Today in Digital Marketing

Meta Removes Ability to Specify Location Targeting Type

Jun 19, 2023 | Industry Articles

"

Today in Digital Marketing

Wellllll…. Shit.

Meta continues to push its “father-knows-best” approach to your ad campaigns — removing yet another lever you had to narrow down to your specific audience. And this one will most definitely have an impact on small and local businesses.

Until this week, when you set up a Meta ad campaign and got to the Location Targeting part of your ad set, you had the option to target only people who lived there, or only people who had recently been there but weren't residents, or both.

This was an important control for businesses that had local markets — plumbers, dentists, HVAC repair companies — the kind of business that really only wanted to spend its money on people who lived there, not people visiting family, or passing through, or just being a tourist.

🎯 Your Targeting Just Got More Limited

Now, Meta has removed this ability and replaced it with a single, catch-all, called “People living in or recently in this location.” A pop-up box explains:

Won't have to? Who was saying this was a chore? Many businesses wanted to select a type — needed to, to make sure their ad dollars weren't wasted on people who will never buy from them. But now, won't be able to.

😠 How Does This Help Small Businesses, Exactly?

It's hard to not see the hypocrisy here. Almost every news release Meta puts out about its ad platform contains some language about how much they care about small and local businesses — with headlines like “How Meta is helping small businesses thrive this holiday season.”

The ability to target only local consumers might have been the single most important targeting lever small and neighbourhood businesses had. How is removing that helping them?

We reached out to Meta for comment and did not hear back by deadline.

🤖 AI Will Never Be As Good As Checking a Box

Here's what they probably would say: They'd tell you that machine learning is making audience targeting an obsolete endeavour — that their AI models are so good, they have high confidence in the inferred data of who is a resident and who is a tourist.

But you don't have to have a PhD in marketing science to know that inferred data will never be as good as clicking a button that says “Target residents only.” 

No matter how good the AI is.

Tomorrow, our Meta ads correspondent Andrew Foxwell will be here with more on this — that will be exclusively on the Premium Podcast, which you can sign up for by tapping Go Premium in the show notes.

🎙 Dive Deeper...

You have been reading an abbreviated version of a story we covered recently on the Today in Digital Marketing podcast. Thousands of marketers listen to the daily show. You should join them.

📧 Prefer Email?

We’ve got you covered. We publish a daily email newsletter, covering all the day’s developments in social media, SEO, online advertising, and digital marketing. You can even get each Friday’s issue free!

Follow Us

About the Podcast

Every weekday, Tod Maffin brings you a fast-paced 8-minute rundown of what you missed in the world of digital marketing and social media. Thousands of senior marketers listen each day.

About the Host

Tod Maffin is a veteran tech-business journalist. He spent a decade as the National Technology Reporter for Canada’s public broadcaster, and has written for major publications like the New York Times, Globe and Mail, and more.

Besides hosting the podcast, Tod is president of engageQ digital, a social media engagement and moderation agency, and is author of several books, and spent 20+ years as a professional conference keynote speaker.

[more]

Get It By Email

Join the thousands of marketers who rely on this daily digest of the day's news in marketing, social media, SEO, and media buying.

Sent every weekday at 5pm ET.

Unsubscribe any time with a single click. Your information will never be shared.

Thank you! Please check your email to confirm.