Facebook is changing how it counts people for ads measurement

Advertisers can expect to see an increase in the pre-campaign estimates of the audience.

Facebook is changing the way it counts users to provide advertising measurement for both Facebook along Instagram.

Beginning today, if a person doesn’t have accounts on their Facebook or Instagram accounts connected to their company’s Account Center, those accounts are considered to be two separate individuals for ad planning and measuring. Accounts that are linked in the Account Center will be counted as a single individual. The new rule will take effect over the next few weeks.

In the past, it was a problem. The tech giant considered users with connected Facebook and Instagram accounts as a single person for advertising. They also counted a person only once when it was believed by the company that the same person controlled the accounts, for instance, if a person utilized the same email for both their Facebook as well as Instagram account, or logs into the two sites using on the same computer. If users unlink or choose not to connect the Facebook and Instagram accounts, they are counted as two separate individuals about ads.

The change the move, which Facebook began to inform advertisers earlier in the year, appears to be an initial step towards disabling the two apps that Facebook has been lumping in the past for a long time. The new ads measurement rules might help in making Facebook Instagram and Facebook Instagram appear more separate.

The switch to measure occurs amid Facebook is facing a turbulent week in the media. Facebook is under renewed scrutiny of lawmakers after testimony by Frances Haugen and a worldwide downtime. Instagram is a social media platform that Facebook purchased in 2012 has been in the news due to its adverse effects on teens’ self-esteem and their mental well-being.

For advertisers. This could require changes in estimations of campaign planning and report for specific metrics. Facebook states that advertisers will notice an increase in the pre-campaign estimates for things like audience size estimates. For the vast majority of campaigns, Facebook believes that these changes won’t significantly impact the estimated reach of campaigns.

“This update is in line with the trend of giving users greater control over how their data is used to create advertisements and is in line with changing privacy, advertising, and regulatory environment,” Graham Mudd, Facebook’s VP of product and marketing for ads posted on his blog post about the new policy. The change was announced in June. Facebook began to inform advertisers that the change was coming via announcements about product updates and accounts managers and sales.

The testimony of Haugen has spurred demands for legislation to more tightly restrict tech firms, improve security measures for the privacy of users and hold platforms accountable for the content posted on their websites.

Facebook was home to 2.9 billion active users on June 30, as reported in its earnings report for the second quarter.