• DE&I Commitment
  • Careers
  • SIGN IN
  • Book a Meeting
    Book a Meeting
  • Company
    Learn a little more about us, our values, and our team
    Our Values
    We don't just talk the talk; we live by our core values
    About Us
    Empowering brands to realize their potential with data, insights, and technology
    Leadership
    Meet our leadership team
    Secure Data Architecture
    Our promise of data security and privacy. We keep your data safe from publishers, competitors and bad actors
    Corporate Social Responsibility
    We are committed to making a positive impact on our communities and our planet
  • Platform
    Plan, manage, optimize, and measure your campaigns with our omnichannel platform
    Omnichannel Advertising
    A platform that connects all walled garden media for more effective campaigns
    Data Connectivity
    Make data-driven decisions as you plan and strategize
    AI-Powered Capabilities
    Take your campaigns to the next level by leveraging proprietary AI-based technology
    See the industries we serve
    Learn how our customizable solutions can help with your unique needs
    Explore our partner integrations
    See the media, retailer, and data partners we work with
  • Case Studies
  • News and Events
    Check out recent announcements and see what we’re up to
    Newsroom
    Check out our recent media mentions and announcements
    Events
    Join us for our next conference or webinar
    Omnichannel platform launch
    Read the press release to see how we're helping marketers win the walled gardens
    AI Breakthrough Award
    Skai Named "Best AI-based Solution for Advertising" in 6th Annual Artificial Intelligence Breakthrough Awards Program
  • Resources
    From new releases, to industry trends and best practices, Skai has you covered
    The Breakthrough
    Read the latest blog posts and thought leadership from Skai and other industry experts
    Skai Research
    Explore our studies, whitepapers and quarterly trends reports so you can stay up to date
    Quarterly Trends Hub
    Dive into the latest market insights, industry trends, and predictive analysis
    Holiday Hub 2023
    Your go-to source for holiday marketing tips, tricks, and best practices
Back to Blog

Social Advertising Audience Targeting (Impact of Privacy)

Joshua Dreller, Sr. Director, Content Marketing @ Skai

July  20, 2022
Social Audience Targeting

Over the last five years, new limitations on consumer privacy have impacted how all marketers can use advanced tactics to reach and engage consumers.

“The Era of Privacy is here, and all digital marketers will need to adapt to changes in consumer data tracking,” says Alyssa Allen, Managing Director at Skai. “The most impactful of these shifts so far has been last year’s Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency. It has forever changed how social practitioners can target and measure their programs as it relates to audiences.”

The loss of the incredibly valuable iOS signal was a heavy blow for marketers who relied on this data for many uses. Virtually overnight, social marketers lost much of their ability to target, personalize, measure, and optimize their campaign activity with deep granularity on Apple mobile devices. 

More challenges to data usage are on the way. Google has already announced steps to limit third-party cookies on Chrome and will follow a similar path as Apple’s on Android devices. Once these changes occur, many of the advanced tactics that were commonplace five years ago will be rendered obsolete.

Facebook’s reaction and targeting recommendations

Meta/Facebook has undoubtedly been the most impacted advertising publisher from Apple’s shift. While the business implications are far-reaching and incredibly complex, the company released a help center article to outline the change for advertisers, recommendations on moving forward, and some glimpses into the future of Facebook advertising in this new Era of Privacy.  

In the article, Facebook addressed targeting implications and offered this suggestion to marketers:

As more devices update to iOS 14 or later versions, the size of your app activity Custom Audiences, Website Custom Audiences, and app connections audiences may decrease. Alternative targeting strategies to consider: use a broad audiences for inclusion and use targeting expansion

The core of these two recommendations is to enable Facebook to widen targeting as an adaptation to the loss of iOS signal powering retargeting audiences.  

Broad social audience targeting

Social advertisers have grown accustomed to targeting incredibly narrow audiences. In the light of ATT, Facebook’s advice to broaden audiences means that marketers will shift from their granular audience strategies and rely more on Facebook’s delivery system to find the best people to show their ads. 

