15 April, 2025 • Reading time: 5 minutes Nonprofits & the new Meta reality Nonprofits are feeling the pain of Meta’s expanded definition of “political cause” resulting in limited tracking abilities, reduced optimisation, and underperforming ad campaigns with very little guidance from Meta on how to counteract this. Events Facebook Ads
What has Meta done? Meta’s changed their tracking, imposing restrictions on event data from websites focused on health, social, and political issues. As well as working with our own clients to navigate the changes, we’ve been engaging with the sectoral discussion on the need to shift the way we must look at media strategy and the measurement of results. Read now: Meta Ads Tracking Changes: how to adapt to new health, social, or political issue restrictions We published the above article on this topic earlier this year which has seen huge traffic and response, and so we connected with friend of Empower, Rachel Collinson, to discuss in more detail, with a community of non-profit digital experts on a recent webinar. In the webinar, Rachel and I tackled: Understanding the changes: What’s happening behind the scenes Technical impact: How these changes affect your campaigns Adaptation strategies: Practical workarounds Success stories: How nonprofits are thriving despite restrictions Future outlook: What’s coming next from Meta Open discussion, Q&A, and collaborative problem-solving Missed the Webinar? Here are the 5 main takeaways you need to know: 1. Shift your focus up the marketing funnel to traffic driving and engagement objectives. This will allow Meta’s algorithm to optimise based on those who are interacting with the ad and clicking through to the site. Broadening your audiences in this case will also be beneficial, allowing Meta to identify who is engaging in order to target similar profiles to increase performance. 2. Leverage Meta’s Lead Generation Forms. These allow you to gather information on your target audience with a very cohesive user experience using a pre-filled form, without leaving Meta’s platform. Rachel shared this is also a tried and tested method with Spurgeons achieving costs of £0.49-£0.62 per lead, (vs sector average of £2.50) and Sortition Foundation who reduced their cost per lead from £1.08 to just 36p when they made the transition from collecting information on their website to using lead generation forms. It is also important to note to measure lead quality as well as quantity, as these forms are so accessible for users to fill. It is key to deduce the value you are attaining from these leads in the long-term. 3. Take advantage of technical solutions and workarounds. Innovative technical solutions are helping some organisations reduce the impact of Meta’s restrictions, including: a) Implementing custom events for conversions which allows Meta to optimise accordingly, but currently still comply with the new restrictions. b) Create dedicated domains and “thank you pages” for landing pages to use as conversion points, which do not include sensitive keywords which may activate restrictions. c) Develop strategies based around your organisation’s first party data, which is therefore less reliant on Meta. 4. Explore alternative platforms. Meta as a platform currently is currently making it increasingly difficult for charities and non-profits to run ads on their site, organisations have chosen to diversify their digital presence- most notably across the following platforms: a) Google: Has a comprehensive ecosystem of platforms that are available for advertising (YouTube, Search, Gmail, Maps etc.), and also has the opportunity to use the Google Ad Grant which is available for nonprofits with up to $10,000 per month of free search advertising. b) TikTok: Provides access to typically younger audiences and is most effective when looking to raise awareness. c) LinkedIn: Typically more expensive but delivers excellent results for B2B initiatives d) Microsoft Ads: Offers a low volume, but is a more cost effective medium to attain conversion
“My advice to everyone would be to try different platforms […] don’t put all your eggs in Meta’s one big basket. The sooner you can test other platforms to have as a backup not to use alongside the better […] It’s time to get creative with how we acquire leads and donors” Rachel Collinson Donor Whisperer
5. Think long term: To effectively navigate this changed landscape, nonprofits should: a) Ensure that you document your current performance metrics to establish a baseline and then measure how your strategic changes have affected your conversion rates over the next 3-6 months. b) Consider the relative value of obtaining email vs phone numbers, emails usually lead to more conversions where phone numbers usually see higher values but are harder to obtain. c) Test messaging carefully to avoid keywords which may cause restrictions, and prepare backup copy for campaigns handling sensitive topics to ensure there are no delays in time-sensitive campaigns. d) Optimise your supporter journey; once your audience has reached a thank you page, give them options to contribute further, whether it be a CTA to contact an MP, or sign a petition, or to volunteer, in order to attain further immersion and loyalty to your organisation. e) Continue to monitor further changes across all digital platforms. Live non-profit comments: Thank you to all who contributed thought provoking questions in the session, which allowed us to dive deeper. A few of these worth sharing were: Why is this only happening on Meta and should this be expected on other platforms? Meta is currently implementing these changes to increase the privacy and protection of their users by increasing the difficulty to target individuals so granularly (e.g. based on health conditions or financial status). These measures have inadvertently harmed nonprofits who work in these sensitive sectors including: Health and wellness: medical conditions, specific health statuses, or provider/patient relationships Financial services: Provides financial tools, consultation and/or services, consumer credit reports Politics: Is associated with members of a specific political party or political position Race: Is associated with individuals of a specific race Religion: Is associated with individuals with specific religious or spiritual beliefs and practices Sexuality: Contains topics related to sexuality or sexual orientation Gender identity: Is associated with individuals of a specific gender identity Nationality: Is associated with individuals of a specific citizenship status, immigration status or refugees Trade union: Is associated with members of a trade union Personal hardship: Is associated with individuals likely facing personal hardship Google has also made restrictions limiting lead generation forms if specific keywords are used, which seems to be the opposite approach of what we’ve seen from Meta. Our campaigns have been flagged as “political/social”, disallowing us to use advantage audiences and ad optimisations. Is there a reason to think we will lose the pixel tracking too? Any ad asking for donations can be seen as “political/social” and therefore will face restrictions under Meta’s new guidelines. In this case, the workarounds referenced earlier would be beneficial (e.g. setting up custom events). It’s also important to remember that keywords in ads and on landing pages will be scanned by Meta, and if they feature sensitive keywords the ads will be restricted. Looking ahead to further Meta changes A final thank you to Rachel Collinson for your thoughtful insights and expertise brought to the session, as well as all who attended and contributed to the session. As Meta and the digital landscape as a whole continues to evolve, staying alert and informed is crucial to ensuring your ad performance is the best that it can be. Want to stay ahead of the curve on digital insights? Take a look at our collection of articles here, subscribe to our newsletter, or reach out directly for any further information. Further reading Meta Ads Tracking Changes: how to adapt to new health, social, or political issue restrictions Meta’s shift in content moderation: How to approach community notes Data-Backed Creative Tips for Paid Ads Register now
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