Introducing Graph API v5.0 and Marketing API v5.0

Today we’re releasing Graph API v5.0 and Marketing API v5.0, which features a new Ad Volume API that will help advertisers understand how many ads they’re running and prepare for the upcoming ads limitations that will be introduced next year.

Ad Limits and the Ad Volume API:

Update [April 8, 2020]: We’re delaying ad limits enforcement until early 2021. We still recommend that high ad volume advertisers reduce ad volume now to help improve performance.

In mid 2020, we are implementing a limit on the number of ads each Page can run at the same time. The ad limits will impact just a small percentage of advertisers, and we plan to share more details about the limits early next year.

We’re implementing ad limits because very high ad volume can hinder an advertiser’s performance. With too many ads running at the same time, fewer ads exit the learning phase and more budget is spent before the delivery system can optimize an ad’s performance.

To help you prepare, we released the Ad Volume API which allows you to track a Page’s ad volume for an ad account. In the future, this API will also track a Page’s ad volume across ad accounts and the number of ads that each Page will be permitted to use.

Special Ad Category Compliance:

Marketing API v5.0 includes a Special Ad Category field for businesses to indicate during campaign creation calls if their ads offer housing, employment, or credit opportunities.

As announced earlier this year, all businesses located in the US or targeting users in the US will be required to identify new and edited ad campaigns that offer housing, employment, or credit opportunities by Dec. 4, 2019, or their ads will not be allowed to run. Businesses must specify a Special Ad Category and use the limited audience criteria available for Special Ad Category campaigns (and this applies across all ad buying surfaces, including the Marketing API). If using Marketing API v5.0 or above, the Special Ad Category field is required for all ads, whether offering housing, employment or credit opportunities or not.

We’re announcing additional milestones for businesses running campaigns that do not fall under a Special Ad Category, or businesses running Special Ad Category campaigns that were created before Dec. 4, 2019:

• February 11, 2020: By this date, businesses located in the US or targeting users in the US will be required to identify any active campaigns that belong to a Special Ad Category and update the targeting settings for such campaigns, or these ads will no longer be allowed to run. This applies to all campaigns that were created or edited before Dec. 4, 2019 across all ad buying surfaces, including through the Marketing API.
• March 31, 2020: By this date, all businesses using the Marketing API must identify whether or not new and edited campaigns belong to a Special Ad Category and update their targeting settings to comply with restrictions for Special Ad Category campaigns, or their ads will not be allowed to run. Businesses whose ads do not offer housing, employment or credit opportunities will have to indicate ‘None’ in the Special Ad Category field for all campaigns through the Marketing API.

Additional Marketing API changes:

• Deprecated Metrics and Optimization: We are deprecating the 10-second video view metric and the 10-second video views optimization, and replacing them with the ThruPlay optimization and metric. For more information on why we’re making these changes, review our Ads Help Center.
• Ads Library Filters: Advertisers can search for all ads stored in the Ads Library and search data for all active and inactive ads related to politics or issues of importance. We now offer filters so it is easier for you to find certain types of ads.
• Sunsetting the Ad Keyword Stats API endpoint, as part of an effort to retire endpoints with low adoption and simplify our reporting-based solutions. If these interest-level breakdowns are heavily used in any of your current campaign planning workflows, try one of these suggested solutions: insight breakdowns, lift studies and/or split tests.
• New features on the Messenger Platform (v5.0): An easier way for brands that have multiple apps connected to the Messenger platform to select the app that they want to use for their click to Messenger ads.

For a full list of changes, see the Marketing API (v5.0) changelog.

Reminders:

• On Oct. 7, we released a new version of the Facebook SDK - v5.8.0. This latest version introduces automatic advanced matching to help enhance user match rates and additional updates to the SDK to protect user privacy. We’re encouraging all developers, advertisers and partners to update the version of the SDK they are using to v5.8.0 to ensure continued admittance to the Apple App Store and take advantage of new features that we’ve released.
• Developers should specify /v5.0/ in your URLs when you call the API.
• Mobile SDK developers should view changelog for Android SDK and IOS SDK.
• Business SDK developers should view our latest Java SDK, PHP SDK, Python SDK, NodeJs SDK or Ruby SDK.