[WARNING] The 3 Cataclysmic Ad Category Changes Coming to Meta in 2025

Summary

Perpetual Traffic Podcast Summary

Episode: [WARNING] The 3 Cataclysmic Ad Category Changes Coming to Meta in 2025
Release Date: December 17, 2024
Hosts: Ralph Burns (Founder and CEO of Tier 11) and Lauren E. Petrulo (Founder of Mongoose Media)

---

1. Introduction to Meta's Upcoming Ad Category Changes

In this pivotal episode, Ralph Burns and Lauren E. Petrulo delve into the significant alterations Meta (formerly Facebook) is implementing in 2025 concerning sensitive advertising categories. These changes are poised to reshape the digital advertising landscape, especially for businesses operating within affected sectors.

---

2. Understanding the Three Cataclysmic Ad Category Changes

Ralph initiates the discussion by highlighting the severity of the impending changes:

Ralph Burns [07:45]: "Some of these are pretty severe and I think if you're in any of these spaces...you need to look at other ways in which to gather your data, especially on bottom of funnel."

The hosts outline that Meta is restricting standard events such as initiate checkout, add to cart, and purchase for specific sensitive categories. This move aims to enhance user privacy but poses challenges for advertisers reliant on detailed funnel metrics.

---

3. Impact on Health, Wellness, and Financial Sectors

Lauren provides an in-depth analysis of how these changes will affect different industries:

Lauren E. Petrulo [08:22]: "Two of which we have definite involvement with and then two others that we don't. And like one being health and wellness... the health and wellness category, like it's going to hit and it's going to hit hard for us."

She emphasizes that businesses in the health and wellness sector, including supplement brands and holistic healthcare providers, will face significant hurdles. Additionally, the financial sector will encounter increased restrictions, limiting advertising capabilities in areas like financial instruments and services.

---

4. Advocacy and Testimony Before Congress

Lauren shares her proactive stance in addressing these changes:

Lauren E. Petrulo [14:58]: "I was given the opportunity to share my voice and speak on behalf of small business owners with relation to restrictions that were being implemented which are directly being affected by this sensitive ad categories change."

She testified before Congress to advocate for small businesses, arguing that personalized advertising on platforms like Meta is crucial for competitive targeting and efficient marketing, especially for businesses with limited budgets.

---

5. Strategies to Mitigate the Impact

Ralph and Lauren discuss actionable strategies to navigate the new restrictions:

• Diversifying Traffic Sources:

  Ralph Burns [28:35]: "This is a good case for you to diversify your ad mix and your platform mix and start looking at alternative ways to reach your consumer..."

• Leveraging Non-Restricted Events:
  They highlight focusing on landing page views, view content, app installs, and on-site lead generation as alternative metrics to maintain campaign effectiveness.

• Utilizing Third-Party Analytics Tools:

  Ralph Burns [26:26]: "There's a software program that we use which you can get, which will eliminate this need... We've talked about them before and we use it for all our clients now, which is called Blot Out."

  They recommend integrating tools like Blot Out and Tier 11 Data Suite to enhance data tracking and compliance.

---

6. Embracing AI and Enhancing Ad Quality

Lauren advises advertisers to enhance their ad quality and utilize AI tools to adapt to stricter content guidelines:

Lauren E. Petrulo [30:26]: "You need to start being aware of events tools... You need to start being aware of your top of funnel building and you need to be super strategic in how you're going to sell a product that has all these benefits when you can't say 90% of what you want to say on that product."

She underscores the importance of refining ad copy to avoid rejection and employing AI to maintain efficiency and creativity in advertising strategies.

---

7. Future Outlook and Closing Remarks

Ralph and Lauren conclude with a forward-looking perspective, emphasizing the need for continuous adaptation and vigilance:

Ralph Burns [32:37]: "It just got harder. Suck it up."

Lauren E. Petrulo [32:38]: "AI is making it easier in a lot of ways... You don't have to be scared. You just have to be realistic."

They reassure listeners that while the advertising landscape is becoming more challenging, staying informed and strategically planning can help businesses thrive despite the restrictions.