There’s undoubtedly some merit to enabling Facebook’s—and other social publishers’—powerful ad-matching algorithms. Pre-ATT, broad targeting was mainly a complementary strategy to specific targeting. So, for example, if a brand is trying to reach an audience they hadn’t reached before or didn’t have a lot of first-party data for retargeting, broad targeting is a good option. 

In a post-ATT world, broad targeting is becoming much more of a first option rather than a complementary one. For example, Facebook reports that its broad targeting is getting more powerful, and they are focusing on enhancing it more since the Apple shift. 

Targeting expansion

From the Facebook help center article, About Detailed Targeting Expansion:

Detailed targeting expansion can help improve your campaign performance by allowing our system to reach a broader group of people than you defined in your detailed targeting selections… Our ad delivery system uses the demographics, interests, and behaviors you select through detailed targeting as a guide for ad delivery, while also dynamically assessing performance.

If our system finds better performance opportunities outside your defined audience, detailed targeting expansion allows us to dynamically make updates that reflect where we’re seeing better performance, and we may expand your audience further to include similar opportunities.

So, while Facebook suggests marketers use less specific targeting and apply more broad targeting, targeting expansion is an always-on improvement for all campaigns. 

New social audience targeting trends in the era of privacy

It’s been over a year since Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency shift. We have heard of numerous ways marketers have tried to adapt to social advertising targeting in the new Era of Privacy. 

Based on an aggregated analysis of Skai clients’ social advertising campaign data—with an annualized spend of over $1 billion—we can see some of the ways that social marketers are adapting to the new constraints:

Retargeting is still viable, just different

“Just because retargeting pools have diminished, it doesn’t mean that retargeting has gone away,” says Maura McNulty, Director of Client Success at Skai. “On the contrary, social advertisers are still using them as a best practice in their marketing strategy, but they’re just leveraging them a bit differently than before.”

Website Custom Audiences (WCA) are limited, but not gone

Still some iOS data. While most iOS users have not opted into being tracked bythird-party-audiences Apple’s new policy, marketers report that they aren’t entirely zeroed out while these cookie pools are diminished. While brands with smaller first-party footprints will struggle, some larger websites/apps still have enough iOS visibility to power their WCA retargeting campaigns. 

Non-iOS data is still viable—for now. iPhones represent around 55.5% of US mobile browser traffic, so that means nearly 40% of Android mobile browser traffic (and a handful of smaller mobile OSs) are still up and running. iPhones are just a quarter of all mobile traffic worldwide, so global brands can still run reasonably stout retargeting campaigns. Google has recently announced some upcoming privacy changes to Android, but they aren’t implemented yet. Based on what we know, it seems that Google is going to choose a more advertiser-friendly policy than Apple’s. 

More reliance on other types of retargeting

Customer List Audiences (aka CRM Audiences). Marketers can still upload lists of customer offline identifiers (email/snail-mail addresses, phone numbers), which social publishers then “match” to their users. Generally, match rates can range anywhere from 50% to 80%. Some brands have very rich customer lists that enable them to build highly target-able audiences like:

  • People who have a store-branded credit card
  • People who buy large-ticket items
  • People who spend over $1,000 per year
  • People who have bought certain products or categories of products

Engagement Custom Audiences. Social marketers can retarget based users based on how they’ve engaged within the walls of social publishers, such as:

  • Profiles/posts/pages (liked/commented on a social post)
  • Videos (watched 25%/50%/100% of a social video)
  • Lead forms (filled out a brand’s form)
  • Events (attended/registered for a social event)
  • Ads (clicked/viewed/interacted with a social ad)

Social Shopping Custom Audiences. Some publishers enable you to create audiences to retarget those who engage with your social commerce. For example: 

  • People who viewed your shop’s home page
  • People who viewed your products on a product details page
  • People who clicked to view your website
  • People who added your products to their cart
  • People who purchased your products

Marketers have increased spending on third-party social audience targeting

Skai clients have significantly increased their reliance on third-party audiences by 37% year over year, which is likely attributed to ATT making WCA more difficult.

