Introduction
Upon syncing objects in the Marin Social platform, you might encounter the following sync error:
Invalid parameter : Invalid Targeting Spec : The specified targeting spec is not valid because: Invalid data for field flexible_spec. Invalid Targeting Spec: The specified targeting spec is not valid because: Invalid data for field interests. Invalid Targeting Spec: The specified targeting spec is not valid because: Interests with id [xyz] is invalid. (100) (xyz)
What Causes The Issue?
One or more interests selected to build the Audience are not valid on the publisher side because they have been removed by the publisher from their platform. For example, if your Facebook Interest Cluster contains 'cars, sun, ball, and chocolate' and 'chocolate' has been deprecated and removed by Facebook, you would encounter the above error.
How To Fix The Issue
You will need to update your Interests by following the below steps:
- Isolate the issue to the impacted ad set by navigating to the Media Plan, accessing the ad set level and syncing each ad set one-by-one.
- The ad set with the deprecated Interest will remain un-synced and you can remove the deprecated Interest by selecting the un-synced ad set and clicking on Mass Editor.
If you're using Interest Clusters, follow the steps below:
- Click on Audience in the top navigation panel.
- Select Interest Clusters from the drop-down menu.
- In the Interest Cluster list, find the interest that you selected at the ad set level and clean it by clicking on the Recycle logo
in the Action column. - Once the page has refreshed, go back to the Campaigns list and find the campaign and the ad set affected by the error.
- Select the ad set and click on the blue Sync button.
If you're using Interests, you can simply type the Interests that you've used in the past into the Interest search box. If they are not available as an Interest, this means they have been deprecated, so you can remove them and re-sync your ad set.
