Meta Data Restrictions for Health and Wellness Companies

Meta is cracking down on health data from advertisers. To avoid receiving this data, they are determining if your website is a health platform (domain restrictions) and then limiting what you can send them if so (event restrictions).

First, Meta crawls your app / website / domain. Based on the content of your site, they will either fully or partially restrict you.

If you’re fully restricted you cannot send any data back to Meta and will need to use things like on-platform lead ads.

If you’re partially restricted you cannot send lower funnel standard events (e.g., purchases). Although Meta is disallowing these standard events, you can still send any event you’d like via CAPI + obfuscated custom events (e.g., "Event 4"). Meta will require you to certify that the data isn’t health-related, but it is within the advertisers control.

You can appeal this. So if you have a restriction that feels wrong or unfeasible, talk to a Meta rep, make changes, and then appeal.

You can check your restriction here: Events Manager > Select your pixel > Settings tab > "Manage data source categories" section > Manage. If you see “care portal” you are fully restricted. Any other labels are partially restricted. You can also delay this by clicking ‘more time’ in your events manager (otherwise it will go into effect in early January).

Regardless of your restriction level, you should act now. Start by defining your own health data framework (focus on HIPAA, the recent HHS guidance, and state privacy laws). The entire ad ecosystem is shifting towards similar guidance (LinkedIn recently announced that they are disabling the pixel and standard events for health companies).

Practically, start to transition off of pixels and standard purchase events. Instead use conversion APIs and obfuscated custom events with PHI redaction. Ours Privacy gives you instant access to all of these capabilities and more. We've already helped hundreds of companies adapt to the Meta news and can get you up and running in hours.