Create a special category ad campaign

Ads that target the United States that feature credit, employment, or housing offers fall into special categories on Facebook. Facebook restricts targeting options for these categories to prevent discrimination on their platform.

If a campaign contains an ad in a special category, Legacy Hootsuite Ads must identify it as such, to comply with Facebook's advertising policies. See Facebook’s article on Discriminatory Policies for more information.

Identify a campaign containing special ads

1. On the Legacy Hootsuite Ads home page, select New Campaign.
2. On the Facebook tab, enter a name for your campaign and select an ad account.
3. Select the box next to Special category and select the appropriate category for your ads from the list:
   • Credit: Ads for credit card offers, auto loans, long-term financing, or other related opportunities.
   • Employment: Ads for job offers, internships, professional certification programs, or other related opportunities.
   • Housing: Ads for real estate listings, homeowners insurance, mortgage loans, or other related opportunities.

Based on this special category information, Legacy Hootsuite Ads automatically updates your target audience options when you are setting up your campaign audience. .

Targeting limitations for special categories

You cannot use saved audiences and lookalike audiences to target special category ads. You can select special ad audiences created on Facebook from Custom Audiences. For more information about special ad audiences, see Facebook's help article About Audiences for Credit, Employment or Housing.

The following options are also unavailable for special category ads:

• Targeting by ZIP code
• Targeting by age (all audiences will include ages 18 through 65+)
• Targeting by gender (all audiences will include all genders)
• Targeting by behaviors and demographics in Detailed Targeting
• Excluding a custom audience
• Excluding a location
• Excluding any Detailed Targeting options
• Targeting expansion
• Split testing multiple audiences

All specific locations also include a 15-mile radius around the target selected.