Adapting to Meta’s 2025 Updates: Privacy Laws and Marketing Strategies

Meta have released new updates that have been rolling out this month and to be enforced by the end of January 2025. 

The update is due to privacy laws coming into effect specifically for industries in the following categories: healthcare, finance, politics. This may affect the ability to track purchases with restrictions in Add to cart and sales conversions coming from Meta. This includes hashed data that will not be able to be used. The landing page (domain) gets flagged with certain keywords or policy violations that restrains event targeting categories assigned to different data sets.

Impacts for healthcare, finance and politics categories

• Reduced ability to measure performance through Meta pixel. Could be some restrictions on certain data collected or full restriction of all data. Bottom of funnel events might be restricted including add to cart or purchase events.
• The need to adjust strategies to top of funnel, this will see an increase in costs for meta traffic campaigns across all verticals.
• Overall strategy will need to be considered - not just meta. Making sure the balance of top of funnel strategies and bottom of funnel conversion capture are considered throughout the customer journey. 
• With less behavioural signals due to limited data, targeted content themes and interest categories will need to be considered and building of engagement based audiences.

What can you do?

• Firstly review the categories that you are assigned to. There may be instances where for example healthcare is not the right category for you and may be better to select another that suits your business better. Read Meta article on data sharing restrictions based on data source categories.
• Meta will use your landing page data to flag certain keywords and policy violations from those pages. If you think that this is incorrect you can appeal the status, An example of this is anything related to Hemp - organic hemp seeds - chia seeds etc will be restricted.
• Adjust your strategy - the industries affected will not have the ability to use commerce manager or in some cases not be able to run bottom of funnel campaigns at all within Meta. This means optimising to a purchase event will not be possible and in the worst case scenario lose the ability to retarget ads within Meta. Focusing on contextual targeting such as page views and content views instead of add to cart events and lead events. Meta instant forms can also be utilized as another form to collect leads straight from the platform.
• Consider an awareness campaign and participating in brand lift studies via Meta partners.
• Avoid trying to collect restricted data - you might consider changing from a pixel based conversion to a thank you page link. However, Meta will be able to flag this and it will affect your trust rating within Meta so it is not advised.
• Ensure Meta Conversion API (CAPI) is set up to ensure the third party data does not have further limitations. CAPI  is installed on the server side and runs alongside the Meta pixel to provide more accurate data and reduce data loss that happens through browser cookie tracking and privacy settings. If you’d like support with Meta CAPI set up please get in touch with our paid media specialists .

The importance of first-party data

The privacy restrictions have been coming for a while now and the importance of first-party data in 2025 has increased as more restrictions are being put in place across channels and the way third party data is collected. This can be seen from updates to iOS asking apps not to track, legal restrictions being placed on advertising channels that track data and GDPR for cookie consent on websites.  

If you currently do not have a strategy for first party data and the way you collect, manage and store your data, now is the time to be considering each touchpoint and how you collect and utilise your data.

Utilise strategies to make it easy and clear for your customers to share their information. Sweeten the deal with perks like personalised recommendations or early access to exclusive content in exchange for their data.

If you need help to get your first party data strategy set up, please get in touch!