One Update That Facebook Is Making That Will Negatively Impact Your Church

Just want to give you a quick heads up on an issue that will impact you – if you are going to be creating Facebook ads for your church.

Because of the drama last year with the privacy (Read my post about the controversy here) Facebook has been under tremendous pressure to do something that says they are serious about people’s privacy.

Sooo, here’s the not so good news.

Facebook is preparing marketers and advertiser like myself for a new tool. The “clear history” tool that will let people erase their personal data from the social network, affecting ad targeting.

Boom! 

Facebook announced this week that “clear history” feature would roll out in the coming months. It will allow users to delete data that the social network gets from websites and apps outside of Facebook, and no longer use that data for advertising.

Facebook’s most popular marketing tools like the Custom Audiences and Facebook Pixel may be then in-operative if a person deletes their history.

Churches who use the pixel to track a visitor when he or she visits their church websites—and then hit them with an ad when they are back on Facebook need to be aware of this.

If viewers clear their pixel, they won’t be accessible that way again, unless they visit the website again and rebuild their history.

Why should churches care?

Facebook has long been a incredible tool for ad targeting, but at a cost to user privacy and data security. The Clear History tool hits these critical issues head on.The company has pointed out that a “big component” of the new tool is giving users more transparency into how their data is used and insight into how advertisers use Facebook’s business tools. It also makes the argument that informing people about how their information is being used will only improve how consumers feel about the ads they see.

We are now seeing the initial glimpses of a whole new Facebook, like what I wrote about earlier in The Biggest Shift Facebook Has Made In The Last 5 Years That Will Impact Your Church Right Now. It’s also one focused on groups, privacy and one-on-one messaging versus public social feeds. For all advertisers, including churches this means ad targeting options are likely to become more limited. As we move into this new era of Facebook, church marketers must reconsider how they connect with their audiences — on and off the platform.

Your turn

Got questions about the ‘clear history’ function? Or want to make a comment. Leave your comment below. I’d love to hear from you.