Facebook connection

Overview

Activate profiles for your Facebook campaigns for audience targeting, personalization, and suppression based on hashed emails.

You can use this destination for audience targeting across Facebook’s family of apps that are supported by Custom Audiences, including Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, and Messenger. Selection of the app that you want to run campaign against is indicated at the placement level in Facebook Ads Manager.

Facebook destination in the Adobe Experience Platform UI

Use cases

To help you better understand how and when to use the Facebook destination, here are two sample use cases that Adobe Experience Platform customers can solve by using this feature.

Use case #1

An online retailer wants to reach existing customers through social platforms and show them personalized offers based on their previous orders. The online retailer can ingest email addresses from their own CRM to Adobe Experience Platform, build segments from their own offline data, and send these segments to the Facebook social platform, optimizing their advertising spending.

Use case #2

An airline has different customer tiers (Bronze, Silver, and Gold), and wants to provide each of the tiers with personalized offers via social platforms. However, not all customers use the airline’s mobile app, and some of them have not logged on to the company’s website. The only identifiers the company has about these customers are membership IDs and email addresses.

To target them across social media, they can onboard the customer data from their CRM into Adobe Experience Platform, using the email addresses as identifiers.

Next, they can use their offline data including associated membership IDs and customer tiers to build new audience segments that they can target through the Facebook destination.

Supported identities

Facebook Custom Audiences supports the activation of identities described in the table below. Learn more about identities.

Target Identity Description Considerations
GAID Google Advertising ID Select the GAID target identity when your source identity is a GAID namespace.
IDFA Apple ID for Advertisers Select the IDFA target identity when your source identity is an IDFA namespace.
phone_sha256 Phone numbers hashed with the SHA256 algorithm Both plain text and SHA256 hashed phone numbers are supported by Adobe Experience Platform. Follow the instructions in the ID matching requirements section and use the appropriate namespaces for plain text and hashed phone numbers, respectively. When your source field contains unhashed attributes, check the Apply transformation option, to have Platform automatically hash the data on activation.
email_lc_sha256 Email addresses hashed with the SHA256 algorithm Both plain text and SHA256 hashed email addresses are supported by Adobe Experience Platform. Follow the instructions in the ID matching requirements section and use the appropriate namespaces for plain text and hashed email addresses, respectively. When your source field contains unhashed attributes, check the Apply transformation option, to have Platform automatically hash the data on activation.
extern_id Custom user IDs Select this target identity when your source identity is a custom namespace.

Export type and frequency

Refer to the table below for information about the destination export type and frequency.

Item Type Notes
Export type Segment export You are exporting all members of a segment (audience) with the identifiers (name, phone number, or others) used in the Facebook destination.
Export frequency Streaming Streaming destinations are “always on” API-based connections. As soon as a profile is updated in Experience Platform based on segment evaluation, the connector sends the update downstream to the destination platform. Read more about streaming destinations.

Facebook account prerequisites

Before you can send your audience segments to Facebook, make sure you meet the following requirements:

  • Your Facebook user account must have the Manage campaigns permission enabled for the Ad account that you plan to use.
  • The Adobe Experience Cloud business account must be added as an advertising partner in your Facebook Ad Account. Use business ID=206617933627973. See Add Partners to Your Business Manager in the Facebook documentation for details.
    IMPORTANT

    When configuring the permissions for Adobe Experience Cloud, you must enable the Manage campaigns permission. The permission is required for the Adobe Experience Platform integration.

    * Read and sign the Facebook Custom Audiences Terms of Service. To do so, go to `https://business.facebook.com/ads/manage/customaudiences/tos/?act=[accountID]`, where `accountID` is your Facebook Ad Account ID.
    IMPORTANT

    When signing the Facebook Custom Audiences Terms of Service, make sure to use the same user account that you used to authenticate in the Facebook API.

ID matching requirements

Facebook requires that no personally identifiable information (PII) is sent in clear. Therefore, the audiences activated to Facebook can be keyed off hashed identifiers, such as email addresses or phone numbers.

Depending on the type of IDs that you ingest into Adobe Experience Platform, you must adhere to their corresponding requirements.

Phone number hashing requirements

There are two methods to activate phone numbers in Facebook:

  • Ingesting raw phone numbers: you can ingest raw phone numbers in the E.164 format into Platform. They automatically hashed upon activation. If you choose this option, make sure to always ingest your raw phone numbers into the Phone_E.164 namespace.
  • Ingesting hashed phone numbers: you can pre-hash your phone numbers before ingestion into Platform. If you choose this option, make sure to always ingest your hashed phone numbers into the Phone_SHA256 namespace.
NOTE

Phone numbers ingested into the Phone namespace cannot be activated in Facebook.

Email hashing requirements

You can hash email addresses before ingesting them into Adobe Experience Platform, or use email addresses in clear in Experience Platform, and have Platform hash them on activation.

To learn about ingesting email addresses in Experience Platform, see the batch ingestion overview and the streaming ingestion overview.

