About audiences for housing, employment or financial products and services campaigns

As part of our ongoing efforts to promote fairness on our advertising platform, we have introduced a new Special Ad Category "Financial products and services" for advertisers promoting financial products and services. Starting January 21, 2025, using this category is required for financial products and services campaigns for advertisers based in the United States or showing ads to audiences in the United States. Ads may be rejected if an appropriate category is not chosen. Learn more about the update here.

Changes driven by ongoing efforts to align our products with evolving privacy rules in Europe may impact campaigns advertising to people in the European Region. Learn more about how European privacy directives may affect your ads and reporting.

Special Ad Category campaigns for housing, employment or financial products and services ads have limited or unavailable audience options you can use to define the audience you want your ads to reach.

To create an audience compatible with Special Ad Category campaign restrictions, you need to declare your housing, employment or financial products and services campaign in Special Ad Categories.

If you use a saved audience, it will be updated to comply with housing, employment or financial products and services Special Ad Category audience restrictions.

To create a new audience for your campaign:

1. Go to Meta Ads Manager and create or open an existing campaign.
2. Go to your ad set then the Audience section.
3. Create a new custom audience.

You can use the available criteria to refine your audience after you choose your audience type. The options you choose must not discriminate against people based on certain personal characteristics as defined by Meta’s Discriminatory Practices policy.

Restrictions may depend on what country you're in and whether you want your ads to reach people in other countries. This applies to individual and multiple ad accounts.

Age, gender, ZIP code or postal code, audience exclusion targeting, lookalike audiences, saved audiences and some interests are limited or unavailable for the following advertiser locations:

• Advertisers based in the US or US territories
• Advertisers showing their ads to audiences in the US or US territories, Canada and certain European countries and territories

Limited or unavailable targeting options

Location

You can target your ads to people by geographic location (such as country, region, state, province or city), but not by ZIP code or postal code. You also can’t exclude locations.

Specific audiences based on a city, address or pin drop locations will include an expanded radius. For example, if you want to reach people in the US who live in the city of Seattle, your audience will also include people within a 15-mile radius of Seattle’s city center.

Countries where a 15-mile (25-kilometer) radius is required for specific audience locations

Canada, United States

Countries where a 10-mile (17-kilometer) radius is required for specific audience locations

Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canary Islands, all Channel Islands (Guernsey), all Channel Islands (Jersey), Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, French Guiana, Germany, Greece, Guadeloupe, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Martinique, Mayotte, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Réunion, Romania, Saint-Martin, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, UK sovereign bases in Cyprus (Akrotiri and Dhekeli), Vatican City

Age

Options are generally fixed to include ages 18 through 65+ for housing, employment and credit ads. However, advertisers running credit ads in Europe can select a different age range in order to meet their industry and local requirements for this Special Ad Category.

Gender

Audiences must include all genders. You can’t edit this option.

Detailed targeting and audience exclusion

Some demographic, behavior and interest options are unavailable. Excluding any detailed targeting selections is also unavailable.

Advantage+ lookalike

Advantage+ lookalike is unavailable.

Note: Certain audience options such as custom audiences may only be available via Meta Ads Manager.

• Choosing a Special Ad Category
• Upcoming expansion of special ad categories to include financial products and services in early 2025