We’ve got some important news about upcoming changes to Meta’s advertising policies that could impact your charity’s digital campaigns in 2025. Starting in January, Meta will be enforcing new restrictions on certain types of ads, and these changes might affect your ability to raise donations, generate leads, or engage with your audience as you have been.
What’s Changing?
Starting in January 2025, Meta is tightening its rules around data sharing for ads. Specifically, charities that operate websites or apps in certain restricted categories (like health, finance, or sensitive content) will see the following impacts:
- Restricted Data Sharing: Websites categorized under restricted groups won’t be able to share data with Meta, meaning actions like page views, donations, or form completions won’t be tracked for optimization.
- Conversion-Based Events: These events, which help track and optimize your campaigns, will no longer work on restricted websites.
- Audience Limitations: You’ll lose the ability to retarget people who visit your site or use lookalike audiences based on those visits.
Which Categories Are Affected?
Currently, health & wellness websites seem to be most affected, but other categories that could trigger restrictions include:
- Health & Wellness: Websites related to medical conditions, health statuses, or patient relationships.
- Financial Services: Websites offering financial tools, credit reports, etc.
- Sensitive Content: Websites with content that violates Meta’s standards (e.g., hate speech, violence).
- Politics: Websites related to political parties, positions, or issues.
- Race, Religion, Gender Identity, Sexuality, Nationality: Any site tied to a specific group based on these characteristics.
- Personal Hardship: Sites associated with people facing personal difficulties (e.g., poverty, homelessness).
These restrictions are Meta’s way of protecting sensitive personal information and ensuring that advertisers comply with their business tools terms.
What Should You Do?
If your charity is affected by these changes, here’s what you need to do:
- Check Your Site’s Category:
- Log into Meta’s Events Manager (through Business Manager) to see what category your website or app is in. You might also receive an email notification from Meta about this.
- You can review and appeal the category if you think it’s incorrect—especially if your donation or event pages are on a subdomain separate from the main site (e.g.,
donate.yourcharity.org).
- Appeal the Category if Necessary:
- If you believe your site was wrongly categorized, you can submit an appeal to Meta.
- If you use subdomains for fundraising, these might be eligible for an appeal, especially if they don’t contain sensitive information.
- Request an Extension:
- Meta is offering a 30-day extension to organizations impacted by these changes. We highly recommend you request this extension (before the end of your 7-day notice period) to give you more time to adjust your campaigns.
- Review Your Campaign Setup:
- If your account is affected, you’ll need to update your campaigns. Make sure you’re using Meta’s on-platform events (like reach, clicks, video views, etc.) instead of relying on website-based events for optimization.
- Retargeting and lookalike audiences based on website visitors will also be unavailable, so you’ll need to adjust your audience strategy accordingly.
Why is Meta Doing This?
Meta is tightening its rules to prevent the sharing of sensitive information through its platform. Their goal is to protect user privacy and ensure that advertisers aren’t violating their terms of service. The changes are part of Meta’s larger effort to prevent illegal or harmful data collection and improve the security of its business tools.
Need Help?
If you’re unsure how these changes might affect your charity or need assistance with any of the steps above, don’t hesitate to reach out to your Digital Marketing Agency or Raisely. We’re here to help you navigate these updates and ensure your campaigns continue to run smoothly.
We recommend acting quickly, as the restrictions have already started applying to some organisations. Stay proactive, and let us know if you have any questions!