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hey everyone welcome to ignite
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Healthcare marketing podcast I'm back
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with Rich brick our chief strategy
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officer and today we have a an important
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and timely update for you on our podcast
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we want to talk about the changes to the
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meadow landscape it's been years of meta
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and other organizations like Google
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saying things like we won't sign a baa
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it's a to the organizations to decide
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what they do and how they use our
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platforms and for the first time ever
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meta is actually going to place some
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restrictions on how you can use certain
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components of their tracking so rich as
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we dive in here can you just kind of
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contextualize a little bit what you
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think is driving these changes and then
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we'll talk about what they are and what
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they mean yeah so this is the first big
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reaction that we've seen from a platform
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post the HHS bulletin in December 2022
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where meta is essentially trying to
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limit what information is being sent to
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them by companies that are in certain
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categories the past they said like send
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what you want it's not our problem
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correct yeah exactly like the liability
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is on the advertiser but now meta is
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starting to restrict and it's not
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unheard of for platforms to do that
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Google has done that for years with in
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the healthcare space in terms of
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restricting certain features in its
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platform that cannot be used so things
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like customer match remarketing lists
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Google has had those those features
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turned off for healthcare advertisers
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for years and we've seen a little bit of
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it with legit script and some other
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third parties coming in as well yeah
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this is just the first change that feels
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like a true reaction to the compliance
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landcape changing at the end of 22 walk
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us through the actual changes what is
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changing what what was it what is it
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going to be so as you said earlier it
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used to be essentially a free-for-all in
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terms of feature usage on meta for
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healthcare companies they could use all
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the same features and functionalities
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that any other company could use like if
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you're an Ecom platform remarketing was
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on the table conversion campaigns were
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on the table all those you know Building
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look likee audiences off your first
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party data all of that was available now
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what they're going to do is they are
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going to categorize healthcare companies
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into two categories there will be a
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fully restricted category and a
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partially or mid restricted category and
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the difference how meta is going to
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determine which category you fall into
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is whether you are treating a single
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condition essentially or you know you
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are a specialist where meta can easily
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understand if someone if you're sending
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an appointment event through the Meta
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Meta can easily understand what that's
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an appointment for the health context is
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pretty the health context is pretty
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obvious versus a more General
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multi-service line provider like a
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hospital Health System those will only
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be partially restricted because you
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could be sending events to meta and it
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could be for a whole number of different
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health conditions so that the Phi piece
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is less sensitive for those that are
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fully restricted they will not be able
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to use conversion objective campaigns
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via the pixel or via the conversion API
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cap and that's a change in that up until
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this point organizations could choose
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themselves not to use the pixel correct
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or not to use cppy corre but there was
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no meta was not participating in
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deciding that for you that's right
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exactly and now meta is saying nope even
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if you decide that you want to use the
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pixel you you cannot The partially
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restricted or the mid- restricted it's
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going to be on a case-by Case basis
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about what we still don't fully know yet
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what meta is going to allow there's been
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a lot of speculation as you might
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imagine I think certainly some CDP
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players in the space are hoping that
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partially restricted advertisers would
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still be able to use conversion
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campaigns in conjunction with a CDP
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there's been some talk about standard
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events being available for partially
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restricted advertisers but not custom
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conversions so again if you're just
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using like a standard lead event you may
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still be able to send data to it and
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talk about what you mean by standard
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lead event versus custom just so
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everybody listening if they're not quite
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sure what terminology means a standard
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so Facebook has standard events that it
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allows you to optimize too so it might
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be like a page view a lead and there's
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there's various others right like a
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button click that just like a standard
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event that you can optimize to custom
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conversions are way you set up a
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conversion yourself and you name it your
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own thing and that's far more likely a
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custom conversion to be giving away
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Health context because usually people
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label things fairly descriptively right
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they say things like online appointment
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booking new patient booking new patient
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whatever service yeah so you're far more
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likely to give away Health context
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through a custom conversion which is why
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Facebook is limiting that more than just
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a standard event which is like you know
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a lead or a button click where it
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doesn't know what the button click is it
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doesn't know what the lead pertains to
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especially if you are multi-discipline
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multi-service line it's not going to
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know what that lead is how would you set
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up a page view or a lead event without a
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pixel anyways like how would that even
