Meta's Health & Wellness Data Restrictions: What Changed and How to Fix It

As of January 2025, Meta is blocking supplement and wellness brands from tracking Purchase and Add to Cart events. If your campaigns suddenly stopped optimizing properly, this is why.

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Affected Events: Purchase, Add to Cart, Initiate Checkout, and any custom conversion events tied to transactions are now restricted for health and wellness businesses.

What Happened

Meta updated its Business Tools Terms to restrict how health and wellness businesses can use tracking pixels and the Conversions API (CAPI). This affects supplements, vitamins, CBD products, fitness programs, mental health apps, and anything Meta classifies as health-related.

Why Meta Did This

Two factors drove this change. First, legal pressure from healthcare privacy lawsuits. Hospitals and healthcare providers faced class actions for sharing patient data through Meta Pixel. Meta is preemptively limiting exposure by restricting all health-adjacent businesses.

Second, regulatory anticipation. With HIPAA enforcement expanding and state privacy laws multiplying, Meta is reducing liability before regulators force their hand.

How to Check If You're Affected

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Quick Check: Open Events Manager → Select your pixel → Settings → Look for "Business Category." If it shows "Health and Wellness," you're affected.

You can also look for a notification banner about "Health and Wellness" categorization in Events Manager. If you see it, your tracking is already restricted.

What Still Works

You can still run ads. You can still track landing page views, leads, and engagement events. You can still use UTM parameters and server-side tracking for your own analytics. You just can't send purchase data back to Meta for optimization.

How to Adapt Your Campaigns

The practical fix is optimizing for Landing Page Views or Leads instead of Purchases. This requires adjusting your campaign structure.

For lead generation: Create a simple quiz or assessment that captures emails before the product page. Optimize for Lead events, which are still allowed.

For direct response: Optimize for Landing Page Views and rely on your own attribution. Your ROAS tracking moves to Google Analytics or a first-party solution.

For retargeting: Build audiences based on page views and time on site rather than cart activity.

If You're Miscategorized

Some brands get incorrectly flagged. If you sell general wellness products that aren't health-specific, you can appeal through Events Manager.

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Appeal Process: Go to Events Manager → Settings → Find the categorization notice → Submit documentation showing your products don't fall under health claims. Include product pages, ingredient lists, and evidence you're not making health claims. Appeals typically take 3-7 business days.

The Silver Lining

Compliant advertisers may actually benefit from this change. Brands that relied on aggressive health claims now face the same restrictions as everyone else. If you've been playing by the rules, the competitive landscape just leveled.

What to Do This Week

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Action Required:

Check Events Manager for categorization notices
Audit active campaigns for Purchase optimization dependency
Set up test campaigns using Landing Page Views
Document current ROAS before restrictions take full effect
If miscategorized, file an appeal immediately

Sources:

Marketing Brew: "Meta plans crackdown on health-related user data" (December 9, 2024)
Foley Hoag LLP: "Meta's New Advertising Rules: Key Considerations for Health and Wellness Businesses" (January 2025)
Meta Business Tools Terms