Facebook Clarifies that Agencies Are Not Third Parties When It Comes to Custom Audiences

Facebook's Custom Audience Product has been one of the most successful social media tools in the box.  The product allows an advertiser to target specific  fans of a product's page and use a Custom Audience platform to serve ads to their friends as well as people with similarities to their Facebook profile. In most cases an advertiser's agency partner would be in charge of managing the custom audience.  The Cambridge Analytica scandal made Facebook question the sharing of data outside of the Facebook platform. In June Face book released the new rules around Custom Audiences . After this release, companies started to question the role of the agency managing the audience and if this constituted third party sharing. 

In the new rules, Facebook stated advertisers may not sell or transfer their Custom Audiences or authorize any third party to sell or transfer custom audiences. The company has updated that specific term to clarify that an advertiser with an independent relationship with an agency off of the platform can allow those agencies to manage their Custom Audience lists.

Here is the newly updated term in full:

You may not sell or transfer your custom audiences, or authorize any third party to sell or transfer Custom Audiences. If you have entered into an independent agreement with a partner for licensing marketing information, you may use the Custom Audiences tools and sharing functionality to create and provide custom audiences for advertising based on that information, subject to the requirements of these terms and applicable law.

Facebook has now undeniably made it crystal clear that working with agencies to manage your Custom Audience is not considered selling or transferring the list.

On July 2nd, Facebook’s most recent updates to its Custom Audience rules went into effect. Facebook requires advertisers to specify the origin of an audience’s information when uploading a Custom Audience list. This allows Facebook to communicate to users how advertisers got their information and if they are being targeted by their phone or email address when they click on “Why am I seeing this ad?”.