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be possible you would essentially have
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to send an offline conversion via Cappy
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to the lead event so you'll still be
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able to do it with a CDP you'd still be
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able to do it if you had an offline
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event upload file for those advertisers
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you're just going to have to feed that
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information via Cappy to one of those
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standard events one of those standard
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events so do you see a world in which
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people are kind of working the system
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and saying I'm going to send this event
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to lead this event to page like I'm
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going to build my own way of scoring
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those standard events 100% And meta
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won't care about that right because all
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that meta cares about is that it doesn't
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get the information so I think what we
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are going to see is a lot of standard
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events being repurposed and advertisers
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will have a map on the back end that
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says a lead is this a button click is
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this a page view is this and that we're
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talking partially restricted right now
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that's partially restricted fully
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restricted you're what we're hearing
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word on the street is they may not be
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able to do that at all they may not have
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any access to conversions or conversion
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events or conversion objectives at all
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at right I think the situation for fully
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restricted as far as we know today and
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again for certain we know very little
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until these changes roll out is that
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lead forms are potentially still on the
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table so those on Facebook lead forms
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you may still be able to use so if you
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talk about getting Health context yeah
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it's kind of ironic yeah and so but we
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don't fully know yet we have no
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determined we have no sorry definite
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information from meta that's saying one
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way or another whether lead forms will
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be allowed or not for those fully
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restricted advertisers I think for
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people who are fully restricted if lead
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forms are available it's about building
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funnels top of the funnel video
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campaigns middle of the funnel traffic
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campaigns that will not be going away
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for either category and then driving
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them to an on Facebook lead form if the
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on Facebook lead forms are going away
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the best you're getting is video
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engagement campaigns to traffic
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campaigns and then you're trying to
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understand by using UTM and and various
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other query parameters what that
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Facebook traffic is actually netting out
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in terms of conversions on the back end
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and you're manually then making
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adjustments so there's no algorithmic
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adjustments yeah you're manually making
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adjustments you're trying to ascertain
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if running traffic and awareness is
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having a
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a positive impact on your other channels
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organic direct paid search Downstream
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and essentially a lot of people are
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going to have to be evaluating whether
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or not an engagement and traffic
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campaign combination on meta Will Be an
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Effective use of dollars in key1 and the
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ways I mean I you know just not to get
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down a rabbit hole but if this is where
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you're at if this is your outcome if
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you're listening and this is you are a
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fully restricted entity you know
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reflecting back on other conversations
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we've had this year some content that
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came out of scaling up mmm how are you
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going to draw correlation it's really
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going to be about do I believe those
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dollars are having a positive impact and
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this pressure to tie the dollars back is
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that Gap is actually going to widen and
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not get smaller and I think that's where
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this there's really going to be two
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challenges for these advertisers in in
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q1 which is can I measure and then can I
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optimize effectively without the signal
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going back so the measurement is almost
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the easiest piece right and it's crucial
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for the optimization piece anyway if you
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can't measure can't make optimizations
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cuz like you said it's directional
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optimizations that you're going to be
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doing but the question is can you get
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meta to work just based on a video view
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or a traffic signal the other big thing
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that this is going to impact is your
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ability to create audiences so I think a
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lot of healthcare advertisers on meta
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and certainly outside of healthcare have
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really leveraged first party audiences
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as sort of the Holy Grail for creating
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lookalikes that's going to go away there
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will be no audience creation either from
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the pixel or from conversion events that
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you're passing back via Cappy anymore
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not modeling audiences off of an event
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that you know you want someone to do
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exactly so if you've got a booking an
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online booking event and you want to
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build a look- likee audience off that no
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chance anymore could you do those off of
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the standard lead events or is that
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functionality going away we don't know I
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think I think if you are partially
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restricted you should be able to build
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off those standard lead events CU it
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wouldn't make sense for for meta to
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allow you to continue to use that lead
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event from a conversion optimization
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point of view if it wasn't going to
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allow you to build audiences off it but
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again it's still I think it's still
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still wait and see at this point so the
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importance of kind of the third party
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data providers is only going to grow the
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ways that we're pulling an audiences
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externally correct because essentially
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what you're going to have to do the
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algorithmic power of Facebook to find
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the right users is going to be
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drastically reduced so what you're
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trying to do is find the right users and
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before you push it into meta so
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essentially you're already giving it the
