All changes that occurred in mid-December were triggered by EU regulations, which, among other things, no longer allow the reporting of the number of messages generated from ad campaigns. Additionally, on Instagram, it is no longer possible to track how many times your posts were shared via direct messages.

The modifications primarily affect three areas: Facebook Ads campaigns, chatbots, and private conversations on Messenger and Instagram.

What changes have been made to chatbots?

The changes to chatbots affect pages based in Europe, administrators from European countries, or those targeting European users. These users will no longer see all the previously available features. So, what exactly has changed?

• You can no longer send or receive video and audio messages.
• The permanent menu has been removed.
• Photo galleries are no longer available (only individual photos can be used).
• The one-time notification option is gone.
• Buttons (which enabled direct linking to a website) are no longer functional.

These changes affect only the desktop versions, adding to the confusion. It’s likely that providers like Chatfuel or ManyChat will soon introduce solutions to address these changes. For now, the safest option is to rebuild chatbots, focusing mainly on text and possibly single images.

A small revolution in Facebook Ads

The changes have also affected Facebook Ads campaigns, especially those with a „messages” objective. Many people feared that this campaign type would no longer be available, but fortunately, that’s not the case. You can still use message-based campaigns, but now the only available optimization option is for „link clicks.”

This shift in optimization, however, may increase the cost per message (since the campaign is now optimized for cost-effective clicks) and complicate reporting (as the dashboard no longer displays the number of conversations started from a given ad).

Another approach is to choose „conversions” as the campaign objective and set Messenger as the conversion location at the ad set level.

However, you should expect reporting challenges and potentially higher costs per message compared to the previous message-optimized campaigns.

Which approach is better for your business?

We recommend testing both methods, but optimizing campaigns for „conversions” may offer greater potential.

What else is changing?

It is no longer possible to target campaigns at users who have previously messaged your page or create lookalike audiences based on those users.

What changes have affected all Messenger and Instagram Direct users?

If you’re a Messenger or Instagram Direct user, you’ve likely noticed that something is missing or „not quite right.” Here’s a list of features that stopped working as of December 16, 2020:

• The ability to set nicknames in conversations.
• The photo gallery in conversations.
• The ability to send links in conversations.
• Editing photos taken within the app.

Further changes to Messenger and Instagram were scheduled to take effect on December 21, 2020, but this didn’t happen. There were rumors of restrictions on some InstaStories features, with some sources even suggesting the complete removal of InstaStories, but thankfully, this turned out to be fake news. You can find detailed information about all the recent changes here: Facebook Business Help.