Meta’s new advertising policies for 2025 introduce significant changes, specifically for health and wellness brands. These updates focus on stricter advertising restrictions & improved transparency. Health-focused advertisers must ensure compliance to maintain visibility on Meta platforms while leveraging tools like event tracking and email marketing for enhanced campaign performance. Let’s dive into it.
Key Updates in Meta’s 2025 Advertising Policies
Meta’s new advertising restrictions aim to protect user privacy and regulate sensitive verticals like health and wellness. Advertisers in these industries face stricter content guidelines and additional scrutiny to ensure ads meet compliance standards. This shift aligns with broader industry trends prioritizing transparency and ethical data usage.
While this can be something that can seriously impact your brands performance, we believe if you utilize the right strategies, and get your account set up correctly as soon as you can, the impact is going to be minimal.
If you need help setting up the strategies we outline below or have questions about what this new policy change could mean for your brand, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me here:
Certified Global Meta Trainer,
Dan Nikas
What This Means For Your Brand:
Restricted Data Sharing and Event Tracking:
Conversion Event Limitations:
Health & Wellness businesses will no longer be able to track lower-funnel events such as “Purchase” or “Lead” for campaign optimization. Instead, they will have to focus on upper-funnel events like “Landing Page Views,” “Engagement,” or “View Content.”
No Server-Side Data Sharing:
Meta’s Conversions API (CAPI), which enables server-side tracking, will also be restricted for this category, reducing the ability to send detailed event data back to the platform.
Broad Categorization of Health and Wellness
Meta’s criteria for classifying brands as part of the health and wellness sector are broad. In addition to traditional health and wellness products, businesses offering solutions for medical conditions, wellness programs, or even fitness-related offerings could fall under this category.
Impact on Different Types of Businesses
Supplement and Other eCommerce Brands:
If you sell health or wellness products online, these changes could disrupt the way you optimize your campaigns and measure sales performance. The loss of lower-funnel tracking means it will be harder to attribute ad performance directly to purchases, leading to less precise budget allocation. Without the right strategies and supplemental first party data, ROAS & broader MER are going to suffer.
Medical Device Companies and Lead Generators:
For brands offering medical devices or services that depend on ads to generate leads for high-value products or services, these changes present unique challenges. Without the ability to optimize campaigns based on “Lead” events, businesses will need to find alternative methods to track and improve the quality of leads.
Brands Misclassified as Health and Wellness:
Companies that don’t traditionally see themselves as part of the health and wellness space—such as fitness programs or apps—may find themselves inadvertently impacted. Regular audits of your Meta account categorization will be essential.
Strategies for Navigating Advertising Restrictions
Adapting to Meta’s policies requires proactive strategies. Here’s how health and wellness brands can stay ahead:
1. Shift to Upper-Funnel Objectives
With lower-funnel events restricted, businesses must optimize for upper-funnel actions such as traffic, engagement, or landing page views. This shift will require a focus on building strong customer journeys that nurture potential customers toward conversion. Building strong relationships with your customers is going to be crucial.
2. Strengthen First-Party Data Collection
Collecting and leveraging first-party data is now more critical than ever. Encourage website visitors to share their contact details through gated content, newsletters, or offers. For lead-generation brands, invest in high-quality landing pages designed to capture detailed information while providing valuable content. Captivate your audience using meta advertising, and capture them on site so you can control how & when you advertise to them.
3. Utilize Third-Party Analytics
While Meta’s tools may become less reliable for measuring conversions, platforms like Google Analytics can provide additional insights into how users engage with your site and move through your sales funnel. Other tools such as triple whale, hyros and other tracking services are going to be become more relevant as the effectiveness of your meta ads spend becomes harder to see.
4. Enhance Creative Strategies
With restrictions on tracking and targeting, the quality of your creative assets becomes even more important. Focus on storytelling that resonates emotionally with your audience, particularly for brands generating leads for high-consideration purchases like medical devices. Targeting a specific user with a specific need / symptom is going to ensure you can target your ideal customer. Meta ads in 2025 are largely driven by hyper targeted creative & copy, with irresistible offers.
For example: Headline in the ad copy needs to ask a question, or directly make a statement about a specific customer – “Are you a busy mum who suffers from irritated skin?”
This ensures you are able to target the right customer avatar without meta understanding who is converting & trying to optimize ad delivery via the audience algorithm.
5. Diversify Your Advertising Channels
Consider expanding your advertising efforts to include platforms like Google Ads, TikTok, LinkedIn, or Pinterest. Each platform offers unique targeting options that can complement your Meta campaigns and reduce your reliance on a single channel.
6. Review Your Meta Categorization
Proactively monitor how Meta classifies your business. If you believe your brand has been miscategorized, request a review promptly to avoid unnecessary restrictions. You can find this under Events Manager > Data sources > Settings > Manage data source categories > Manage.
7. Email Marketing Reigns Supreme
This new policy change for health & wellness brands reminds us all of the infamous iOS 14 updates that bought along a new set of challenges for brands. The brands that succeeded through those challenges, are the brands that had robust email automations & campaigns set up. This powered “behind-the-scenes” profit that is very tricky to hack as a competitor.
If you are a health or wellness brand and are concerned about what these advertising restrictions mean for your brand, we would strongly encourage you to either start or seriously ramp up your email marketing efforts to capture more customers, and then ultimately convert them with more accurate & timely messaging in comparison what meta can deliver for you in the coming months.
Want To Take Your Email Marketing To The Next Level?
With our expert audit, you’ll receive comprehensive insights into your email performance, tailored strategies for Klaviyo optimisation, and actionable recommendations to boost engagement and conversion rates.
Next Steps: Positioning Your Health & Wellness Brand for Success
To thrive under Meta’s new advertising framework, health and wellness brands should:
-
Invest in Compliance Training: Educate your marketing team about Meta’s policies to avoid penalties and ad disapprovals.
-
Strengthen Content Strategies: Create transparent, accurate, and engaging ad content that aligns with user expectations & your ideal customer avatar.
-
Adopt Advanced Analytics: Use Meta’s tools & third party analytics for event tracking to gain deeper insights into audience behavior.
-
Focus on Relationship Building: Leverage email marketing and community engagement to foster customer loyalty.
-
Stay Updated: Monitor policy updates and industry trends to remain agile in your marketing strategies.
Meta’s new 2025 advertising policies present challenges but also opportunities for health and wellness brands. By embracing first-party data, refining ad content, and leveraging event tracking, businesses can navigate these changes successfully and continue to grow in a competitive digital landscape.
Again, if you want any assistance understanding what this all means for your brand in particular, our director Dan Nikas is a certified global meta trainer. His job at Meta is to ensure brands are equipped with the tools and understanding to make the most out of these policy changes.
If you would like to get in touch, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us below.
Certified Global Meta Trainer,
Dan Nikas
