Changes to Meta Advertising will impact charity campaigns in 2025

What is happening?

Sharing prohibited data has been a long-standing policy at Meta, but as of January 2025, there have been significant extensions to this policy that impact many charities in particular. This update is expected to have a significant impact on campaign performance, audience targeting, and reporting accuracy for many charities. We expect to see the following impact:

1. Restricted domains: websites classified under restricted categories will be unable to share information with Meta via the pixel. This includes actions such as page views, donations, form completions or any other conversions that occur on your website with the affected pixel.
2. Conversion-based events: these events will no longer be permitted for optimisation and tracking on restricted domains.
3. Audience limitations: audiences based on website visitors will no longer be available for retargeting and lookalike audiences.

Which categories will be impacted?

At the moment, we’re only seeing alerts for websites categorised as “health & wellness” which includes data sources associated with one or more medical conditions or health statuses. However, the full list of categories that could be impacted includes:

• Health and wellness: Associated with medical conditions, specific health statuses, or provider/patient relationships (for example, a patient portal or wellness tracker for depression)
• Financial service: Provides financial tools, consultation and/or services, consumer credit reports
• Unsuitable content: Contains topics related to unsuitable content, including content that violates our Community and Advertising Standards (examples include hate speech, violence and illegal activities)
• Politics: Is associated with members of a specific political party, political position or contains topics related to a political issue
• Race: Is associated with individuals of a specific race
• Religion: Is associated with individuals with specific religious or spiritual beliefs and practices
• Sexuality: Contains topics related to sexuality or sexual orientation
• Gender identity: Is associated with individuals of a specific gender identity
• Nationality: Is associated with individuals of a specific citizenship status, immigration status or refugee status
• Trade union: Is associated with members of a trade union
• Personal hardship: Is associated with individuals likely facing personal hardship
  Source: Facebook Business

Why is Meta making these changes?

This change is part of Meta’s effort to prevent advertisers from sharing prohibited information under their terms of use. It aims to protect users of the Meta platforms and prevent sensitive information from being shared through the Meta pixel.

“At Meta, we have restrictions around the kinds of information businesses can share with us through our Meta Business Tools. We don’t want or permit advertisers to use the Meta Business Tools to share information about people that is not allowed under our Meta Business Tool Terms. This includes information that may be considered sensitive (including any information defined as sensitive under applicable laws, regulations and applicable industry guidelines), or information that is otherwise not allowed under our terms.”

What should we do next?

1. Check the categorisation of your domains

The categorisation of your domains can be viewed in the Events Manager section of Business Manager. There may also be an alert informing you about the upcoming restrictions with the option to review and appeal the categorisation.

Events Manager Overview Alert: Review and address the most important issues that may be affecting your business' performance. Restrictions on data sharing starting January 2025: One or more websites or apps are in categories with restrictions that may start in January 2025. If you think the categories haven't been applied appropriately, you can request a review now before any restrictions start. If you haven’t been flagged for restrictions as of January 2025, our understanding is that there is no guarantee that you will not be flagged. Meta’s policy team continuously reviews content. It’s also possible that if you add or change content to your website, if the content you input is prohibited, your Meta advertising account may be flagged. We suggest being vigilant of this when making changes - particularly large amendments to your site.

2. Appeal the category if appropriate

If you feel that the category has been incorrectly applied, you can submit an appeal.

Sub-domains used for fundraising purposes, such as lottery, raffle, donations and event sign-ups can also be appealed if they do not contain information directly related to the restricted category.

In our experience so far, the likelihood of an appeal being successful and lifting the restrictions entirely is unlikely. Where an account has been flagged, there will be rationale behind it. If you have contacts at Meta, you can reach out to your rep to help explain if there is anything specific that has caused it, but what detail they share will vary on a case-by-case basis.

3. Review campaign set-up

For impacted accounts, the set-up of campaigns will need to be reviewed. As you will no longer be able to use off-platform events that are typically tracked by your pixel, you will need to optimise your campaigns for on-platform events after these restrictions come into force. This includes reach, clicks on ads, video views and lead generation form submissions.

Audiences used within campaigns will also need to be reviewed as retargeting and lookalike audiences based on website visitors or website conversion events will no longer be updated.

Update added 9th January 2025

Over the last two days, Meta has begun sending emails to notify advertisers about the updates that will impact them. These emails will be sent until 13th January, so not all accounts may have received a notification yet.

This notification gives advertisers 7-days notice that the restrictions will be applied to their accounts and provides two options:

• Appeal categorisation - This will not be an option for most domains as they will be correctly categorised. Subdomains used for donations, events, lottery etc may potentially be an exception, so it’s worth trying to appeal these.
  
• Request more time - Meta is offering affected advertisers a 30-day extension before restrictions are applied. We strongly recommend requesting this extension to give your organisation more time to plan and reduce the immediate impact on campaigns.

You can check for the alert and request more time within the Data Sources section of Ads Manager.

Update added 6th March 2025

We have learned that the impact of this policy varies, depending on your chosen advertising location. For example, restrictions are different outside of the EU and UK. Within the EU, pixels flagged as violating the Health and Wellbeing policy will see that events are fully restricted as discussed above. However, if you are advertising outside of the EU, even with a data source that has been restricted, you may still be able to receive conversion and optimise for conversion events. It appears that the restrictions predominantly impact advertisers within the EU.

