Overview
Last week, healthcare, healthtech, and wellness companies around the world received emails from Meta detailing major changes to the types of conversion events advertisers can share back to the platform. In short, for advertisers whose websites and apps fall into restricted categories (health & wellness, financials and we’re hearing politics as well), middle and bottom-funnel event data can no longer be shared with Meta as of January 1, 2025. This is regardless of if the data is tracked & sent via pixel or server-side solutions (e.g., CAPI). As healthcare marketers know, these new data-sharing restrictions have the potential to significantly impact advertising campaigns.
For healthcare marketers who rely on advertising on Meta and optimizing campaigns for events like purchase, this change is more than a policy update - it could have an existential impact on your ability to drive growth.
Who is Ours Privacy?
At Ours Privacy, we’ve built our platform with one mission: to help healthcare businesses balance effective marketing with strong patient data privacy and compliance practices. Our HIPAA-compliant CDP was designed to work seamlessly for healthcare marketers, where user data is not just valuable but also highly sensitive and regulated.
We understand how critical it is to stay ahead of policy changes and adapt strategies without sacrificing marketing performance or compliance. That’s why we’re here to help healthcare marketers navigate Meta’s latest updates and chart a path forward.
What we know (last updated November 29, 2024)
While the full implications of Meta’s new data-sharing restrictions are still unfolding, here’s what we know so far:
Who is affected? Advertisers in restricted categories, including healthcare and wellness (among others such as financials and politics) will be impacted.
How will I know if my company is impacted? Companies started receiving emails from their Meta ad reps the week of November 18 about the classification of their data sources. If you have not yet received an email, you can check how Meta is classifying your data source and if it will be restricted by:
Go to Events Manager
On the left-hand side, you will see a menu. Click on "Data Sources." Select the pixel, app, or offline event set you are using
Go to Settings and then “Manage data source categories”
What types of data are restricted? We’re hearing that there are two types of restrictions:
Fully restricted
Partially restricted
Advertisers with data sources that are fully restricted will not be able to use any standard and custom events for optimization.
Advertisers seeing mid to lower funnel restrictions will be able to leverage non-restricted standard events (Landing Page Views, Donate, Search, ViewContent and App Install) or registered custom events for optimization.
What if I disagree with Meta’s classification of my data source? There is an appeals process that you can take with Meta if you believe your classification should be changed.
When will these restrictions start to be enforced? January 2025.
What does this mean for campaign measurement? Without sharing event data back with Facebook, attribution and campaign optimization may become more challenging.
What if I use CAPI and not a pixel directly? The same restrictions apply whether you’re using server-side or a pixel directly.
Can I use custom conversion events? Meta has mentioned that advertisers should not send custom events that mimic restricted standard events or attempt to capture similar user actions or information, but hasn’t yet outlined how they would enforce this..
Will Meta offer any workarounds for advertisers? As of now, no official workarounds have been announced although Meta seems to be encouraging some advertisers to shift focus to on-site lead forms and actions. Of course, the ultimate workaround would be to shift spend to other platforms.
Conclusion
Meta’s policy update was surprising, but highlights the increasing scrutiny around data and the critical need for a privacy-forward approach to managing it. We expect to see continued changes as the landscape across advertising platforms, state privacy laws and national regulations continue to become more and more complex.
It’s essential to have a flexible, privacy-forward solution to manage your marketing tech stack so that when new policies roll out, you can adapt quickly to change without having to overhaul your entire system.
That’s exactly what we offer at Ours Privacy. Book a demo today and get started within an hour.
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