New Rules for Political Advertisers

Earlier this year, Facebook rolled out some new features and processes for political advertisers on their platform. You can bet it is in response to the flack they got after the 2016 election.

What are they, and how might they impact political campaigns this year? Here are some of the details.

First, there is an authorization process. Page admins and account admins will need to submit an ID and residential mailing address for verification. Each address will be confirmed via a special mailed code. This means it isn’t a quick process. If you are planning on running political ads - you have to make sure that this is done in advance so that your ads don’t get held up.

Advertisers will have to disclose who paid for the ads. Basically the definition for “political communications” has been expanded to cover social media advertising. This is an important part that covers the transparency concerns.

When a political ad is seen on Facebook, it will now say “Political Ad” and “Paid for by…”

Some new rules may change the type of ads that political marketers place. For instance, people will be able to “view ads” and see the ads that page is running, even if they aren’t in the target demographic.

Another is the lifespan. Facebook will have a searchable archive of political ads that have ran on the platform. Meaning they don’t just go away from the public eye after they are done or pulled off.

All of these factors and other changes this year to social media marketing may change the way political ads are marketed and will definitely change the transparency of these ads.

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