---

Notable Quotes

• Ralph Burns [07:45]: "Some of these are pretty severe and I think if you're in any of these spaces...you need to look at other ways in which to gather your data, especially on bottom of funnel."

• Lauren E. Petrulo [08:22]: "Two of which we have definite involvement with and then two others that we don't. And like one being health and wellness... the health and wellness category, like it's going to hit and it's going to hit hard for us."

• Lauren E. Petrulo [14:58]: "I was given the opportunity to share my voice and speak on behalf of small business owners with relation to restrictions that were being implemented which are directly being affected by this sensitive ad categories change."

• Ralph Burns [26:26]: "There's a software program that we use which you can get, which will eliminate this need... We've talked about them before and we use it for all our clients now, which is called Blot Out."

• Lauren E. Petrulo [30:26]: "You need to start being aware of events tools... You need to start being aware of your top of funnel building and you need to be super strategic in how you're going to sell a product that has all these benefits when you can't say 90% of what you want to say on that product."

• Ralph Burns [32:37]: "It just got harder. Suck it up."

• Lauren E. Petrulo [32:38]: "AI is making it easier in a lot of ways... You don't have to be scared. You just have to be realistic."

---

Conclusion

This episode of Perpetual Traffic serves as a crucial guide for advertisers navigating the evolving landscape of Meta's advertising policies. Ralph and Lauren provide insightful analysis, practical strategies, and advocate for adaptability to ensure businesses can sustain and grow their online presence despite impending restrictions.

Listeners are encouraged to stay informed, diversify their advertising channels, and leverage advanced tools to mitigate the impact of these changes. The discussion underscores the importance of proactive planning and strategic adaptation in the face of regulatory shifts affecting digital marketing.

Transcript

[Ralph Burns]

Just imagine being able to view every single user to your website and know exactly which channel they came from. Be it Google search ads, meta ads, TikTok ads, LinkedIn posts, your organic SEO rankings, email, SMS, or even Amazon. All while eliminating all that annoying, direct, unattributed unknown traffic that puts the blinders on all your marketing. Well, that's what the soon to be released Tier 11 data suite does. And right now, Tier 11 is offering something incredible. A complimentary business audit in 2024 to set you up for success in 2025. Plus, you'll get early bird access to the Tier 11 data suite. But here's the catch. There are only four spots left, so go to tier11.com2025 to get yours. This audit is designed to diagnose your marketing inefficiencies, pinpoint your wasted spend, and craft a tailored solution to unlock the growth you needed this year, but didn quite hit. It's not done by some AI tool, but by real people who have over $3 billion in combined ad spend experience. So don't wait before it vanishes. Visit tier11.com 2025 to claim your spot and let tier 11 show you how to scale smarter, not harder. That's tier11.com 2025. Get your free business audit. There's only four left before they're all gone. Hey folks, Ralph here with something that could seriously upgrade Funnel Ad game. If you've been a PT listener for any period of time, you know that we talk about Top of Funnel all the time and how challenging it is for you to get quality Top of Funnel clients or leads or customers and then convert them typically at bottom of funnel. Well, TV advertising is one of those areas that we haven't discussed here on PT all that much, but our friends over at Ad Critter have figured this stuff out. They do connected TV ads so you can be everywhere without spending millions on super bowl ads. But they pair it with display retargeting so you're hitting the audiences with a complete approach. You reach them, then you remind them, and then you collect the revenue. It's a strategy designed to deliver and let me tell you, it really works. We're testing this at tier 11 and so far the results have been very impressive. Now with Ad Critter, creating custom audiences are so easy. You don't need to reformat files, you don't need to mess around with complex spread spreadsheets. You just upload any file in any format and you're ready to go. And the match rate is awesome. They make it easy to connect with the right people, the actual people that have interacted with your ads in the past and then allow them to naturally flow through your funnel so you can convert them at bottom of funnel. Now, the folks at Adcrator, we twisted their arm to get us a great deal for you, the PT listener. They are offering a special deal for y'all, and that is you can get a $500 campaign credit, meaning $500 in free money to t test out the platform or dollar for dollar matching on any TV campaign up to five grand. Imagine the impact of that match. Spend five grand, they'll add another five grand in display. That's a huge opportunity here. Now, it's only offered to you, the PT listener. Head over to ad critter.com PT and check it out.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

You're listening to Perpetual Traffic.

