How XMP Enhances Facebook Ad Targeting Under New Privacy Regulations

With third-party cookies disappearing and iOS 14+ privacy features reshaping data access, traditional targeting is under pressure—but new opportunities are rising.
 
That’s where XMP comes in. As a smart cross-channel advertising tool, XMP helps you decode Facebook targeting strategies and manage campaigns with speed, precision, and flexibility in today’s privacy-first world.

 

 

What are the Key Data Sources for Targeting?

When building a Facebook advertising campaign, strong audience targeting is essential, and this relies on three main data sources:
 
Facebook User Data
Facebook collects user data across multiple dimensions, including demographics, interests, behaviors, location, and connections. As first-party data owned by the platform, it is not affected by iOS 14’s tracking opt-out features. This provides a stable foundation for ad targeting.
 
Advertiser-Owned Data
Advertisers can target audiences based on user interactions with their websites, apps, or offline businesses. These may include first-party or third-party data. Once enough pixel data is accumulated, advertisers can create custom audiences or lookalike audiences or build customer lists by uploading email addresses.
 
However, the iOS 14 tracking opt-out and the decline of cookies impact the accuracy of targeting web and app audiences. Therefore, we recommend that advertisers actively implement the Facebook Conversions API to ensure stable data transmission.
 
Third-Party Data
While Facebook has historically used third-party data to help advertisers identify target audiences, the decline of third-party cookies has disrupted this data source. In the future, the accuracy of ad targeting based on third-party data may continue to decrease.
 

Understanding Facebook Audiences

Facebook offers three primary audience types for ad targeting:
 
Core Audiences
This is the default audience type in Ads Manager. Advertisers can define target users based on demographics, interests, behaviors, location, and connections.
 
Custom Audiences
These are built using advertiser-owned data (such as website visitors or customer lists) and Facebook’s internal data (such as user behavior on the platform). They are particularly useful for re-engaging users who have previously interacted with a brand.
 
Lookalike Audiences
Facebook uses existing audiences or uploaded lists to create new audiences with similar traits. This is an effective method for expanding your reach and acquiring new potential customers.
 

Facebook Ad Targeting: Core Functions, Privacy Risks, and Tips

Next, let’s discover how Facebook’s targeting options are evolving under privacy pressures—and how XMP equips you with smart strategies to adapt.
 
Demographic Targeting
This is based on information users provide in their profiles, such as age, location, gender, education level, and financial status. Since this data is user-declared, it tends to be relatively stable and less affected by changing privacy regulations.
 
XMP recommends focusing on life event–related targeting options—like engagements, parenting, or home buying—shared by users on Facebook. Compared to education or job experience, these lifestyle signals are more directly tied to personal behavior and can lead to more precise results.
 
Behavioral and Interest Targeting
These options work best when combined with demographic data. However, they are more vulnerable to privacy policy changes. As third-party tracking signals (like pixels) decline, the accuracy of granular behavioral segments may decrease. For example, targeting users based on Olympic event interest might no longer allow filtering by specific year or event in the future.
 
Currently, XMP encourages advertisers to fully leverage existing interest targeting options to maximize performance and recommends preparing for future shifts by exploring layered targeting strategies—such as combining multiple interests.
 
If your target audience is marketers, for instance, you might include interests in tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and StreamYard.
 
Custom Audience Targeting
Custom audiences are powerful for both prospecting and re-engagement. They can be built from advertiser-owned data and Facebook platform data. However, privacy changes have significantly affected these options. Loss of tracking signals can lead to smaller audience pools, higher CPMs, and difficulty excluding specific users. To address these issues, XMP suggests the following strategies:
  1. Use broad targeting with audience expansion to give Facebook’s algorithm more flexibility.
  2. Upload customer lists, keeping in mind that not all users will be matched successfully.
  3. Rely more on Facebook’s internal data—optimize your account, and use Page interactions, video views, and other in-platform activity for targeting.
  4. Focus on retargeting Page visitors and video viewers with tailored messaging based on different user behaviors.
 
Lookalike Audience Targeting
Lookalike targeting is a powerful strategy powered by machine learning, which finds users similar to those in your source audience. However, tracking signal loss can impact the algorithm’s ability to identify meaningful patterns. The quality of your source audience heavily determines the effectiveness of lookalikes. 
 
XMP recommends avoiding website-based source audiences such as “all purchasers” or “site visitors,” and instead suggests creating Page-based lookalikes—for example, targeting users similar to your Page likers. Additionally, it’s important to differentiate between actual Page fans and lookalike audiences to enhance precision and avoid overlap.
 
 

XMP Audience Packages: For More Efficient Ad Delivery

In the ever-changing advertising landscape, XMP’s Audience Package has become a key tool for optimizing campaign management. We support the full workflow of creating, editing, copying, and using targeting settings across accounts directly. Advertisers can also view all associated campaigns in real time and easily add or edit targeting across accounts.

(1) Flexible Creation

  1. Asset Page: On the XMP asset page, you can create audience packages by selecting either no specific ad account, or one or more ad accounts under the same business entity. Once created, the package is available for use across the entire XMP account. If no ad account is selected, the system will generate a universal audience package (Note: Custom Audiences are not supported in universal packages).
  2. Ad Creation Page: During the ad creation process, you can save your current targeting settings as a new audience package with just one click. Once saved, the package will be automatically linked to the published campaign, allowing for quick access, reuse, and streamlined targeting management.

 

(2) Easy Operations

  1. Edit Audience Package: Click the “Edit” button in the operations column to enter the editing interface. After making changes, click “Save” at the bottom of the page to update your targeting settings in real time.
  2. Copy Audience Package: With the “Copy” function, XMP automatically fills in all information from the original package, allowing you to quickly clone targeting strategies for different ad scenarios.
  3. Delete Audience Package: When clicking “Delete,” if the package is linked to any campaigns, the system will automatically remove those associations while preserving the targeting settings of the original campaigns—ensuring safe and non-disruptive operations.

(3) Real-Time Monitoring

  1. View & Unlink Campaigns: Click the number in the “Associated Campaigns” column to instantly view all campaigns linked to a given audience package. Unlinking campaigns is just as quick and seamless.
  2. Add Campaign Associations: By clicking “Add Associated Campaigns,” a smart pop-up window will display all eligible campaigns for association, helping you flexibly expand the package’s reach and allocate targeting resources with precision.
 

Optimization Strategies in a Privacy-First Era

XMP’s Audience Package makes it easy to manage and adjust your targeting as the landscape evolves—keeping your strategy agile and effective. We help you do just that, offering smart insights and tools to reach the right audience, boost results, and thrive despite tighter privacy rules.
 
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Last modified: 2025-06-06Powered by