Facebook's 3rd Party Targeting Is Gone: This Tool Helps You Rebuild

TL;DR: Facebook removed targeting options. We made a free tool that helps you rebuild your campaigns.

Facebook officially phased out 3rd party targeting options this past August.

What's 3rd party data you ask?

We're talking about those partnerships Facebook had with the largest data companies in the world: Experian, Epsilon, Axiom and others.

It's the way that Facebook advertisers used to target hyper-specific audience segments, using parameters like: household income, shopping behaviors, and much more.

Where Does That Leave Us?

Advertisers who depended on these targeting categories have at least two potential paths forward:

1. Rent the audiences directly from these data companies, through what Facebook refers to as a "managed custom audience"
2. Replace the targeting options with Facebook's own "interest" based categories.

The good news? 

Those Facebook owned interest categories are WAY more powerful than most advertisers realize. In my personal opinion, they're also more updated and dynamic than the 3rd party targeting options ever were.

The news gets better...we built a free tool that makes replacing 3rd party targeting with Facebook interests a snap!

Introducing: Facebook Targeting Replacement Tool

First, check out the Facebook targeting tool.

Here's how it works:

1. Search or browse for the old 3rd party targeting option you want to replace.  Example: You were targeting dog owners before, just type "dog" into the search field. 
2. Select the old targeting option to reveal alternative targeting options you can use as a replacement. 
3.  Copy those alternatives to the clipboard and paste them into the targeting field over in the Facebook Ad Manager.

Before Facebook shut down 3rd party data, we created a backup database of each targeting option. 

We also recorded thousands of alternatives that Facebook recommended advertisers use.

This took us dozens of hours to aggregate and make searchable. But we've found it to be a powerful tool to not only replace past targeting for campaigns but also to brainstorm new angles for our audience targets.

Have feedback for us? Want to see a new feature developed? Let us know in the comments or over chat.