Brand Safety Tips For Facebook Ads: Placing ads on Facebook has become increasingly complex. This is not a bad thing, as the different selection options allow for highly targeted ad campaigns. You can customise your audience by age, gender, interests, job titles, location and a whole host of other demographics. What some advertisers seem unaware of, is that you can also customise where on the suite of Facebook products and the off-site placements, that your ads will appear. In fact, it might be news to you that your ads will be shown in other places other than just on Facebook or Instagram. This can be a bit of a problem if you would prefer your ad to not show alongside controversial content or content that does not match the tone or ethics of your Brand.

Brand Safety Tips For Facebook Ads:

Facebook says: “When you advertise on the Facebook family of apps and services, your ads can appear beyond Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. In-stream video, Instant Articles and Audience Network give you more opportunities to reach the customers you care about within unique, immersive experiences. But these placements are integrated with content, and some advertisers won’t want to be associated with content that doesn’t fit their brand.”

Where Does Your Ad Appear?

When you create a Facebook Ad, it is not automatically constrained to Facebook, it can, unless the automatic placements option is deselected, it will appear on Instagram and Messenger too. OK, that’s fine, but it will also be displayed outside of Facebook products on other apps and sites, through the Facebook Audience Network.  The Facebook Audience Network allows advertisers to extend Facebook and Instagram campaigns across the Internet, onto thousands of apps.

Whilst the Facebook Audience Network can extend your reach and enable higher conversion rates, it also means that without your input, you will have no control over where your ad appears. This is a problem if you believe that appearing next to certain content would damage your brand.

How To Control Where Your Facebook Ad Appears

There are a few ways of controlling where your Facebook Ad appears. The first is the most decisive: you can opt out of any placement you don’t feel comfortable with by deselecting it in the Edit Placements section in Ads Manager, choosing to keep your advert to Facebook, Instagram or Messenger or a combination of all 3. Bear in mind, if you prevent your ads from appearing on the Audience Network placements you may not get the same level of Reach or ROI. Also remember that Facebook enforces Community Standards for the content that individuals can share on Facebook and Instagram and only apps, websites and Facebook Pages that comply with their policies can be part of the Audience Network. If you want to use Audience Network but would like some element of control you do have a few options:

Block Lists

If you are happy using Audience Network placements but would like to avoid certain sites, then consider using a Block List. Advertisers can block delivery of ads to specific apps, domains and Pages by creating Block Lists at the Business Manager, ad account or campaign level. You can learn how to create a block list here.

Inventory filter

Inventory filter gives you an extra layer of control over sensitive content, allowing you to choose full inventory, standard inventory or limited inventory on Audience Network placements, Facebook in-stream and Facebook Instant Articles. Inventory filter allows you to control the type of content that your ad appears within. For example, on the Full Inventory level, your ad could be included with content that depicts tragedy or conflict, be sexual or suggestive or might use strong language or contain explicit content. This can be excluded (to varying levels) in the standard and limited inventory. You can view what is included in each inventory level here.

Live stream opt-out

For the Facebook in-stream video placement, your ads can now appear in Facebook live streams from a select group of approved gaming partners. You can opt out of this placement if you feel it does not match your Brand.

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know!

I would not be too surprised to learn that a lot of the information in this article is new to you. After all: “You don’t know what you don’t know!” Now you do know, it is time to take steps to protect your Brand. Facebook Ads is an amazingly effective tool, but only if you manage it properly. Ads require a lot more thought, preparation and knowledge than most think. At The Last Hurdle, we manage Facebook advertising campaigns, for a variety of clients from different industries with different target markets all with different Brand ethics. If you would like an experienced hand managing your Facebook Ads call us on 01604 654545 or email sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk