Platforms in this story
In short
- Policy 10.6.a of Meta's developer policies takes effect on February 3, 2027.
- On the advertiser's request, an ad-buying solution must disclose Meta spend separately from its fees, its fee structure and campaign configuration.
- Agencies that take an undisclosed margin on media spend have a few months to rethink their model and contracts.
Meta has added a transparency rule for ad-buying solutions to its developer policies, effective from February 3, 2027↗. The trade press picked it up as soon as it was published↗.
Who does policy 10.6.a apply to?
The rule targets agencies, resellers and tools that buy Meta ads on behalf of an end advertiser. It sits in the developer policies, so it applies to players who use Meta's tools and APIs to buy advertising on behalf of a third party. An advertiser who runs its own account has nothing to do.
What must be disclosed to the advertiser?
On the advertiser's request, the rule provides for disclosing the amount spent on Meta on the advertiser's behalf, separate from the intermediary's fees, along with the structure of those fees, then the campaign configuration and settings and/or post-campaign reports, using Meta's terminology↗. According to PPC Land, disclosure is not automatic: the advertiser's request is what triggers it.
For advertisers, it is in my view a new negotiating lever: an "all-inclusive" contract that does not separate media spend from agency compensation will be harder to defend after February 2027. For agencies, the question is not whether a client will ask, but whether they can answer quickly and cleanly. Location fees complicate the exercise: Meta invoices them as a separate line on top of the campaign budget↗. An agency that rebills them will therefore need to be able to isolate them from its fees if the advertiser asks for the separate Meta spend. The point is covered in the guide to this fall's Meta Ads changes.