[Ralph Burns]

Hello and welcome to the Perpetual Traffic podcast. This is your host, Ralph burns, founder and CEO of Tier 11, alongside my.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Amazing co host, Lauren E. Petrulo, founder of Mongoose Media.

[Ralph Burns]

Way better than that guy that we used to have on here whose name begins with Kasem. We were just ripping him off.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

He's a kid with Kasum.

[Ralph Burns]

That's right. You know what begins with a K.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

And ends with an awesome?

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Rhymes with awesome. That's what I know was in trouble when I had him as a co host. He's like, yeah, my name rhymes with awesome. I'm like, really?

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Do you know what my name rhymes with? This is a task I had to do in second grade.

[Ralph Burns]

Lauren. Lauren. Lauren Warren. I have a friend named Warren.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Okay, yeah, but that's a name, not a noun.

[Ralph Burns]

All right. I can't think of it. It's late on a Friday, so it's okay.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

One was boring. The first one is the cool. I'm boring. No, I'm bored, Lauren. So that became like an obnoxious one week thing. And then I said, foreign. And I had promised, I'm gonna marry a foreigner. And look what I did.

[Ralph Burns]

You did? Wow.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I did. I. Yeah.

[Ralph Burns]

Now, me and Jen were just. We were. We were driving up to the. The Tier 11 podcast studio up here in Brookline, and we were talking about co host because she had to. I asked her, like, download the episode and she had to listen to my voice because we were checking on something or other. Like, Kevin wanted us to. Kevin. Kevin. Even though we say Kevin Kevin all the time, we're actually mentioning Kevin in legitimate terms here. Kevin wanted me to check on and she's like, you know what? I just like Lauren so much better. I'm glad you got rid of that some guy.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Jen, I love you, but dang, shots were fired.

[Ralph Burns]

I know. If he ever listens. No, Kassim was a great co host but you know, he started off as like Little Kossum and then when he left he was like, oh, I'm cossum.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I've never heard little associated with Kossim when he's like a 6 foot 5 giant.

[Ralph Burns]

Little in stature. Like not physical stature, but emotional stature. Like he was just sort of an unknown and now, you know, he's kind of a man of the world. But anyway, great to have you as my co host. That's what we were saying.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I'm here for it. I appreciate it. But I know that Jen's giving me the female energy.

[Ralph Burns]

That's right. She said that. She's like, it's so much cooler with, with you guys as opposed to with two dudes talking, mansplaining, everything apparently now. Anyway, we keep bringing that one up. So today is sort of a free form Friday when we're recording here. And both of us have had sort of a punchy week and some challenges, but one of the things that sort of punched us in the mouth this week or last week through our partner manager is some of the things that are going on over at Meta and some things that you need to be aware of. And they've updated this a couple of times. We actually had a meeting with our partner manager just this past week about this and it's sensitive ad categories, changes that are coming in 2025. Some of these are pretty severe and I think if you're in any of these spaces, the areas that are most challenged by this, you need to look at other ways in which to gather your data, especially on bottom of funnel. Like bottom of funnel, meaning like initiate checkout, add to cart and purchase. Those behaviors from a standard event standpoint are going to be no longer allowed or disallowed in certain categories. So this is a big, big deal. So we're going to be bringing you more updates on this as well as giving you some ideas as to how to diversify your traffic sources. We've got our third episode with TikTok coming in just a couple of weeks. They don't have any of these categorizations, they don't have any of these restrictions. I mean, they might be banned from America sometime in 2025. Forget that. That's not a big deal. But the point is that you need to start looking at individual data solutions and conversions. API ain't going to solve this. First party data for you ain't going to solve this. So there's a lot of restrictions that are coming on down the line then. It's, I think a direct result of the fact that the FTC is getting involved with a lot of the social media networks and Google Meta, you name it. 2025 is going to be a year where you've got to watch your back here. So how familiar are you with some of these sensitive ad categories? Have you, has your team started to discuss it? Like, what's your sense as to this news that's just a few weeks old here and what its impact might be on us in 2025?

