The amount of new features and updates that have been rolled out in 2019 has been overwhelming. We can all agree on this, but can we agree on which updates are going to have the largest impact on the Paid Social advertising industry? Here is my roundup of the top updates from 2019 across the two major platforms: Facebook and LinkedIn. 

Facebook

Transparency Updates

The most obvious theme of updates to Paid Facebook advertising in 2019 was improving their transparency, which included the introduction of the new brand safety tools, restricted targeting, the ad library, and more that I won’t cover here.

New brand safety tools were launched in November giving advertisers a dedicated space in ads manager to apply block lists, the ability to download new and improved delivery reports, and the capability to set an account-level inventory filter. Facebook has been continuing to bolster its partnerships in the brand safety space, with Zefr being the most recent to join DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science, and OpenSlate in helping tools to suit advertisers’ needs. Publisher white lists are now available for select advertisers that might have previously been too hesitant to jump into the space, and this inventory is set to expand in 2020. 

Targeting restrictions were rolled out to advertisers in the housing, employment, and credit industry that prevents them from targeting by age, gender, or zip code. As a whole, these businesses will have less targeting capabilities for protected…