A weekly-ish roundup of what’s changing in digital advertising — curated for UK charity advertisers. | Estimated read time: 5 minutes.
In this week’s feed
- Meta’s 2% UK location fee starts 1 July — action needed now
- Meta changing how it measures reach — your reporting tools may be affected
- Why your Meta costs are higher than six months ago
- Google: Dynamic Search Ads deadline pushed to February 2027
- Google is changing how budgets behave — automatically, from 17 August
- TikTok and Snapchat: what’s changing for charities
- The innovation story to watch: programmatic audiences built from charity donation data
- Policy & regulation: ICO, ASA and HMRC VAT
- Quick notes
⚠️ Meta’s 2% UK location fee starts 1 July — 12 days to go
From 1 July, every ad you run that reaches a UK audience on Facebook or Instagram will carry a 2% surcharge on top of your spend. This is Meta passing on the UK’s Digital Services Tax — Google has been doing this since 2020; Meta has been absorbing the cost until now.
In practice: a £1,000 campaign becomes a £1,020 invoice. The fee is itemised separately in your billing section so it won’t look like a campaign cost. If you’re also running campaigns targeting France, Italy, Spain, Austria or Turkey, factor in rates of 3–5% for those countries too.
What to do before 1 July:
- Adjust your budget projections — the 2% needs to be factored into your July media costs
- Brief your finance team or treasurer so the higher invoice isn’t a surprise
- If you work with a Meta sales rep, contact them with any questions
This is a structural cost increase across all Meta advertising — not something you can opt out of. (Source: TDMP · ALM Corp)
Meta is changing how it measures reach — your reporting tools may be affected
By end of June, Meta is retiring its standard Reach metric and replacing it with something called “Page Viewer.” The aim is to make the measurement consistent across Facebook and Instagram — but if you use any tool that automatically pulls your Meta performance data (like Looker Studio, Sprout Social, or a custom dashboard), the reach figures may go blank or break when the old metric switches off. Worth checking with whoever manages your reporting setup before the end of the month. (Source: AdManage.ai)
Why your Meta costs are higher than they were six months ago
Meta has made a behind-the-scenes update to how it decides which ad to show to which person. The result: ad costs have risen by more than 20% across the platform, even though conversion volumes have stayed roughly stable. If you’re being asked by leadership or trustees why Meta spend is producing less for the same budget, this is the honest answer — it’s platform-wide, not a campaign performance issue. (Source: Pixis)
Google: Dynamic Search Ads deadline pushed back to February 2027
Google had been moving towards switching off Dynamic Search Ads in favour of its newer Performance Max campaigns. That deadline has now been pushed to February 2027. If you’re running DSA campaigns — common in Ad Grants accounts — you have breathing room, but the direction is clear. Better to start getting familiar with Performance Max now than face a rushed migration next year.
Source: Google
Google is changing how budgets behave — automatically, from 17 August
From 17 August, Google will automatically pull back campaigns that have been spending beyond their target to bring them back in line. Campaigns that were quietly over-delivering — reaching more people than your targets suggested — may see a drop in volume from that date. No action needed now, but worth noting so it doesn’t look like an unexplained dip in your August reports.
Source: Google
TikTok and Snapchat: what’s changing for charities
TikTok has introduced an ad-free subscription tier in the UK at £3.99/month, driven by GDPR consent requirements. Uptake will be gradual but it signals a longer-term trend of shrinking addressable ad audiences on social platforms. Separately, TikTok has updated its Pulse programme, which lets brands place ads directly alongside trending videos or specific creator content — useful for tighter control over where your ads appear on the platform. (Source: TechCrunch · eMarketer)
Snapchat meanwhile is pushing hard for advertiser attention. New AI creative optimisation tools will automatically test combinations of image, video and text to find what performs best — lowering the barrier to testing a new channel. With strong Gen Z reach in the UK and less charity sector competition than Meta, it remains one of the less crowded spaces to reach younger supporters. (Source: Social Media Today)
The innovation story to watch: programmatic audiences built from charity donation data
WPP Media is testing a new approach to programmatic advertising in partnership with an ad tech company called Givsly. They’ve built audience segments using anonymised charity donation data — mapping which types of people give to which types of causes, how often, and at what level — to target people who are already inclined to give, without using tracking cookies. It’s privacy-safe, directly relevant to fundraising, and the kind of audience logic that’s historically been very hard to build programmatically. US-focused and still in testing, but a clear signal of where charity programmatic is heading. (Source: Digiday)
Policy & regulation: three things worth knowing
The ICO wants to loosen consent rules for privacy-safe advertising. The UK’s data regulator published advice to government this week recommending changes to the rules requiring explicit consent before tracking users for advertising. Their argument: the current blanket requirement pushes advertisers towards less privacy-safe workarounds, and flexibility for genuinely privacy-preserving methods like contextual targeting would be better overall. If adopted, this could make it easier and cheaper for charities to run retargeting campaigns. Nothing has changed yet — this is advice to government, not law — but the direction is positive. (Source: Bird & Bird)
The ASA is scanning your ads without waiting for complaints. The Advertising Standards Authority has expanded its AI-powered monitoring system that proactively checks digital ads for non-compliance. For charities, the areas to watch are environmental or impact claims and health-related statements. If any claims in your ad copy can’t be precisely evidenced, now is a good time to tighten them. (Source: Osborne Clarke)
HMRC’s narrow interpretation of charity advertising VAT could increase costs. HMRC has confirmed a restrictive view of what counts as advertising “to the public” for VAT purposes on digital platforms. Charities can normally reclaim VAT on advertising, but if HMRC’s view is applied broadly, some digital ad spend could become more expensive. The Charity Tax Group is in dialogue with HMRC. No action needed yet, but worth flagging to your finance contacts. (Source: Price Bailey)
Quick notes
- UK Online Advertising Programme: the government published its consultation response on 8 June, signalling greater scrutiny of how digital ads are targeted and measured. No immediate action required. (Source: Uprise Up)
- Google Limited Ad Serving now applies to Search: a new policy rolled out on 12 June restricts delivery for ads triggering certain automated compliance checks. Phased enforcement runs through 2028. If you notice unexpected delivery restrictions on Search campaigns, this is worth checking.
- Meta outage on 12 June: Facebook, Instagram and Meta Ads were down globally for several hours. Any dips in delivery around that date are explained by this.
In the Feed is kmac digital’s weekly roundup of digital advertising news for UK charity advertisers. Have questions about how any of this affects your campaigns? Get in touch.