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yeah. So let's just be clear, what are those sensitive categories? Like, there's specific verticals that are being affected by this, two of which we have definite involvement with and then two others that we don't. And like one being health and wellness being, you know, I mean, since April they've restricted. So it's just like every quarter there's something new that's being restructured. In the health and wellness category, we work with a lot of supplement brands. We work with a lot of like health adjacent, not covered by insurance catego stories. So this is just a, like, I'm so sorry to bring bad news conversation starters that we're having with clients, but we specifically have been reserving till after we finish all of our holiday sales because all the focus is like, how much can we maximize and monetize before we jump into Q5 and lead generation. But yeah, no, the health and wellness category, like it's going to hit and it's going to hit hard for us. The other categories, like, we really don't work with politicians. The financial space has just become like for me, it's like I F the fs. Like I won't advertise in France and I won't touch things with financial instruments FDFs.

[Ralph Burns]

Like just because you're vertical, I F the Fs in digital marketing.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Well, I was like, if you were coming to my standup show on Sunday, I've got an astrophysicist that's speaking before me and he has a really good joke about the okay for those that are listening and show up, you love it because he's hilarious. Yeah. If you're gonna be in Orlando Sunday, you can listen to my Kinks for Christ comedy special.

[Ralph Burns]

Wow.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Otherwise, can we get a recording of.

[Ralph Burns]

That, by the way, just so we can, like, integrate it into.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

No, you gotta be there. You're gonna be in Florida and you're missing it by, like six hours, Ralph. For sure.

[Ralph Burns]

No, I'm not going to be in Florida next week. Oh, I'm not.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Wait, I thought you just changed it. You're supposed to be here this week and then you change it to next week. Oh, my gosh.

[Ralph Burns]

I know. It's a mess. It's a mess. I'm not going now, so things need to keep me here at home.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Fair.

[Ralph Burns]

So fair. But we'll be making a trip down probably after the first of the year. But anyway, if somebody's got. I mean, come on, somebody's got to record this thing. Well, you know, if it's good, it's recorded. If it's not, if you flop, that'd be really funny to listen to.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I will flip. Look, it's just. I will tell you that Possum, I love him to death. I think he's an incredible human being. I love making the joke that I think I'm funnier than him. And now I'm doing stand. I literally signed up for a standup class so that I could validate that statement.

[Ralph Burns]

I know, I know.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I'm embarrassed to admit this out loud, but this is my trophy. When I get a standing ovation, I am sending the recording to Kasem to be, like, proof.

[Ralph Burns]

Visualize the standing ovation before you go on stage. That's how you get it.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Well, I don't have to visualize. It's going to be a spotlight on me. A huge stadium. Not stadium. It's like, I don't know, like 220 people that can fit. Yeah. And the lights will be dimmed on all of them. So I'm not going to see them.

[Ralph Burns]

Oh, good.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

So in my head, they're all going to be doing a standing ovation.

[Ralph Burns]

Why is it that all the co hosts that we've chosen here at Perpetual Traffic all want to be comedians? Like, stand up comedians? Like Kasem said, it's like a secret.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

He said improv.

[Ralph Burns]

Improv. But no, like, he wants to be a stand up comedian. Like, he thinks he loves being on stage so much. And now you. It's like, I have no desire to be a standup comedian. I would like to watch stand up comedians enjoy that.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I have been told by people that I'm funny. Anyone listening that thinks otherwise, just don't tell me. And then my ego will stay the same. But I had a really fortunate opportunity to meet with a pretty big comedic manager. In LA not too long ago, that meeting didn't yield anything fruitful, but it was like a. Oh, okay, cool. So now I'm just gonna do my Orlando debut and then hide. It's not like I wanna be a comic or anything. I just. I really wanted to validate that I'm funnier than Kassim and he hasn't done standup as far as I. So that I know I win.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah, you're going to win that fight, which is very, very important to win the fight against Qasem. So.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

But you can't win the fight against Meta if you are in these sensitive ad categories which we have. What is it like financial, there's the health and wellness. There's obviously the sensitive. I mean, you can't sell children or naked people.