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Right audience to Target you feel more
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confident that traffic is worth the
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money yeah or video view campaigns
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exactly exactly you you're already doing
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the leg work it was using its algorithm
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to do it's then just got to serve the
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inventory to that audience so yeah third
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party audience providers are going to be
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are going to be probably rubbing their
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hands with Glee at this some of them
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because it's going to make them much
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more impactful when is this going to
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happen January
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2025 just around the corner my friends
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happy New Year and do we think that's
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legitimate I mean we've seen you know
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announcements like this before and
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there's delays and delays like is
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official it it's official and it'll be
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interesting to see how rapidly it hits
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everyone's accounts your campaigns are
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not going to be paused you're just not
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going to be able to optimize towards
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that objective anymore and nothing's
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going to change with your video view or
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your traffic campaigns or your reach
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frequency campaigns anything that is not
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conversion base will stay as is so if
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you want to avoid going dark potentially
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in January on those conversion campaigns
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let's say you get flagged those
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conversion events are literally
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unavailable now to you should you be
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pausing those traffic or those
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conversion objective campaigns until you
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reset should you is there something
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group should be doing now to get ahead
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of this or should you write it out till
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the very last minute I think you should
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be monitoring your account and going
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into your events manager and monitoring
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your status because that's where it's
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going to appear in the events manager
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you should be monitoring that on a
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almost daily basis at this point you can
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appeal uh the categorization that you
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receive so if you feel like you've been
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incorrectly categorized like maybe you
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maybe you have been categorized maybe
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you've been fully restricted but you
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feel like you should only be partially
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restricted because you have different
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service lines inside your organization
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that you're advertising for you can
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appeal that we have no idea how long the
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appeal process is going to take what it
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looks like they're going to get
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Onslaught with appeals so it could be a
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while it could be a while and we don't
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know what happens during the appeal
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process but our presumption would be
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that those features would remain
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disabled during the appeal process do we
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know anything about the timing between
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when you get a classification and is it
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immediate then that those changes go to
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effect or do you believe there will be a
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period of time to like react we believe
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it's going to be immediate
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which is why regular eyes on your
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account to make sure to to notice when
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those categorizations happen is going to
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be crucial if you believe you ask what
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what someone could do proactively if you
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are confident that you are only going to
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be partially restricted something that
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you could do today is you can move from
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Custom conversions to those standard
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lead events do that matching of what you
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would normally label custom into the
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standard create your back your backend
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map and just get comfortable there so
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nothing Chang because then yeah if you
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then are categorized as partial and you
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still have access to those standard lead
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events the disruption should be
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minimized so rich I know we don't know
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everything right now so we've kind of
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gone through what we do know what we
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believe it means anybody who's listening
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is there are there any sources you
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recommend that they stay in touch with
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is it just meta's announcements
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themselves are there other places that
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they can go to to check for updates
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besides this amazing podcast episode of
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course beside this amazing podcast
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episode I'd say definitely be in touch
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with your meta rep if you have one and
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be pushing them for for more specific
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information around your account as you
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can imagine we're not getting a lot of
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information outside of the official
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announcement from meta from the Reps at
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this point in time but I think it's
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worthwhile especially if you're spending
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a decent amount on meta you might get
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access to more information in a more
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timely manner there are some good
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articles online you know as you can
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imagine everybody's talking about this
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so search engine Journal at age all
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these folks have articles out but I
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think the majority of people outside of
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a very select group of people inside of
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met are just really speculating at this
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point so anything that you do consume is
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going to be 20% official which is what
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we've already heard from meta and then
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probably 80% speculation on how are we
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going to adapt what are we going to do
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how are we going to how are we going to
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circumnavigate this challenge in in 2025
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I mean we're we're in it daily as Rich
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mentioned with the Reps kind of pressing
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for information playing what if
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scenarios with them so as it breaks we
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will try to bring it to you all who are
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listening no doubt we'll probably have
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an update on this episode with new
00:13:28
information as soon as we start to see
00:13:30
how this unfolds so stay tuned uh thank
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you all for listening thanks Rich for
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joining us I actually learned a lot
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usually I come to these podcasts and I I
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kind of know the backstory but it's it's
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really cool to hear you know that this
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unfold in real time and and I learned a
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lot just chatting with you so thanks for
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being here awesome thanks thanks for uh
00:13:46
learning something new today
