For kids-brand marketers, a Facebook program should address adult purchasers and begin with a review of audience data, consent and creative. Use the steps below to prepare a parent-facing campaign brief before spending. Allow an estimated half-day for the initial checklist if records are available; legal review, audience remediation and campaign testing need additional time determined by the findings.
Last updated October 15, 2026.
What you need
- Adult customer and subscriber records with documented permissions.
- Counsel to review child-directed data collection.
- Access to tracking records and parent-facing creative.
Step-by-step guide
Step 1: Review data practices
Have counsel review pixel and Conversions API events on child-directed pages and identify any remediation needed before launch. Expected result: A documented data inventory and review decision.
Step 2: Build an adult audience
Use eligible purchaser and subscriber records for a parent-facing audience; do not upload child data. Expected result: An audience record with its permission basis.
Step 3: Write parent-first creative
Address the adult purchaser and state product age range, price and intended use clearly. Expected result: Creative ready for factual and compliance review.
Step 4: Review community content
Participate appropriately in parenting communities and obtain documented parental permission before reposting a child’s image. Expected result: A permissions record for every reused asset.
Step 5: Launch and review
Use the agreed goal, budget and creative, and keep the audience and compliance record current during testing. Expected result: A monitored campaign with documented decisions.
Common mistakes
- Assuming teen interest targeting is available.
- Skipping tracking and consent review.
- Reposting a child’s image without permission.
Summary
Fix audience and data practices before launch, then test parent-facing creative. Retain the evidence for audience uploads, permissions and review decisions.
Marketing kids' brands on Facebook means advertising to parents, not children. Meta limits advertisers to age and location when reaching anyone under 18, and the FTC's amended COPPA Rule, with compliance due April 22, 2026, requires separate opt-in parental consent for targeted advertising to children under 13. Kids' brands now build parent audiences from first-party customer lists and win on creative, not targeting detail.
Who can a kids' brand target on Facebook?
A kids' brand can target adults on Facebook, and the practical buyer is the parent. Facebook does not allow users under 13, and Meta's January 2023 policy change left advertisers with only age and location for reaching teens.
That change followed an earlier 2021 restriction that removed interest and activity targeting for under-18 users. From February 2023 Meta also removed gender as an option, and a teen's likes and follows no longer inform the ads that teen sees. A toy, clothing or baby brand therefore has no way to build a child-interest audience on Facebook. The working audience is the adult who pays: parents, grandparents and gift buyers.
The wider mechanics of Meta's ad system sit in EPR's Facebook marketing and communications hub.
What do the 2025 COPPA amendments change?
The FTC's amended COPPA Rule requires separate opt-in parental consent before operators use children's data for targeted advertising, and operators had until April 22, 2026 to comply.
The FTC published the amendments on April 22, 2025, and they took effect June 23, 2025. Law firm Jones Day describes the update as the first major revision of the rule since 2013.
Enforcement history shows the stakes. In December 2022 the FTC announced a $275 million COPPA penalty against Epic Games, the largest penalty the agency had obtained for violating an FTC rule.
Brands with games, activity pages or apps for young children are operators under COPPA themselves. Have counsel review which events the Meta pixel and Conversions API receive from any child-directed page before a campaign launches.
K.G.M. v. Meta was the first of three bellwether trials in California's social media addiction litigation, and its verdict addressed platform design, not advertiser conduct. The case concerned Instagram and YouTube, not Facebook.
On March 25, 2026, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury found Meta, for Instagram, and Google, for YouTube, negligent in the design of their platforms. According to Clyde & Co's analysis of the verdicts, the jury awarded $6 million in total, including $3 million in punitive damages, with 70% allocated to Meta and 30% to Google. Meta and Google said they disagree with the verdict and intend to appeal. The same analysis reports that a New Mexico jury held Meta liable for $375 million in civil penalties the day before.
Meta's second quarter 2026 results, released July 29, 2026, included $2.40 billion in charges related to legal proceedings. Meta did not say which proceedings the charge covered. The release also warned that youth-related trials may ultimately result in a material loss.
The verdict does not create liability for advertisers. It does mean a kids' brand's Facebook program will be read against that coverage, so address creative to the parent, state data practices plainly and keep a compliance record for every audience upload.
Which tactics work for kids' brands on Facebook?
Four tactics fit the rules above: first-party parent audiences, parent-first creative, parenting Groups and creators, and consent-based community content.
| Tactic | What to do | Rule it respects |
|---|
| First-party parent audiences | Upload newsletter, loyalty and purchaser lists as Custom Audiences and let Advantage+ use the list as a starting signal | No child data is used and the parent is the audience |
| Parent-first creative | Address the parent in the headline and state the age range, price and use in plain text | Meta's age-and-location limit for teens and COPPA |
| Parenting Groups and creators | Join existing parenting Groups as a participant before posting anything promotional | Parent trust, not child targeting |
| Consent-based community content | Get documented parental permission before reposting any child's image or video | COPPA and privacy law |
Advantage+ is Meta's automated campaign format, which chooses audiences and placements from the goal, budget and creative an advertiser supplies. For kids' categories the advertiser's real inputs are the creative, the conversion goal and the first-party list.
EPR's case study of CAMP, a small kids' clothing brand, shows a small brand building awareness through creative content, social media and influencer partnerships. The roundup of 25 parenting marketing campaigns covers P&G's Thank You, Mom and Frida Baby.
Failures teach as much as wins. The list of 10 mom and baby brand failures documents cases including the Fisher-Price Rock 'n Play, the Boppy Newborn Lounger and an Owlet FDA warning. The same pattern shows on another platform in the TikTok case files on kids' marketing wins on TikTok and kids' marketing losses on TikTok.
Where does Facebook fit in a wider kids and family strategy?
Facebook is the parent-facing channel in a kids and family strategy, alongside agency, media and search work. The Toys, Kids and Family Communications pillar maps the category from toys and games to baby, parenting and kids' media.
Two related EPR reads cover adjacent decisions. See the ranked baby and parenting PR agencies for hiring, and which baby brands ChatGPT recommends for how AI assistants treat the category.
What are the ethics of marketing to children on Facebook?
Marketing to children carries ethical limits that law does not fully cover, and EPR's sharpest coverage sits on Instagram. InstaKids: marketing to children on Instagram covers the kidfluencer economy, the regulatory gap and the psychological fallout, from COPPA's 1998 framework to the October 2024 multi-state attorney general lawsuit against Meta.
The same line runs through Facebook campaigns. The brand sells to the parent, and the parent decides on behalf of a protected audience, the child.
What should a kids' brand do first?
A kids' brand should fix audience and data practices before it spends on creative. Do these three things in order:
- Address every Facebook ad to the parent and state age range, price and use in the copy.
- Have counsel audit the Meta pixel and Conversions API events on any child-directed page against the amended COPPA Rule.
- Build a first-party list of purchasers and subscribers, and use it as the seed for Advantage+ campaigns.