[Ralph Burns]

Well, I mean, there's all the categories that we all know about, but I mean, this is a restriction on categories that are right. Like, we have financial services companies that we work with. We don't do any politics either. However, healthcare has always been like, if you are a health care system, like a hospital, you should, I mean, take this under legal advisement. But we've met with a lot of lawyers on this as far as, like, what the liability is. And you should not have the Metapixel on your website if you are a healthcare provider. Like, check with your attorney, check with your privacy laws. Like, we do our CCPA updates every single year through a government agency here at tier 11. And sometimes it's like, you know, 42% right now of the US population is covered by some kind of privacy law. And that is actually going to increase. That's 42% of the entire population in the United States. It's covered by some sort of privacy law.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Obviously California, this includes under adults, like young adults, non adults, you have California. There are like six states last time I checked that have privacy restrictions. If you have more than a hundred thousand clients, like customers that have ever transacted with your business in that state. But things like West Virginia, Montana, there's six. I'm sure that's increased since the last time I had looked. Because like I told you before the show, like when I went and testified on this subject, it's just, it's a growing trend. It's not going away. The US is so far behind Europe that we're just playing catch up in. California's the leading state in this matter, which was a interesting way. Like, when I had testified, I was like, please don't make us like California. When has Florida ever wanted to say, yes, we're following Californian trends. I was pandering to my politicians and it worked, but not to the way it needed to.

[Ralph Burns]

When you spoke in front of it, it was Congress. You testified in front of Congress. This is something I did not know. A little, little known fact about Lauren E. Petrillo is that you have testified before Congress.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yes. On this subject regarding Meta. So I was given the opportunity to share my voice and speak on behalf of small business owners with relation to restrictions that were being implemented which are directly being affected by this sensitive ad categories change. Pleading with my congressmen and women to not institute this because while I get that they're going after big bad Meta, and in theory it sounds good, like you're like, I don't want my data to be shared. I don't want. Just because I'm active on a platform that I'm not paying for, I don't want my data to be shared with advertisers. And I was saying, look, I get it. You don't want your devices to be listening to you. You don't want children to be exposed to stuff like I get it. Because people are afraid they've watched the Terminator one too many times. However, I was like, it's all about personalized and relevant advertising. A small business owned company that I have is a swimsuit diaper for children. If I'm not using personalized advertising, I am going to be advertising swim diapers to single men that don't have any children. I don't have the budget to compete with the Disney's and the Warner Brothers of the world or even like the Huggy brands because they have super bowl budgets, small business small budgets with personalized relevant targeting that I'm able to leverage on platforms like Meta. I can only do that because it lets me tap into their demo and psychographic information that Meta's collected over the 15 years since they've been using their platform for free. But by instituting this, it's being harshly hit against these categories, health and wellness being the two that I am. It's going to stink. But yeah, that's what I testified on. And you know, I tried to fight the good fight.

[Ralph Burns]

Well, thank you for testifying on behalf of all small businesses in the United States. Like, that's. We never realized that you were. Well, who was it who called you up? What is it? It wasn't Metta, it was your congressman.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

No, no, no. So I testified at the Senate bill and the House representative bills that had been instituted and what they were Doing is they're imposing restrictions on privacy. Like, again, you don't want everything to be tracked. Remember that like Ashley Madison break that had happened. You don't want stuff to be taken advantage of, but it's leveraging for relevance. Like you don't want your device to be listening to you so that you can be manipulated into something. Now, marketing, one of the best books I've ever read, Ryan Holiday is like, trust me, I'm lying. And it talks about like manipulation and marketing. There's a fun, fine line. But when you're using an app like Facebook or Meta and you're not paying for it, they should be able to leverage the activity you're doing on app to subsidize the cost of servers and allowing you to have free access on the platform. To an extent. I agree. Kids, yeah, don't track children. They shouldn't be advertised for. There's lots of protection laws against it. But for me, it's like, you're not paying for it. No one is forcing you to use the apps. You can absolutely delete the app, not participate on it. But what they want to do is impose these very restrictive tracking metrics which we're seeing here, especially for bottom of Funnel, because they don't want you to provide meta ammo to make more and more money because it's perceived like politicians will see, like, oh, big bad corporate evil, but it's not them that's going to be affected. Yeah, their, their dollars will be hurt, but people are still going to keep advertising. It's a small business owner that now has to spend on this top of Funnel to hope that they're going to get some conversion and some return on their investment. Sorry, I'm going to get really mad because I'm just remembering, like how passionate.

