Most people know that Facebook collects data from your profile in order to create ads specifically for you. However, sometimes they don’t always get this information right, and you might be seeing many ads that you’re uninterested in, or uncomfortable with seeing. Or perhaps you’re simply interested in learning how the Facebook ad process works. Below we’ve explained exactly how to manage your Facebook ad settings, and how these settings work in general.
How to set up your Facebook ad settings
Getting to ad settings on PC
The first thing you’ll want to do is get to the ad settings page. You can do this by logging in and pressing the down carrot in the upper right corner and clicking on “Settings” from the drop-down menu. From here you should see “Ads” near the bottom of the left side column.
Getting to ad settings on mobile
The ad settings page works the same way on mobile, but the directions to get there are a little different. After opening the app and logging in, you can press the three lines on the bottom right-hand side to open a new screen. At the bottom of this screen, you should see a drop-down menu titled “Settings & Privacy.” From there, click on “Settings” and about halfway down the next page you should see “Ad Preferences.”
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Read Now ►Setting your preferences
Facebook divides your preferences into five categories:
Your interests
In this category, you can choose what topics you would be interested in seeing ads for. While you won’t exclusively get ads for these topics, Facebook will try to make sure that most of the ads you see are in your interests.
Advertisers you’ve interacted with
This section shows which ads and apps that Facebook has seen you use. With this, they assume that these brands and apps are ones that you are interested in. You can remove brands and apps that you’re not interested in (maybe you accidentally opened an ad you didn’t care about, or you no longer use the app that they show)
Your information
This is the information that advertisers can see based off information that you’ve provided to Facebook. This category is divided into two sections: “About you”, and “Your categories”The “About you” section details lets advertisers see certain information that you’ve detailed in your “About me” section of Facebook. From here you can prevent advertisers from seeing your relationship status, employer, job title, and education, or continue to let them see these.
The “Your categories” section details what categories Facebook has put you in for advertisers based on information they’ve collected via your posts and contacts. You might be in a category of people whose birthdays are in May, or you might be in the category of people who have a smartphone if you use their mobile app. A commonly noticed category is your political view (divided into “very conservative”, “conservative”, “moderate”, “liberal”, and “very liberal”), which Facebook categorizes you into based off your posts. You can remove yourself from categories you don’t feel comfortable being a part of, or that you don’t want advertisers to see.
Ad settings
This category is a little confusing compared to the others. It’s divided into three sections: “Ads based on data from partners”, “Ads based on your activity on Facebook Company Products that you see elsewhere”, and “Ads that include your social actions”
“Ads based on data from partners” is asking if you’re comfortable with Facebook collecting data from partner companies to show ads based on what you do on their sites as well, such as AdEspresso and 4C.
“Ads based on your activity on Facebook Company Products that you see elsewhere” is asking you if you’re comfortable with Facebook collecting information from products that it owns elsewhere.
“Ads that include your social actions” is asking who you feel comfortable with seeing your social actions. If you like a Page that runs an ad, then your friends might see that ad, unless you change these settings.
Hide ad topics
Here you can choose topics that you’re uncomfortable with viewing, and how long you’d like to turn those types of ads off for. One example of ads you might not appreciate seeing are alcohol-related ads when you’re a recovering alcoholic or uninterested in alcohol in general.
As you can see, Facebook keeps track of a lot to try and show you the ads they feel you will enjoy the most. By updating these settings, you can optimize your Facebook experience so it’s not littered with ads that you’re uninterested in.
