What Happened to Facebook Retargeting Performance in California?
If you’ve been active in Facebook marketing circles recently, you might have noticed concerns around unexpected performance dips for retargeting campaigns, specifically for California audiences.
Here’s a look at what ‘s causing a stir with Facebook’s remarketing performance in California, with some recommendations on what you can do next.
What’s Happening?
Campaign performance for California-based targeting and Facebook’s Audience Network dipped at the end of February, causing alarm for many marketers.
We now have confirmation from spokespeople at Facebook that the impact is due to CCPA regulations kicking into effect.
“Since January, some brands have seen a decrease in retargeting campaign delivery and performance for media that is targeted in California. Our data suggests that many retargeting audiences in California might have reset to zero once CCPA went into effect, negating almost all delivery in the state within those campaigns.”
— Katy Lucey, Director of Paid Social at Tinuiti
“Facebook said in a statement that some custom audience targeting parameters were updated to comply with CCPA which has had a ‘limited impact’ on California-based audiences and campaigns,” explains Lucey.
What Is Facebook’s Response?
According to a Facebook spokesperson, the changes are a result of new limits placed on the sharing of Californians’ consumer information outside of “purposes of [their] agreements starting on January 1, 2020.”
The spokesperson’s statement reads:
We implemented changes so that personal information about California residents that partners share with Facebook that could be found to be a sale to Facebook under CCPA is not used outside the business purposes of our agreements starting on January 1, 2020. Some of our controls may temporarily prevent CA residents from being added to new Website and Mobile App Custom Audiences. As a result of these measures, some businesses targeting individuals in California may see limited impact to their campaign performance starting on January 1, 2020. We will continue to explore future updates to support our partners amidst regulatory changes and our global commitment to privacy.
In regards to Audience Network delivery, Facebook’s spokesperson writes:
We have updated our processes and policies in preparation for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). As part of our preparation, we implemented changes so that personal information about California residents that partners share with Facebook and that could be found to be a sale to Facebook under CCPA is not used outside the business purposes of our agreements starting on January 1, 2020. As a result of these measures, some publishers may experience some impact in their overall performance metrics, from Audience Network starting on January 1, 2020.
What Should I Do Now?
Don’t panic. If you feel the need to adjust anything, you can consider extending your retargeting windows or expanding your audiences.
Audiences have already begun to repopulate, but in the short term, lengthen the lookback windows past 30 days to ensure you are capturing updated audiences.
— Katy Lucey, Director of Paid Social at Tinuiti
“Our team also recommends leaning into broader segmentation such as lookalikes or affinity audiences when retargeting delivery is impacted as first-party targeting sets are not affected at this time.”
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