Meta Taketh and Taketh Away

Meta To Remove Connections Targeting

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Meta recently announced some changes with its Marketing API version 14.0. And you're not going to like them. 

With the changes, Meta will be taking away several options from the API that will affect marketers and third-party platforms. 

First, Connections Targeting will be removed from all Meta advertising platforms.

Connections Targeting for ads enable advertisers to segment their audience based on how people are connected to your business. With the tool, you can segment audiences based on whether they're connected to your Page, your app, or an event. 

Thus, Meta is taking away the option to reach friends of people who interact with your Page or event on June 15th. 

Quoting the company:

The Facebook Analytics mobile app Custom Audience 'User by Segment' feature will also be deprecated and will be removed by July 3.

As for what's new, Meta's rolling out some features relating to the way third-party platforms access Facebook data, including;

1. Changes to the questions developers need to answer as part of its Data Protection Assessment

2. A new 'Access Verification' process to identify tech providers using its platform

Finally, Business Manager will be getting new tools, and Meta will also be adding new permissible use cases for accessing both user Like and post data via the Graph API. 

Is Facebook Pulling the Plug on News?

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From API changes to algorithm changes — Several publishers speculate that Meta might be pulling the plug on news. 

Performance Marketing World posted a great think-piece yesterday asking the news industry’s $1 billion question: Is Meta about to unfriend publishers?

In the wake of stricter licensing legislation around the world, it was recently reported that Facebook is reconsidering how news content is promoted on the platform. Some publishers believe the tech giant is preparing to distance itself from deals with large networks to save money. 

Facebook has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the journalism industry through its ‘Facebook News’ partnerships in recent years, and last year, it committed to invest at least $1 billion in news by 2024.

However, one U.S. news source claims that Meta has not reached out about contract renewals. While another source suggested that Facebook might be signalling that “the good times are over” for news on Facebook.

According to a recent report, Meta is also now pushing news organizations to create short-form video content.

Those moves line up with a recent Facebook post in which Zuckerberg stated that the company's main response to TikTok will be to use AI to generate content in users' news feeds.

Zuckerberg stated that the change would be to move the news feeds for those services “from being almost exclusively curated by your social graph or follow graph to now having more of your feed recommended by AI, even if the content wasn’t posted by a friend or someone you follow.”

This makes me wonder if this is the beginning of a major change in content discovery algorithms.

Trouble in the Sandbox

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Trials of Google's Privacy Sandbox have now reached the experimental stage, but it appears that there's still a long way to go before the looming cookiepocalypse. 

Now, half of the developers who took part in testing Chrome's new privacy software are eligible to test new products like Topics, Fledge, and the Attribution Reporting API.

However, Adweek reports several industry sources have raised concerns that Sandbox tools may have unintended negative consequences for publishers as more developers test the product.

First of all, Google needs to work on debugging Topics. Last week the tech giant revealed a bug in the Topics API that prevented the product from being tested. 

Google's product lead for Privacy Sandbox said the root of the issue was from Chrome’s back end, and the issue was resolved within 24 hours.

But, according to an ad-tech source, even if Topics worked as intended, it may not be useful. 

The source claimed that Topics only assigns one topic per domain name. For example, The Wall Street Journal might be tagged as “business.” Which would be too narrow of a category.

However, Google's product lead disagreed, indicating that each domain receives several topics, each with a different weight of relevance. 

If one thing is clear about the brave new world we're all about to be in, it's that there's still a long, long way to go in finding privacy-aware solutions that are still effective for marketers.

Snapchat Expands Collab Potential

Image: Snapchat

Snapchat recently unveiled a new “Shared Stories” feature which could help your brand facilitate influencer collaborations and get more reach. 

Basically, it is an iteration of the app's "Custom Stories" feature, which allows Snapchatters to create a story and add friends to view and contribute to it.

Now, with Shared Stories, users who have been added to a group can add their friends to contribute with their own content. The Story will also be viewable by their connections, providing expanded exposure, and a new type of collaboration within your content.

To create a Shared Story:

1. Go to your profile

2. Tap the new story option, and 

3. Then select "Shared Story" 

Snaps sent to a Shared Story will be deleted after 24 hours.

Instacart Pivots to Video

Image: Instacart

Even groceries are pivoting to video. 

Yesterday, Instacart announced two new ad formats will be rolling out on the e-commerce platform. 

1. First, it's testing shoppable video ads

Shoppable videos, which will be available on Instacart's Ads Manager platform later this year, will embed a sponsored video into the feed along with a carousel of relevant products for purchase. 

• Dove

• PepsiCo, and 

• San Pellegrino are among the early partners

1. The second new format, shoppable display ads appear similar, but with a static image instead of a video. 

As part of the format, brand imagery is paired with direct add-to-cart functionality. Brands are then able to pin a bundle of items that could inspire a consumer to make complementary purchases. 

More than 40 brands have tested the display ads, and Instacart plans to make them available to all brand partners in Ads Manager this summer.