Third-party audiences have numerous benefits:

  • Create WCA via third-party data providers. Third-party data providers can anonymously track users to websites and apps and then build retargeting pools to reach those people on social networks. It’s not the exact same thing as using a social retargeting pixel, but it enables a very similar functionality. 
  • Reach people you never reach. Using some of the retargeting methods listed in the previous section, social marketers are pretty good at getting back to users who have already engaged with them. In addition, third-party audiences help marketers target ads to people that haven’t yet done that. 
  • Find the narrowest audiences. Some brands cater to the most niche of audience segments. For example, if you just want to reach snowboarding fans, that might be a pretty small audience from native social targeting. 
  • Reduce waste. Sometimes, what’s more, valuable for marketers is not to target to reduce wasted impressions and dollars. Third-party data can help make sure social marketers don’t waste money on the kinds of people they don’t need to reach so that they can invest those budgets correctly. 

Leverage your tech for maximum results

As part of Skai’s intelligent marketing platform, our Paid Social solution has unique, best-in-class capabilities to automate, optimize, and scale your ads at an enterprise level. In a privacy-first world, Skai offers integrated solutions to reach consumers on all the platforms that matter and drive powerful growth no other independent social platforms can achieve. 

Client results include:

  • 135% increase in Facebook leads for BYJU’s Future School
  • 600% increase in Facebook leads for Inova
  • 60% decrease in cost per conversion for Mercedes-Benz Vans Turkey

To learn more or to see our cutting-edge functionality for yourself, schedule a brief demo today.

Request a Demo of Skai

Related Posts

  • 6 Ways Skai Enables Social Advertisers to Master Audience Targeting in the Privacy Era
    Read More
  • Several people engage on social media platforms with their mobile devices.
    Using Third-Party Audiences in Social Advertising
    Read More
  • Chalkboard sitting on a pile of coffee beans with how to scale with lookalikes
    How to Scale with Lookalike Audiences For Facebook Ads & More
    Read More
  • Paid social ad spend is projected to increase in 2022; 17% projected increase in spend on social media ads in 2022 vs 2021.
    Looking Ahead with Skai: Paid Social Trends for 2022
    Read More
  • Letters on dice spell out remarketing.
    Use Remarketing to Impact Every Step of the Customer Journey
    Read More
  • Channel Benchmarks from Skai’s Q1 2022 Quarterly Trends Report
    Read More
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share via Email
  • Copy Link
    Copied!
Tags: Audience, Create, Data, Facebook, Meta, Optimize, Plan, Social, Target, xTLx

    Subscribe to Updates

    Media that matters.
    Marketing that works.
    © 2023 Kenshoo, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
    Privacy Policy. Cookie Policy. Recruitment Privacy Policy.
    • Omnichannel Strategy
      • Skai HQ
      • Dynamic Marketing Mix
      • Budget Forecasting
      • Strategic Consulting
    • Walled Garden Advertising
      • Overview
      • Retail Media
      • Paid Search
      • Paid Social
      • App Marketing
      • Auditing
      • Expert Services
    • Marketing Measurement
      • Incrementality
      • Experiments
      • Cross-Channel Attribution
    • Resources
      • Blog
      • Glossary
      • Case Studies
      • Capabilities
      • Quarterly Trends Hub
      • Training & Enablement
      • Developer Hub
    Privacy Preference

    We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential, while others help us to improve this website and your experience.

    Privacy Preference

    Save All

    Save

    Accept Only Essential Cookies

    Manage Cookie Preferences

    Cookie Details Privacy Policy Imprint

    Privacy Preference

    Here you will find an overview of all cookies used. You can give your consent to whole categories or display further information and select certain cookies.

    Save All Save Accept Only Essential Cookies

    Back

    Privacy Preference

    Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper function of the website.

    Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

    Name
    ProviderOwner of this website, Imprint
    PurposeSaves the visitors preferences selected in the Cookie Box of Borlabs Cookie.
    Host(s).skai.io, skai.io
    Cookie Nameborlabs-cookie
    Cookie Expiry1 Year
    Name
    ProviderOwner of this website
    Host(s)skai.io
    Cookie Namewordpress_sec_,wordpress_test_cookie,wp-postpass_*, wordpresspass_*, wordpressuser_*
    Cookie ExpirySession / 1 Year
    Name
    ProviderOwner of this website
    PurposeThis cookie stores selections made by the user in the Accessibe tool in order to maintain those settings on future visits. These cookies help us make our website compliant with our obligations under US law.
    Privacy Policy https://accessibe.com/privacy-policy
    Cookie NameacsbState, acsbReset
    Cookie Expiryn/a

    We use these cookies to enhance functionality and allow for personalisation, such as live chats, videos and the use of social media.

    Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

    Accept
    Name
    ProviderOwner of this website
    Host(s).comeet.co, www.comeet.co
    Cookie Namevisid_incap_, nlbi_#######, incap_ses_, referrer22_00a, incap_ses_1364_2167377
    Cookie ExpirySession / 1 Year
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderOwner of this website
    Host(s).chilipiper.com, skai.chilipiper.com
    Cookie Namefs_uid, CHILI_PIPER_CLUSTER, guest-session, _sp_ses*, _sp_id*
    Cookie ExpirySession / 2 Years
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderOwner of this website
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderOwner of this website
    Host(s)skai.io
    Cookie NamemoduleFormPardotDownload
    Cookie Expiry30 days

    Statistics cookies collect information anonymously. This information helps us to understand how our visitors use our website.

    Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

    Accept
    Name
    ProviderGoogle Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland
    PurposeCookie by Google used for website analytics. Generates statistical data on how the visitor uses the website.
    Privacy Policy https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en
    Cookie Name_ga, _ga_*, _gat,_gat_*,_gid, GOOGLE_ABUSE_EXEMPTION, AEC, __Secure-ENID, SOCS, CONSENT
    Cookie ExpirySession / 2 Years
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderHotjar Ltd., Dragonara Business Centre, 5th Floor, Dragonara Road, Paceville St Julian's STJ 3141 Malta
    PurposeHotjar is an user behavior analytic tool by Hotjar Ltd.. We use Hotjar to understand how users interact with our website.
    Privacy Policy https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/privacy/
    Host(s)*.hotjar.com
    Cookie Name_hjClosedSurveyInvites, _hjDonePolls, _hjMinimizedPolls, _hjDoneTestersWidgets, _hjIncludedInSample, _hjShownFeedbackMessage, _hjid, _hjRecordingLastActivity, hjTLDTest, _hjUserAttributesHash, _hjCachedUserAttributes, _hjLocalStorageTest, _hjptid, _hjSessionUser_2229986, _hjIncludedInPageviewSample, _hjIncludedInSessionSample, _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress, _hjFirstSeen
    Cookie ExpirySession / 1 Year
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderOwner of this website
    PurposeVWO is AB Testing software that we'll use to test different elements of the website - form placement, nav, different page layouts, etc.
    Privacy Policy https://vwo.com/compliance/cookies-notice/
    Host(s).skai.io, dev.visualwebsiteoptimizer.com
    Cookie Name_vis_opt_exp_{CAMPAIGNID}_goal_{GOALID}, _vis_opt_test_cookie, _vis_opt_exp_{CAMPAIGNID}_combi, _vis_opt_exp_{CAMPAIGNID}_exclude, _vis_opt_exp_{CAMPAIGNID}_split, _vis_opt_s, _vis_opt_out, _vwo_uuid, _vwo_uuid_{CAMPAIGNID}, _vwo_ds, _vwo_sn, _vwo_uuid_v2, _vis_opt_exp_{CAMPAIGNID}_combi_choose, _vwo_referrer, _vwo, _vwo_global_opt_out, _vwo_ssm, uuid
    Cookie ExpirySession / 10 Years

    Marketing cookies are used by third-party advertisers or publishers to display personalized ads. They do this by tracking visitors across websites.

    Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

    Accept
    Name
    ProviderPardot
    PurposeCookie name associated with services from marketing automation and lead generation platform Pardot. The visitor value is the visitor_id in your Pardot account. This cookie is set for visitors by the Pardot tracking code.
    Host(s).pardot.com, pi.pardot.com, skai.io
    Cookie Namepardot, visitor_id*, lpv*
    Cookie ExpirySession / 10 Years
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderMeta Platforms Ireland Limited, 4 Grand Canal Square, Dublin 2, Ireland
    PurposeCookie by Facebook used for website analytics, ad targeting, and ad measurement.
    Privacy Policy https://www.facebook.com/policies/cookies
    Cookie Name_fbp,act,c_user,datr,fr,tr,m_pixel_ration,pl,presence,sb,spin,wd,xs
    Cookie ExpirySession / 1 Year
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderLinkedin
    Cookie Namelidc, li_gc, lang, AnalyticsSyncHistory, UserMatchHistory, li_sugr, bcookie, TDCPM, TDID, bscookie, ln_or
    Cookie ExpirySession / 1 Year
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderSkai
    Cookie Nameken_gclid
    Accept
    Name
    Provider6sense
    Cookie Name_gd_session, _an_uid, _gd_visitor, _gd_svisitor, 6suuid
    Cookie ExpirySession / 400 Days
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderGoogle Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland
    PurposeCookie by Google used for conversion tracking of Google Ads.
    Privacy Policy https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en
    Cookie NameIDE, 1P_JAR, NID, _gcl_au, OTZ, test_cookie
    Cookie ExpirySession / 400 Days
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderOwner of this website
    Cookie NamePHPSESSID, sid, okto-autoposter-XXX, oktgid, oktsid, oktlogid-XXX, oktolead-XXX-Email, oktolead-XXX-Company, oktolead-XXX-FirstName, oktolead-XXX-LastName, oktolead-XXX-Phone, oktolead-XXX-Country, oktolead-XXX-Url, oktolead-XXX-State, oktolead-XXX-Comment, optout
    Cookie ExpirySession / 2 Years

    Content from video platforms and social media platforms is blocked by default. If External Media cookies are accepted, access to those contents no longer requires manual consent.

    Show Cookie Information Hide Cookie Information

    Accept
    Name
    ProviderWistia
    Host(s).wistia.com
    Cookie Namecb_anonymous_id, _sp_ses.2b40, _li_dcdm_c, __hssrc, _gcl_au, _clsk, hubspotutk, _sp_id.2b40, __hssc, __hstc, _uetsid, _uetvid, _gid, _ga, _ga_GQR109DZ3Y, _lc2, fpi, _ex-pricing-cta, _fbp, cb_group_id, cb_user_id, _clck
    Cookie ExpirySession / 400 Days
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderMeta Platforms Ireland Limited, 4 Grand Canal Square, Dublin 2, Ireland
    PurposeUsed to unblock Instagram content.
    Privacy Policy https://www.instagram.com/legal/privacy/
    Host(s).instagram.com
    Cookie Namepigeon_state
    Cookie ExpirySession
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderOpenstreetmap Foundation, St John’s Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge CB4 0WS, United Kingdom
    PurposeUsed to unblock OpenStreetMap content.
    Privacy Policy https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_Policy
    Host(s).openstreetmap.org
    Cookie Name_osm_location, _osm_session, _osm_totp_token, _osm_welcome, _pk_id., _pk_ref., _pk_ses., qos_token
    Cookie Expiry1-10 Years
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderTwitter International Company, One Cumberland Place, Fenian Street, Dublin 2, D02 AX07, Ireland
    PurposeUsed to unblock Twitter content.
    Privacy Policy https://twitter.com/privacy
    Host(s).twimg.com, .twitter.com
    Cookie Name__widgetsettings, local_storage_support_test
    Cookie ExpiryUnlimited
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderVimeo Inc., 555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, USA
    PurposeUsed to unblock Vimeo content.
    Privacy Policy https://vimeo.com/privacy
    Host(s)player.vimeo.com
    Cookie Namevuid
    Cookie Expiry2 Years
    Accept
    Name
    ProviderGoogle Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland
    PurposeUsed to unblock YouTube content.
    Privacy Policy https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en&gl=en
    Host(s)google.com
    Cookie NameCONSENT
    Cookie Expiry6 Month

    Borlabs Cookie powered by Borlabs Cookie

    Privacy Policy Imprint