You may be reading a bunch of headlines about changes to Facebook Custom Audiences, Facebook having to change their policies, and this, that and the other.

Yes, it's true, Facebook now requires "consent" for advertisers like us and our clients to use the custom audience feature that we all covet and talk about at length in our Data Driven Academy Facebook Ads courses for marketers from CMOs to Small Business Owners.

However, let's not get this twisted, not THAT much is changing.

You can still retarget your customers with Facebook Ads via email addresses that you upload. You just have to tell Facebook the source of the data when you upload it to create your custom audience. Basically - you have to "consent" to Facebook that you have properly received access to the list of user emails.

Quite honestly, from a marketing best practice standpoint and brand positioning standpoint, having consent or permission to use emails ALWAYS should have been something your business was practicing anyway. And if it wasn't, well then, no time like the present to get you in the best habits to truly help your business grow.

And if you're truly worried about this and it's handcuffing you from actually pulling the trigger on Facebook Ads, don't be silly. Facebook continues to alter their platform to provide the best user experience so people still use it. The "Why Am I Seeing This Ad?" feature is one that will both protect your brand from your ads being shown to the wrong people, as well as protect the Facebook User from being frustrated by seeing your ads.

Ultimately this is a feature that helps your brand save money by rerouting your ad dollars to users that are in fact interested in your brand.

So, while this is significant from a "I'm a digital marketing geek and need to know this stuff" standpoint, this news doesn't really change much from a "Facebook being an amazing ad platform that I need to use to grow my business" standpoint.

Basically, the platform continues to get more sophisticated, and as much in the name of protecting your brand from itself, and ensuring value for your ad spend as anything else.

Keep marketing and have great day.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Paul Hickey, Founder / CEO / Lead Strategist at Data Driven Design, LLC has created and grown businesses via digital strategy and internet marketing for more than 10 years. His sweet spot is using analytics to design and build websites and grow the audience and revenue of businesses via SEO/Blogging, Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook and Instagram Ads, Social Media Content Marketing and Email Marketing. The part that he’s most passionate about is quantifying next marketing actions based on real data.