If you select to hash the email addresses yourself, make sure to comply with the following requirements:

  • Trim all leading and trailing spaces from the email string; example: johndoe@example.com, not <space>johndoe@example.com<space>;
  • When hashing the email strings, make sure to hash the lowercase string;
    • Example: example@email.com, not EXAMPLE@EMAIL.COM;
  • Ensure that the hashed string is all lowercase
    • Example: 55e79200c1635b37ad31a378c39feb12f120f116625093a19bc32fff15041149, not 55E79200C1635B37AD31A378C39FEB12F120F116625093A19bC32FFF15041149;
  • Do not salt the string.
NOTE

Data from unhashed namespaces is automatically hashed by Platform upon activation.
Attribute source data is not automatically hashed. When your source field contains unhashed attributes, check the Apply transformation option, to have Platform automatically hash the data on activation.
The Apply transformation option is only displayed when you select attributes as source fields. It is not displayed when you choose namespaces.

Identity mapping transformation

Using custom namespaces

Before you can use the Extern_ID namespace to send data to Facebook, make sure you synchronize your own identifiers using Facebook Pixel. See the Facebook official documentation for detailed information.

Connect to the destination

IMPORTANT

To connect to the destination, you need the Manage Destinations access control permission. Read the access control overview or contact your product administrator to obtain the required permissions.

To connect to this destination, follow the steps described in the destination configuration tutorial. In the configure destination workflow, fill in the fields listed in the two sections below.

The video below also demonstrates the steps to configure a Facebook destination and activate segments.

NOTE

The Experience Platform user interface is frequently updated and may have changed since the recording of this video. For the most up-to-date information, refer to the destination configuration tutorial.

Authenticate to destination

  1. Find the Facebook destination in the destination catalog and select Set Up.
  2. Select Connect to destination.
    Authenticate to Facebook
  3. Enter your Facebook credentials and select Log In.

Fill in destination details

To configure details for the destination, fill in the required and optional fields below. An asterisk next to a field in the UI indicates that the field is required.

  • Name: A name by which you will recognize this destination in the future.
  • Description: A description that will help you identify this destination in the future.
  • Account ID: Your Facebook Ad Account ID. You can find this ID in your Facebook Ads Manager account. When entering this ID, always prefix it with act_.

Enable alerts

You can enable alerts to receive notifications on the status of the dataflow to your destination. Select an alert from the list to subscribe to receive notifications on the status of your dataflow. For more information on alerts, see the guide on subscribing to destinations alerts using the UI.

When you are finished providing details for your destination connection, select Next.

Activate segments to this destination

IMPORTANT

To activate data, you need the Manage Destinations, Activate Destinations, View Profiles, and View Segments access control permissions. Read the access control overview or contact your product administrator to obtain the required permissions.

See Activate audience data to streaming segment export destinations for instructions on activating audience segments to this destination.

In the Segment schedule step, you must provide the Origin of audience when sending segments to Facebook Custom Audiences.

Facebook Origin of Audience

Mapping example: activating audience data in Facebook Custom Audience

Below is an example of correct identity mapping when activating audience data in Facebook Custom Audience.

Selecting source fields:

  • Select the Email namespace as source identity if the email addresses you are using are not hashed.
  • Select the Email_LC_SHA256 namespace as source identity if you hashed customer email addresses on data ingestion into Platform, according to Facebook email hashing requirements.
  • Select the PHONE_E.164 namespace as source identity if your data consists of non-hashed phone numbers. Platform will hash the phone numbers to comply with Facebook requirements.
  • Select the Phone_SHA256 namespace as source identity if you hashed phone numbers on data ingestion into Platform, according to Facebook phone number hashing requirements.
  • Select the IDFA namespace as source identity if your data consists of Apple device IDs.
  • Select the GAID namespace as source identity if your data consists of Android device IDs.
  • Select the Custom namespace as source identity if your data consists of other type of identifiers.

Selecting target fields:

  • Select the Email_LC_SHA256 namespace as target identity when your source namespaces are either Email or Email_LC_SHA256.
  • Select the Phone_SHA256 namespace as target identity when your source namespaces are either PHONE_E.164 or Phone_SHA256.
  • Select the IDFA or GAID namespaces as target identity when your source namespaces are IDFA or GAID.
  • Select the Extern_ID namespace as target identity when your source namespace is a custom one.
IMPORTANT

Data from unhashed namespaces is automatically hashed by Platform upon activation.

Attribute source data is not automatically hashed. When your source field contains unhashed attributes, check the Apply transformation option, to have Platform automatically hash the data on activation.

Identity mapping

Exported data

For Facebook, a successful activation means that a Facebook custom audience would be created programmatically in Facebook Ads Manager. Segment membership in the audience would be added and removed as users are qualified or disqualified for the activated segments.

TIP

The integration between Adobe Experience Platform and Facebook supports historical audience backfills. All historical segment qualifications get sent to Facebook when you activate the segments to the destination.

Troubleshooting

400 Bad Request error message

When configuring this destination, you may receive the following error:

{"message":"Facebook Error: Permission error","code":"400 BAD_REQUEST"}

This error occurs when customers are using newly created accounts, and the Facebook permissions are not yet active.

If you receive the 400 Bad Request error message after following the steps in Facebook account prerequisites, please allow a few days for the Facebook permissions to come into effect.

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