GDPR And Your Facebook Ad Campaign
Originally published at www.scotchandramen.com.
How to Continue Growing Your Company While Remaining Legally Compliant
On May 25th, 2018, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation will finally go into effect. Originally passed in April, 2016, the privacy-oriented legislation will have a profound effect on any organization that handles the data of EU citizens.
As Forbes magazine pointed out in a bluntly-titled article, “U.S. Business Can’t Hide from GDPR,” companies all around the world should be taking steps to prepare themselves for GDPR compliance. After all, the internet has truly made the world a smaller place, and there is a good chance that your organization comes into contact with the online data of EU citizens.
One extremely common example of how this can occur is through Facebook advertising. Affordable costs and high-precision targeting make social media ads the perfect growth hacking strategy — however, the global reach offered by such campaigns also comes with a fair share of responsibility.
Let’s take a quick look at a few of the most important ways that the GDPR is going to influence social media advertising in 2018, along with a few of the strategies that you should be using to prepare your business for this important change.
GDPR and Facebook Pixel
One of the most important Facebook advertising features that will be impacted by the GDPR is Facebook Pixels. For those not yet familiar with this tool, a Facebook Pixel is a small piece of Facebook-generated code that advertisers can inject into their websites in order to track conversions from Facebook ads and build audiences for future retargeting campaigns.
The precision and quality of data that Pixel offers makes it an invaluable tool for social media advertising and digital growth hacking. It allows advertisers to track important visitor metrics such as viewed content, site searches, shopping carts/wishlists, initiated checkouts, payment info, purchases, registrations, and a number of other activities that can identify a visitor as a “lead.”
The catch is that these features function using cookies, which track user behavior in a very detailed fashion. This technique is often perceived as invasive by social media users — and legislators in the EU clearly agree, as the new law requires websites to obtain “prior informed consent for the storing and access of cookies or other information on the end user’s device.”
GDPR legislation lays out four requirements in their definition of “consent.” The notice to users must be “freely given, specific, informed, and [an] unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her.” Worried about how to achieve this in pragmatic terms? Fortunately, Facebook is working hard to educate its advertisers on this new topic, and their informed consent guide provides a pretty straightforward overview of what you need to do in order to use Pixels while remaining compliant.
What About Instagram?
Because Instagram is owned by Facebook, the two social media sites share many of the same advertising infrastructure — and businesses that advertise through Instagram also have access to Facebook Pixel for the purposes of tracking their Instagram ad conversions and learning more about the behavior of website visitors brought in through Instagram.
This means that if you utilize Instagram ads, the clear and straightforward way of of keeping your Instagram advertising campaign GDPR compliant is to follow the Facebook informed consent guidelines linked above.
Goodbye, Partner Categories
Another influential change spurred on by the General Data Protection Regulation law is the termination of Facebook Partners Categories. This program has long been one of the most powerful (and most controversial) elements of the social media giant’s data collection process. These targeting options were provided by third-party partners of Facebook, and allowed data provided by “public records, loyalty card programs, surveys, and independent data providers.”
On March 28th, 2018, Facebook unexpectedly announced the end of this program with a terse, fifty one word blog post entitled “Shutting Down Partner Categories.” The post states that “while this is common industry practice, we believe this step, winding down over the next six months, will help improve people’s privacy on Facebook.”
Reading between the lines, it appears that Facebook is aiming to be extremely proactive about complying with GDPR in the wake of the recent Cambridge Analytica data scandal. This is yet another reason why Facebook advertisers in the U.S. should be working to comply with the security standards established by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation law.
If you are looking for help managing your Facebook advertising campaign — or any other element of your digital marketing and advertising strategy — We can help. Book a free strategy call today or visit us at www.scotchandramen.com
