Facebook Special Ad Category: What it Means for Your Mortgage Company

Companies specializing in home loans and mortgage lending may want to reconsider their digital marketing strategy moving forward. Facebook has adopted new policies regarding advertisements with some of these key changes directly affecting home loans and mortgage lenders. 

As of 2020, Facebook implemented a new set of requirements for three key groups of advertisers who choose to place their advertisements in the “special ad” category. The home and mortgage industry, as you guessed, is one of the three key groups. 

As a mortgage lender, home loan company, or business specializing in property listings, it is pertinent to pay attention to the new requirements of the special ad category. Failing to comply or restructuring your advertisements may result in a penalty. 

What regulations are being imposed to those in the special ad category?

A key change for anyone who advertises under the special ad category is the limitation they will now face when it comes to identifying their target market. Specifically, these limitations will directly involve audience targeting.

Based off of Facebook’s initiative to enforce non-discrimination policies, the new regulation hopes to reduce violations by preventing advertisers’ ability to filter its target audience. In other words, you won’t be able to choose and identify your target audience based on specific characteristics. Here’s what’s changed: 

Saved audiences

You can no longer save a target audience for its ads. This option, therefore, will be greyed out of the selections for audience demographics. 

Locations

It is no longer an option to target your ads by postal code, though you will still be able to target your audience based on geographic location — including country, region, state, province, city, and county). Once you select a location, an automatic 15-mile radius will be established. 

Age

Age range will not be editable so you must select your target audience as ages 18 to 65+. 

Gender

It is no longer an option to narrow your target audience by gender. 

Detailed targeting

Some details related to your target audience are unavailable or uneditable; for instance, certain demographic information, behavior, and interest options like income and education level. 

Lastly, you will also need to confirm that your advertisement falls under the special ad category in the audience section of your media campaign. To do so, you need to check the box that states your advertisement falls within the special ad category. 

So Facebook is now requiring disclosure of ads in the special ad category?

Though Facebook can’t legally force you to check the box that indicates your advertisement campaign falls within the special ads category, you could face tough challenges and consequences if you fail to do so. 

Most likely, if you fail to comply, Facebook will catch this during its review of your ad. As a result, your ad may not receive the proper results or outcomes, or Facebook may disable your ad and will not allow you to rerun the campaign unless you comply with the new regulation. 

On the other hand, Facebook could also revoke your account and suspend your advertisement abilities for an undisclosed amount of time. Once you hit this stage it can be difficult — or even impossible — to have your account reinstated. 

To avoid the risk of being suspended from the social media platform, it’s best to comply with the newest policy changes, even if that means disclosing that your advertisement falls under the special ad category. 

What does this mean for advertising on Facebook? 

To successfully advertise on Facebook and maintain successful results with the new policy and disclosure requirements, mortgage lenders and home loan companies will need to show flexibility and adaptability when it comes to their digital marketing strategy. 

Not only will you need to make sure your ad follows all of Facebook’s regulations and new policies, but you may also need to rethink your advertising campaign. Whereas previously you could funnel your ad to a very specific target audience via Facebook, now you will need to determine how to reach the same (or extended) target audience without the help of Facebook’s lead generating funnels. 

Remember, social media marketing constantly relies on algorithms and changes, so it is best to keep up-to-date on such policies and compliances as to ensure a strong marketing campaign. 

Execute your social the Summit Way!

All of these changes can be a challenge to keep up with, but that doesn’t mean your social media efforts should suffer. Summit Creative Marketing will ensure you’re getting the most out of our ad spend and reaching the right audiences on social media. Schedule a call today to learn about our different packages.