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Does your business use the Facebook pixel? Retargeting? Custom audiences? Make sure your website terms reflect this…

Facebook pixel is JavaScript code that you can place on your website to build audiences for your advertising campaigns, and understand how people are using your website to inform more effective Facebook advertising campaigns in the future. You can measure cross-device conversions, optimize advertisement delivery, create custom audiences for website visitors, find people similar to your best customers, create relevant and timely advertisements on Facebook, and access information about the people who visit your website.

More specifically, conversion tracking shows you what happens after a customer clicks on your advertisement – whether they purchase a product, sign up for a newsletter, call your business, or download your app. Once a customer has completed an action, this is defined as a conversion. Having a conversion tracking tool lets you see which words, images and campaigns are selling points for which customers, and allows your business to spend money on the kinds of advertising campaigns that are working for you, that will show valuable return on investment.

Retargeting in this context means that you are retargeting your advertising to a custom audience – the most relevant Facebook audience for your product or service. Common strategies include remarketing your brand to people who have already visited your website – to do this you must have a Facebook website custom audience in place, and when someone visits a page with your custom audience code then they are added to your custom audience list in your Facebook Ads Manager. You can personalise your custom audience if you only want to retarget a portion of the traffic that has visited your website.

You may also choose to retarget existing Facebook fans, existing email subscribers, and similar audiences – people who share similar characteristics to your existing connections and are very likely to be interested in your products, services and content.

Australian Privacy Law

Facebook’s use of cookie technology has begun to infringe upon the individuals’ fundamental right to privacy. Facebook uses data such as a person’s hometown, relationship status and ‘checked-in’ locations as part of providing targeted advertising to businesses. The current Australian Privacy Principles do not directly deal with issues of gathering and storing data (for third-party cookies in particular), as the legislation focuses more on how the information is used rather than obtained.

Currently, the Privacy Act in Australia only requires that ISPs only gain consent before collecting sensitive information – consent that operates on an ‘opt-out’ basis. That means most users do not know that their data is being collected and shared, and users are also currently unable to access the user profile that is created about them. It is likely that in the future Australia will amend privacy laws so that individuals are required to ‘opt-in’ to information or data gathering practices, so that they are fully aware that they are being tracked, and can control how much information they disclose. Keep an eye out for any changes to privacy laws in Australia to ensure your business does not break the law by continuing to use code such as Facebook pixel for marketing purposes.

Facebook and Google terms and conditions under Australian Law

When you use the Facebook pixel for Conversion Tracking or to create Website Custom Audiences, you must update your website. You must create a clear link from each webpage where Facebook pixel operates to the section of your privacy policy, which must clearly state: (a) third parties may use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies to collect or receive information from your website and elsewhere on the internet and use that information to provide measurement services and target advertisements; (b) how users can opt-out of the collection and use of information for advertisement targeting; and (c) where a user can access a mechanism for exercising such a choice and provide a link to the appropriate ‘opt-out’ website.

This is general advice only. Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation. 

Published June 14, 2017

Jessica Kerr is the Director of Sinclair + May, a female-led, boutique commercial law firm based in Melbourne’s inner north.  Sinclair + May work with small businesses to ensure their legals are in order. Book a free 15-min chat here to talk with one of our solicitors.