[Ralph Burns]

I was about this is stirring the pot for you. Well, let's get into a little bit more about exactly what this is. So when we talked about health and wellness specifically and what is health and wellness? Health and wellness, as Meta has outlined it, is a category associated with medical conditions, specific health statuses or provider patient relationships, for example, a patient portal or wellness tracker for depression, for example. So it's not necessarily what we're talking about here with supplements and other health remedies, however, when you go specific into it. But I think there's going to be a broad brush that's going to be painted here.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

100%. 100%. They're saying that it's. Those are. If you're passing PII, like you can't have personal information being passed back into Meta. You can't tell someone, oh, I have Crohn's disease. You cannot send that data back into meta. There's like HIPAA compliances and all that stuff. But the fact of the matter is that these health and wellness adjacent brands, we're coming into a supplement pro politic politician precedents. See, so there's going to be a lot more that's going to come up. I mean, like Perry had said today with our favorite co host, Perry Belcher had been talking about how there's potentially going to be an FDA department specifically for regulating supplements. Like there's just that health and wellness category. It's going to be a swing of the pendulum and there are going to be people that are going to abuse it to know abroad that it's just going to be a clean, broad stroke. Like they're going to be affected. Even if you're doing everything right, you, if you're in the health and wellness, you have to be prepared. Your stuff is about to get shut down and if you don't start making the appeals immediately, you're going to go behind a very long queue. Like it's inevitable. It's coming. That's my assumption. Like, no, you're not doing health insurance coverage. You're not a wound care center, you're not a hospital, you're not a drug provider. You could be a holistic healthcare provider. You're going to be affected. That's, I'm just, there's no if, ands or buts.

[Ralph Burns]

Well, you're going to get the, you're going to be the baby that's thrown out with the bathwater at the very least. So according to our meta partner manager, okay, most health supplements will not be affected unless it's a prescription for a specific disease and then you have a special status. However, my guess is that because this is a broad reaching change in policy, that means your policy issues just became even more challenging, which means that you need to deal with a whole lot of chat support. If you don't have an account rep and, or a partner manager and things just got a hell of a lot more challenging. If you're like a health and wellness adjacent brand that is maybe not in some of these categories that we just discussed, you are going to get flagged, I guarantee it. And you're going to have to for.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Sure, because it's wellness, it's. Well, there's health, absolutely. There's wellness.

[Ralph Burns]

Be specific on it, you know, for, you know, specific health statuses, provider, patient, relationships, medical conditions, you know, health centers, that sort of thing. You know they're going to throw out everything. And we've seen this before with a lot of these changes and it just creates, you know there was a time like four or five years ago where another change like this occurred and you know, for ad account bands and it was like Armageddon. It literally was. I don't know if you recall that, but that was like five or six years ago. We actually did a show on it. I think we call it like the Facebook Armageddon. And it was everybody's accounts were getting banned left and right because of new restrictions, new privacy restrictions. And back then that's nothing by comparison to what this might be now. So there's a lot of stuff that could be really problematic for you. The biggest part to this is that even if you have conversions API, you won't be able to get around this. Like you're going to be able to lose. Even if you don't get restricted to a certain degree, your copy will not work in those categorized brands after the move from this is a direct quote from Meta. This means that all events from your website or app will not be shared with Meta or you'll be subsequently removed when received if it's sent servicide ie copy through any of our business tools. Please note that this change may impact your campaign performance. The impact may you may observe to your campaign will depend primarily on if and how you are currently using standard events. So the bottom of the funnel standard events poof.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Which we just did an episode on, we talked about the standard events that you can do. Whether you use it, you have to now rely on view content. Your landing page views, the ones like start trial, those top of funnel mid funnel ones like you are going to become so reliant on them and you're just going to have to get really smart about your MPIs because if you don't know the money that you're investing in different channels and the halo lift that you're having across your top line revenue, you can find yourself in a huge wormhole of just spending money.

