Facebook and Instagram keep a list of the topics they think interest you in your Meta Accounts Center.
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Facebook and Instagram keep a list of topics they think interest you in your Meta Accounts Center.
These topics, like brands and sports, are used to serve you ads Meta thinks you’ll find relevant.
Here’s how to find out what Facebook and Instagram think you like via their apps.
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Some of these made sense, such as travel, holidays, and hiking trails. I also frequently write about high net worth individuals and luxury goods for work.
But all the running-related topics confused me. I started running at the start of the year and ran my first charity half-marathon in May, but I had definitely never expressed any interest in events like the Chicago Marathon and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon. This perhaps explained why I’d recently been getting so many ads for charity marathons and sports clothing – clearly Meta thinks I’m obsessed with running.
Listed in my ad topics was also the Japanese manga series Death Note and the Italian talent show “Amici di Maria De Filippi,” both of which I’d never heard of before. There were also a number of bands and musicians I was unfamiliar with on the list.
There were also many topics I’ve never expressed any interest in, like the Masters Tournament, baby and toddler food, and Fender Telecaster guitars.
These include settings related to whether Meta uses activity information from companies, such as what you’ve done on their website or app or in person, to show ads that it thinks will be more relevant for you.
“For example, if you buy a pair of shoes at your local shopping centre, you might later see an ad for more shoes from that same company or a similar company,” one of the settings pages says.
Meta also lets you control which categories advertisers can use to reach you, such as your employer, job title, education, and relationship status.
Other categories Meta says I’m in that advertisers can use to target me include people born in my birthday month, people who live away from their family and their home town, people who are frequent international travellers, and people who are friends of men or women with upcoming birthdays.
Meta says that advertisers you interact with outside of the site can share information about you with the company “to help us improve you ad experience,” but reinforces that users are “always” in control of their ad settings.