After further calls with Meta, we’ve learned that if your pixel is restricted, there may be a potential workaround—though it is not guaranteed to work for every charity. The approach involves creating a new domain or subdomain and associating it with a new Business Tool and new Meta pixel.

To minimise the chance of your new domain and pixel being restricted, the new domain or subdomain must not contain any prohibited content under Meta’s Health and Wellness policy. For this reason, we would advise that you consciously limit the number of pages your new pixel is added to. If it does contain prohibited content, it is also likely to be restricted and you’ll be back to square one - this time with two restricted pixels that can’t share conversion data with Meta.

For example, you could create donate.yourcharity.org, ensuring that the content is strictly focused on compliant donation-related messaging. By having your pixel on a limited number of pages, you can control the content more easily.

However, it’s important to note that even with a clean domain and pixel, there is still no guarantee that the new setup won’t also be restricted, as the policies are evolving and content being consistently reviewed.

Update added 15th July 2025 - More restrictions coming from Meta

Meta has announced another important change that will affect how charities use custom audiences and custom conversions in their ads. These changes will start to roll out from 2nd September 2025.

What’s changing?

From September, Meta will block the use of any custom audiences or conversions that include sensitive information - for example:

• Health conditions (like “diabetes” or “arthritis”)
• Financial status (like “credit score” or “high income”)

These types of audiences or conversions will be flagged and won’t work in new or existing ad campaigns.

What this means for your campaigns

• Custom audiences that are flagged won’t be able to grow. You can’t add new people to them, and any ads using them may stop performing well.
• Custom conversions that are flagged will stop collecting data. This means Meta can’t optimise your ads properly, and performance could drop.

Meta won’t stop your ads automatically - but if they’re using flagged data, they’ll likely become less effective over time.

What you should do now

1. Check your custom audiences and conversions — remove anything that refers to health, income, or other sensitive topics.
2. Create new ones if needed, using only permitted information.
3. Watch for alerts in Ads Manager starting 15th July 2025. If Meta flags something incorrectly, you can request a review.
4. Update your campaigns before September so they continue to work as expected.

Our take

While this change isn’t as sudden as January’s restrictions, it further tightens how charities can use Meta’s tools - particularly those working in health, hardship, or financial support. It reinforces the need for charities to take a proactive role in auditing their data strategy and campaign structures, rather than relying on Meta to flag issues after the fact.

It’s yet another sign that privacy-first advertising is here to stay, and we’re likely to see more updates like this in the coming months. If Meta is a key channel for your charity, we recommend building in regular checks of your audience and conversion data - not just for compliance, but to protect campaign performance longer term.

Latest update added 26th July 2025 – EU-wide ban on social issue advertising

Meta has confirmed that from early October 2025, it will no longer allow political, electoral or social issue ads to run in the European Union and associated territories.

This major change is in response to the EU’s new Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) regulation, which imposes complex new requirements around transparency and ad targeting.

Ads that fall under Meta’s “social issue” category - including campaigns focused on climate change, health access, education reform, refugee rights, housing, or any other public-interest advocacy - will be prohibited across Meta platforms in affected regions. This will apply regardless of whether an ad promotes a political position or simply raises awareness.

Does this impact the UK?

No - not at this stage. The ban is limited to EU member states and associated territories (such as French overseas territories, Greenland, and the Dutch Caribbean). Ads targeting audiences in the UK can continue as normal for now, including paid promotion of content related to social causes.

That said, we see this as a clear signal of where policy is heading globally. As platforms adjust to tighter regulations around transparency, privacy and political content, similar restrictions could be introduced elsewhere in future - including the UK.

Summary of the changes

• From October, paid ads about social issues will be banned across the EU and associated territories.
  
• This includes any charity campaigns touching on topics Meta classifies as socially or politically sensitive.
  
• The ban only applies to paid advertising - organisations can still post and share content organically.
  
• Non-EU countries, including the UK, are not affected - but this may change in future.
  

What this means for charities

This change will have a significant impact on EU-based campaigns run by charities, advocacy groups, and nonprofits - particularly those using Meta for storytelling, awareness, or pressure campaigns. If your cause or content falls under Meta’s broad definition of “social issues”, you will no longer be able to amplify it using Meta ads in affected regions.

What you should do next

• Review your upcoming ad plans targeting EU audiences - flag any issue-based campaigns.
  
• Pause or rework campaigns that will be affected, or consider running them before the October cut-off.
  
• Consider other channels (e.g. Google, TikTok, programmatic display) to reach EU audiences at scale.
  
• Double down on organic strategy - while you can’t promote social issue content, you can still post and engage. Consider investing more in SEO or email marketing.
  
• Keep watch on UK policy developments - while the UK is not affected yet, regulation in this space is evolving fast.

Share your concerns

We anticipate that these updates will significantly affect charities that rely on Meta as a primary channel for fundraising. We are actively working with our clients to minimise the impact by exploring alternative solutions.

We also encourage charities to share their concerns regarding how these changes may impact their marketing and wider organisational objectives. To contribute to our collective response to Meta, please complete this short form and let us know how you believe this will affect your operations.

As this situation evolves, we will continue to provide updates and guidance to help you adapt your Meta advertising strategies effectively.