development
Note: everything must match the country where your authorization is certified (US authorization = USD currency, etc.)
Yes, the process seems overwhelming, but it is easier than it looks. In total, you can expect it will take about two weeks from when you submit your information until your approval codes arrive in the mail.
When you are running ads in Facebook and other social platforms, it is helpful to have a seasoned agency in your corner. Reach out to our team at info@charlesriverinteractive.com to learn more.
Facebook. It’s one of the most popular websites and communities in the world, making it a great platform for advertising. With many people getting their news directly from the platform, Facebook has introduced policies to make clear when information is a paid promotion, and in some cases, who is paying for it. This is most commonly seen in its Political, Election, and Social Issue advertising policy.
I hear you asking yourself: I’m not a political brand. Why does this matter to me? Well, my friend, read on and find out.
Facebook’s advertising policy requires an extra layer of security for accounts that advertise what Facebook deems to be issues related to politics. But political content is not the only thing requiring additional authorization these days. Facebook has recently updated its restrictions to include social issues. Where before, ad content discussing only political topics, and then election-related topics were flagged, the list now includes broader items including healthcare and security. And the updates are not over yet. Facebook is updating this list regularly so topics included under these political or social issue categories will continue to change.
For those looking to advertise on the platform, these changes mean managing a regularly changing landscape as these classified topics rise and fall quickly. That’s why it is helpful to have a seasoned agency team in your corner, helping you navigate these changing tides. If you’re looking for help with your digital marketing strategy, be it advertising in Facebook or other digital marketing initiatives, reach out to our team at info@charlesriverinteractive.com. We’d be happy to help.
Why did Facebook change its political advertising policies?
The roots of the change stretch back a number of years, but are most famously tied to the lead up to the 2016 US Presidential Election. By introducing increased transparency into the behind-the-scenes workings of their advertising platform, Facebook is attempting to distance itself from much of the echo-chamber blowback seen following social and political events like Brexit, the Rohingya crisis, and investigations into Russian interference with U.S. elections in 2016.
The official policy was originally introduced in April 2018,
and sought to denote ads related to political topics such as elections or
specific pieces of legislation. The policy soon expanded to include topics
deemed to be of “National Importance”. Non-profits focused on human rights,
international politics, and immigration were some of the first to really feel
the impact of this new practice. As political climates and discussions shifted,
this categorization extended further, coming to include hot social topics like
immunizations and even, as seen in April 2019, the Boston Marathon.
Spring of 2019 marked a turning point in Facebook’s
application of this practice. A seemingly ever-increasing number of topics were
coming under the policy umbrella that has now been redefined as, “Social
issues, elections, or politics”. At CRI, we see these changes impact campaigns
and client goals every day. As recently as last week, some of our technology
clients’ ads have been reevaluated and flagged based on language around
cybersecurity or cyberattacks.
Chatting with our Facebook representatives, we know that
these categories of interest are only going to continue to broaden, especially
as we enter into the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election cycle.
What can my brand do to make sure our ads can run?
There is a simple answer: get approved to run these types of
ads.
While some brands are unlikely to be impacted by this
particular set of rules, many others will be. And as Facebook is updating their
list regularly, you may not know a topic will be flagged beforehand (such as
the above examples of the Boston Marathon or cyberattacks).
Having the ability to react quickly to changes in the
Facebook platform will help you ensure your brand can react to current events
and be in front of key audiences when topics and conversations are fresh.
Some organizations I have worked with are concerned that, by becoming authorized to run political or social topics ads, they will appear to their audiences as being political when that’s not their business model. Rest assured—being authorized to run these types of ads does not mean you have to run them. There is a simple button that can be toggled to distinguish if the ad has political/social issue material or not right in the ad build within the Facebook Ads Manager platform.
Note: only those authorized to run these ads will see this option in Ads Manager.
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We’ll create a comprehensive strategy that will help you harness the potential of digital marketing—built around a solid search engine marketing core—to achieve the business goals you want and need. By creating an integrated digital marketing plan that’s driven by data and delivers optimum results, we’ll become a trusted partner who feels like part of your in-house team.