[Ralph Burns]

Yep. So one of the big things here is that you need to shift over to non restricted events. And non restricted events according to Meta are as follows. Do you know what they are? Lauren E. Petro I do, I do.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

It's Landing page views. My favorite View content app installs by the way.

[Ralph Burns]

View Content Tell us why View content.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Is your favorite because it's signaling to matter when a page is the most important. Like a landing Page view and it's the one that most people neglect. So whenever we're doing an audit, it's easiest, like, how dare you be so dumb.

[Ralph Burns]

Right?

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

This is a landing page view. Why is this not view content? Right, because it shows the next progression to the step. If they're viewing content, the next in theory, bottom, middle of funnel item is lead captured, trial, started purchase, add to cart all these other ones. It's the first step of actually a qualified lead.

[Ralph Burns]

So if you look at E commerce, for example, good example, this is automatically positioned on all your product pages. Like if you use Shopify and you use the metapixel app inside Shopify, which works most for us, at least it works. You are skeptical on this one. But the point is view content is usually on the product page. That means you're that much closer to adding to cart. You're deeper in the funnel. Those are more important pages perhaps than your collection page or maybe even your homepage. But it depends on your individual business.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

It depends. I was like, I can argue this all day long. If you've got a large SKU store that's over 35 different products or people will say 50 different products depending. And I'm not talking about like sizes. If you're like a fashion apparel, I'm not saying Your size is 8, 9, 10, shoe or large, small, medium count as different SKU numbers to this degree. So it's always going to be it depends. But you just. Yeah, it's landing page views, view content, apps, installs and then like the other lead, the on site lead generation, specifically one are the ones that you're going to have to focus on, which goes into. Why is meta a really good tool, Ralph? You can build, you can build full funnel campaigns and especially drive cold and warm traffic doing top of funnel marketing that supports your general advertising in a way that's cost effective when compared to many other platforms.

[Ralph Burns]

I think that pretty much covers it. All right, so let's, in summary here, let's make sure because we've been sort of rattling off a lot.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

It's a frustrating Friday. Okay. Like this is coming and it's disrupting. We've got Black Friday holiday sales, Q5 that's coming. This is like the last miles of a marathon.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah, I know, it really is. So this, keep in mind, this is for us, EU and uk. Okay. UK we know is not in the eu. Correct. I always want to give my friends. Why are you guys like all on your own? But anyway, whatever. All right, so it's for those three Categories or countries, obviously the EU as locations. Better, better stated. You can tell it's a Friday anyway. Including blocked events, which are. The blocked events, which are. Well, the blocked events which are the most important are really add to cart and purchase and I conversions. Yeah, I'm going to assume initiate checkout as well, although it doesn't specifically state that here because that's basically bottom of funnel. Your events that are not going to be restricted are landing page views, view content, app installs, on site, lead generation. And the point is that you should seriously consider other third party analytics. Now there's a software program that we use which you can get, which will eliminate this need. These guys have been on this for like two or three months because I don't know, they must have intercepted an internal memo. We've talked about them before and we use it for all our clients now, which is called Blot out. And they actually are fully compliant and they use Edge technology. But what we did is we combined it with Data Warehouse and the interface which we use is Wicked Reports and that's what datasuite really is. Tier 11 data suite. So datasuite, this doesn't affect any of us, quite honestly. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say nana, nana, nana, nan. But the point is that we've been planning for this for a long period of time. Blot out is an excellent vendor for it. You'd have to buy it sort of wholesale. You can get it from us a hell of a lot cheaper, plus you get the whole thing together. This is sounding really like a tier 11 pitch all of a sudden.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

But the point is, I mean, it is your podcast.

