New Facebook ad transparency sample: Movember Canada ad review

The new Facebook ad transparency is live only in Canada for the next few months!  It will be rolled out to the United States this Summer, but the timing is unknown for other countries.  This may be unnerving for some advertisers because all of their ads running on the Facebook advertising platform are on display to anybody in Canada, regardless of whether or not they are part of the intended audience for that ad.  In reality, this is not much different than the ads that we see in magazines, on television or on the radio.  The bigger issue here is that all of an advertisers ads on Facebook will be on public display, including their test ads.  Those are the ones that we all would like to keep under wraps until we are certain that they are effective.

Since there are probably some people in other countries who would like to see how the new Facebook ad transparency works, I decided to share an example with you.  I chose to look at the currently running Facebook ads of Movember Foundation Canada in honour of men’s health month.

As a reminder, Facebook is requiring advertisers to connect their ad with a Facebook page.  Therefore, find the Facebook page that is of interest to you.  Once you are there, to find the ads that are running on that page, look at the left column of the page, also known as the left sidebar.  Somewhere in the left sidebar, you will see “Ads”.  The word “Ads” usually appears at the end of the list but it can appear somewhere at the top or in the middle depending on how the page is set up. Click on the word “Ads”.

Tada !!  This takes you to the pages’ current ads.  If there are no ads currently running, you will see the following message:

“No Ads Available to View. There are no ads currently running to view.”

If there are ads, you will have to scroll down to see them all.  At the top of this page, there is a a message from Facebook explaining what you are able to see and what you will not be able to see:

“These are ads that <Page Name> is currently showing to people through Facebook’s advertising platform. We’re making these ads available to you even if you’re not part of the intended audience, in order to give you more information about how this Page is using Facebook ads. We’re unable to show certain kinds of ads, such as some dynamic and offer ads, at this time.

You’ll see the Facebook News Feed versions of any ads. Advertisers may run ads across different products, sites and apps (such as Instagram or Messenger), so they may look different here than how they appear there.

Offers, special pricing and other details may not apply to you.”