How paid media targeting is changing and what you need to know to reach your target audiences

One of the most important and defining features of paid media campaigns is the ability to refine targeting to your business needs and reach the right audience to communicate your message.

Compared to organic social strategies, the beauty of paid advertising is that you can use data to tailor your targeting and help grow your audience beyond your existing following.

Recently, the targeting options for paid social advertising have changed across platforms, which for charities in particular, could impact the way we strategise campaigns.

This article will bring to light examples of these audience changes on different platforms as well as how to pivot during setup.

LinkedIn Ads audience targeting changes

In early 2024, Linkedin removed its lookalike audience targeting option. In place of lookalike audiences, LinkedIn recommended using their Predictive audiences. These work in a similar way to lookalike audiences, in that they expand reach by predicting user actions similar to source data e.g. contact lists, Lead Gen Forms, or retargeting audience data sources.

LinkedIn has also stopped allowing advertisers to target people based in EEA (European Economic Area) countries by groups they are members of, in order to comply with the EUs Digital Services Act to prevent discrimination based on sensitive user data like race, politics or sexual orientation.

You can also make use of the audience expansion feature which helps to increase reach of a campaign, by making ads visible to users with similar attributes (e.g. skill or interest) as your built audience.

As a paid media specialist working in a values led organisation, on the one hand this is a win and good step in terms of mitigating discriminatory targeting, which is a challenge paid media is constantly trying to work against.

On the flip side, this change has impacted my experience building campaigns on LinkedIn, as it has narrowed the target audience options greatly and also makes global campaign targeting that includes Europe more complicated as what we can do for most non-EEA countries, we can not do for all, which ultimately affects campaign composition.

LinkedIn is dubbed the B2B platform, and while B2B targeting features such as job title, company and member skill options remain intact, the member group option was a gateway to reaching audiences based on their personal affiliations and interests. However, there are scenarios and briefs where this can be worked around by being creative with the targeting e.g. the aforementioned predictive audiences.

Meta Ads audience targeting changes

Meta has also made changes to their audience targeting options, such as removing detailed targeting from exclusions in ad campaigns. Detailed targeting can refer to demographics, interests and/or behaviours.

According to Meta,  this will improve campaign performance. For example, the median cost per conversion for ad campaigns improved by 22.6% when removing detailed targeting exclusions from the mix.

Other than auditing your already saved audiences and ensuring ones with detailed targeting exclusions are archived, there are alternative exclusion features still in use. For example including custom audience exclusions such as excluding people who have already submitted lead forms or visited your landing page. You can also use the audience controls in your advertising settings to restrict audiences based on brand protection or employment.

With AI increasingly creeping its way into the media landscape, Meta has included automated detailed targeting, which leverages AI to discover a broader range of valuable users for your campaign than the initial specified audience group during an ad build.

Planning the timings of your paid media campaign around other digital marketing and communications activities is crucial to optimising your outreach and impact.

For example, do you have door drops or letters going out to supporters on a certain date? Timing this with your paid media activations means that your supporters will receive the letter asking for donations at the same time as they see an ad asking for support. This leads to a compounding effect and can lead to higher donation rates.

Other wider activity to align on includes any media coverage, print advertising or live events you have planned in the run up to the end of year.

By synchronising your paid media campaign with other digital activities, your audience receives a unified message that increases the likelihood of engagement and conversion.

Key Insights & Recommendations 

The main changes in audience targeting capabilities this year are as follows:

LinkedIn Ads

• No more lookalike audiences, but have been replaced with predictive audiences
• No more group member targeting for EEA geo locations

Meta Ads

• No more detailed targeting exclusions
• Advantage+ Audience targeting introduced with the help of machine learning

Major paid media platforms are constantly changing, improving and sunsetting features so it’s important to stay updated. When in doubt, test a feature with a small ad budget and compare before scaling for the real deal and closely monitor performance.

As we approach the end of year and peak fundraising season, take a look at Empowers guide to digital fundraising using paid campaigns.

Please get in touch with the Empower team if you would like to explore navigating and optimising your paid media campaigns in the context of these changes.