If you wondered why you should support independent publications with your ad dollars rather than pouring your money into online platforms, you just got your answer: Meta, the parent of Facebook, last week notified beer, wine and spirits-related businesses that their pages would no longer be recommended by Facebook's algorithms.

As Sean P. Sullivan notes in his Northwest Wine Report, "This change appears to have affected, at minimum, hundreds to potentially tens of thousands of businesses. Wineries, retailers, and other related businesses in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California confirmed that they had been impacted. A business owner in Denmark noted that they had also been affected."

Sullivan notes that the sender address and text of the email made it appear as if it were phishing.

Regardless of whether or not Facebook has really changed its policy, this is a wake-up call for bev/al marketers at all levels – and, frankly, for marketers in general.

You need to own your customer. Advertising on Facebook is no different, down deep, than advertising in the local newspaper or national magazine or on local tv. The viewer or reader is not your customer; the viewer or reader is the customer of the media, but it Facebook, a national publication, or local media.

Your advertising needs to have two objectives:

1. Gaining the customer. By that I don't mean simply making the sale through some third party retailer; I mean getting the customer's name and address, physical as well as e-mail.
2. Maintaining contact with the customer. Your own website, newsletter, etc., can do this job better than Facebook. As can advertising in local or specialized media. Facebook can reach the world, but if you're a distillery selling only in your home state, what value is that? Same thing is through if you're a winery selling DtC through your tasting room, direct shipping, and,, perhaps, retail in a couple of markets.

If you're panicking because Facebook won't carry your ads, ask what the alternatives might be – and whether they might be better. I would suggest in almost every case, except for major national brands, you will be better off putting your advertising dollars into (1) your own website, (2) email to your customers, (3) local media, (4) specialized media, both those aimed at trade and those aimed at consumers, and (5) events,

How do you know where to advertise? Start with yourself. What do you read and watch? Where do you turn for local news? In addition to legacy media, what might you consider? One source for a listing by state is Local Independent Online News, a trade group.

You might consider offering a program to your local public television station about alcoholic beverages, perhaps reviewing a particular product each episode.

And, by the way, Facebook says they still will accept alcohol advertising. As long as it "follow(s) the targeting requirements ofor the location of the audience" and doesn't "target people under 18."

The result was many advertisers pulled their money from legacy media and dumped it into social media. Does it work? Maybe or maybe not. You can have a terrific return on ad spend (ROAS) and be losing money on every single sale resulting from a Facebook ad – or any ad, for that matter – if you don't factor in the cost of fulfilling an order. Factoring in the cost of fulfilling the order as well as the cost of the ad itself is return on investment (ROI). For a detailed discussion, see Fetch & Funnel.