[Ralph Burns]

Well, I guess it is, but the point is this has been coming for a long period of time.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Yeah, I testified last year, not in 2024, but in 2023.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah, I mean, it's like, I just think that this is just the beginning. The interesting part though is Meta now is getting all these restrictions. Unfortunately, they're the ones who are getting, you know, shot in the back with all the arrows, them and Google. And meanwhile, be interesting to HEAR what the TikTok people have to say when we interview them in a month or so, because I don't see any of these restrictions coming. Once again, a good case for you to diversify your ad mix and your platform mix and start looking at alternative ways to reach your consumer, reach your ideal customer profile in different ways, wherever they are. Not just on Meta and Google, but also on all the other platforms themselves.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

I think there's an important thing Ralph to be mindful of. Like it's not just like media buyers have to now start being aware of other tools that are in meta. When I open up events tools and go into like custom conversions or like the five different types of pixels, like a lot of times it becomes like a oh, I thought I just had to place an ad and only look at Ads Manager. There's so many other tools that are inside your business portfolio. Like the settings is changes. Like there's, there's so many items that are improving that if you're trying to evaluate if someone's a good media buyer and they don't know how to navigate 90% of what's inside the business tools like okay, ask your questions but I think it's really important to note that you need to start being aware of events tools and it's not just going to affect these bottom of funnel events. These restrictions as you said is coming. It's this is starting with these categories there's never like a slip back and there's just an acceptance of when these categories are hit. What are the next ones that are going to be under review and under like it's for sure coming. It's obvious written on the wall. But the person that's listening to this right now, you need to be mindful that you're going to get so many more ad rejections in the next few months that you have to be stringent upon the copy. Like if you're not leveraging meta AI for your copy and gen AI for any of your stuff, you're setting yourself up for a higher likelihood of being rejected. And the reason I say that is because the terminology you're using on the ads we know you can't use you, you can't use before and after photos. Like there's stuff that we've had around for years. But Ralph, the transition you need to make sure that you're doing so that you don't get included with the bathwater is you obviously know you can't talk about treatments. You can't make claims like that's something we've known you can't have that on the product pages. But in that medical related terminology you're just going to start seeing a lot of stuff that supports, you're going to see stuff that's like it supports wellness or like it supports energy levels or it's going, you, you just have to be really careful. Like if you're in the weight loss category whatsoever, I don't care. It's saying it's not going to be affected. I'm not saying they're lying, I'm just saying I don't believe them. And you just have to be hyper mindful of what you've gotten away with before is definitely not going to work and not going to fly. And you need to start being aware of your events tools. You need to start being aware of your top of funnel building and you need to be super strategic in how you're going to sell a product that has all these benefits when you can't say 90% of what you want to say on that product.

[Ralph Burns]

Well said. Well, I think those are very sage words of advice on a Friday. And we're going to leave links to the show notes to the one of the podcasts we did on events a while back, so definitely relisten to that one. We'll leave some links in the show notes here as well. Obviously we'll be talking about this, but this came out right before Thanksgiving and then there was an update by Meta just last week. So this is really hot off the presses here. We don't want to make you paranoid in 2025, but we do want you to have the best 2025 you ever had. So stay tuned right here and to other shows when we're going to be discussing this. I'm sure this is not the last time we'll be talking about privacy restrictions on this show in the coming year. Lauren Petrulo I am sure of that.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

It's going to be nonstop. You don't scare them. Look, the reality is you think advertising is hard. It's going to get harder.

[Ralph Burns]

It just got harder.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

Suck it up. AI is making it easier in a lot of ways. So you can't just think that you can take your eye off the ball. AI is empowering you to be faster and more efficient in some ways. And the rest of the world is coming to say let's make up that difference in these type of things. I'm annoyed. It's going to get worse. You don't have to be scared. You just have to be realistic. Okay, well, you have to be armed.

[Ralph Burns]

With the right information. You have to be armed with the right information, understand it and have a plan in place in order to be able to deal with it. This is not the last time that this is going to happen. It's not the first time it's happened if you've ever advertised on Meta. So it's just going to constantly evolve over time. So. And these big social platforms are going to be under more and more scrutiny as time goes on. So, anyway, enough doomsday here. We've given the folks, I think, enough to sort of chew on. We're going to leave links in the show notes for all the resources that we mentioned here and make sure that wherever you listen to podcasts, please do leave us a rating and a review, an honest one, and we'll read it out on the air. And we'll also bring you the most updated information on all this privacy crap that you got to deal with in 2025 and the best way around it. So on behalf of my awesome co host, host Lauren E. Petrulo, good luck everybody.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

And.

[Ralph Burns]

Until next show, see ya.

[Lauren E. Petrulo]

You've been listening to Perpetual Traffic.