Targeting ads to precisely tailored audiences can increase CTR, drive traffic to your website, build brand awareness, or achieve any other advertising goal.
Crafting the right marketing message and choosing attractive creatives is helpful, but the real challenge is reaching the right people. Thatâs why you should dig into Facebook Ads target audiences and rock your targeting. Keep on reading to check out the details and get inspired by our targeting ideas.
A Facebook audience is the group of people you want to reach with your ad. Facebook creates an opportunity for businesses to choose demographics, locations, and interests of its users so that they can receive the most relevant ads.
You can create and manage Facebook Ads target audiences in your Business Manager in the âAudiencesâ section.
You can also find a summary of every created audience there, as well as usage in campaigns and a history of changes within a particular audience. Therefore, you can manage your audiences to update target groups and optimize your efforts.
Another way to create Facebook Ads target audiences is to craft one while setting up an ad campaign in your Ads Manager. During this process, you can choose your pre-defined audiences or create a new one (and save it if youâd like to use it again in the future).
Finally, you can create a Facebook audience while using the âBoost postâ option that appears below every published post on your brandâs profile. You can run your campaigns on the go, but always pay attention to a well-targeted audience. Nevertheless, for advanced targeting options, you have to go to Ads Manager.
As you can see, there are three ways of creating Facebook Ads target audiences. The most advanced and beneficial method may be using the Ads Manager and Audience section, because you can select the type of audience and target precise groups.
Using Ads Manager gives you access to some features that are not available through the âBoost Postâ option. Weâre talking about audiences, but also about ways of reaching them effectively. Via Ads Manager, you can choose such advanced options as displaying ads on specific devices to narrow your Facebook Ads target audiences even further.
You can target people based on their interests, demographics, and even behaviors. This ensures that your ads are seen by people who are more likely to be interested in what you’re selling. Also, you can exclude people who have already bought your products or started interacting with you after seeing your ads.
By targeting your ads more effectively, you’ll ultimately end up spending less money on advertising. Facebook’s advanced targeting options allow you to laser-focus your ad campaigns, so you wonât be wasting money on impressions that don’t convert.
If you’re not using Facebook’s advanced targeting options, you’re missing out on a valuable tool that can help you save money and increase your conversion rate.
When you use advanced targeting options, you can constantly test different audiences to see what works best for your products or services. You can also fine-tune your campaigns on the fly to make sure they’re as effective as possible.
This is a huge advantage that paid traffic has over organic traffic. With the latter, you have to wait for people to find your content and then hope they’re interested in what you have to say.
With the former, you can go out and find people who are already interested in what you have to say. Then, you can show them your content and start building relationships with them.
You can gain a huge competitive advantage with paid campaigns, especially if your competitors rely on the much less targeted and less effective organic traffic.
You can get a leg up on your competition by using targeting, and start generating leads and sales that they can’t match.
Facebook provides four types of Facebook Ads target audiences so that marketers have a lot of options to target their potential customers. Read on to find out more.
You can store your commonly used targeting settings for future campaigns and save time on choosing the same options multiple times. To reach your target group, you can select demographics, interests, and behaviors.
When it comes to demographics-based targeting, Facebook enables you to determine Facebook Ads target audiences based on the following demographics of users:
Facebook demographic targeting can be very precise. You can also choose particular traits such as educational, financial, life events, relationships, work, and even determine if your target group is represented by parents of children who are a specific age.
Interest-based targeting allows you to reach specific Facebook Ads target audiences by looking at their interests, activities, the Pages they have liked, and closely related topics. Itâs a great way to advertise your products or services to potential customers who have specific interests and hobbies. You can browse interests in the menu or type your own suggestions to find the most suitable options.
Behavior-based targeting can be handy as well. It enables you to target users who have completed a certain action, such as purchased a product using Facebook Payments in the last 30 days, celebrated anniversaries, frequent travelers, and many more. The wide range of available behaviors creates incredible opportunities for brands to show relevant ads and increase conversions.
A saved audience, also known as a core audience, can be used in various cases. First of all, itâs suitable for businesses that start their marketing on Facebook. Core Facebook Ads target audiences can help them explore the market and gather data to conduct further and more advanced campaigns, and experiment with Facebook targeting options. Second of all, this option can be useful as a target group for creating Lookalike Audiences. Facebook provides many possibilities for mixing types of Facebook Ads target audiences, so a well-tailored core
This type of audience can be highly effective, but itâs also challenging to create. Via this kind of Facebook Ads target audiences, you can connect with people who have already shown an interest in your business or product based on your sources, such as customer contacts, website traffic, mobile app or offline activity (people who have interacted with your brand by phone, in-store, etc.). Make sure that you have enough records on your list â this option might not work with just a few contacts (Facebook may display an âAudience too smallâ alert not let you run any ads). The right size database will also allow you to test, scale, and optimize your performance.
By adding Facebook tracking pixels to your website, you can track usersâ behavior on your page and use that information in your campaigns. Therefore, you can tailor your Facebook Ads target audiences based on events you want to focus on, such as purchases, sign-ups, adding items to a shopping cart, and more.
Providing Facebook with customer lists allows you to target specific users. The more identities (email address, phone number, mobile advertiser ID, Facebook app user ID, Facebook Page user ID, first name, surname) you can upload, the better the match rate with Facebook.
You can also make the most of Facebookâs sources to create a custom audience based on people who have:
Retargeting options can work wonders for brands that run advanced campaigns and collect information about their customers. For example, if you:
This option can be used to target people who are similar to the Facebook Ads target audiences youâve already identified. You can tailor a lookalike audience based on a retargeting pixel, custom audience, people who like your Facebook Page, and more. Thanks to this option, you can reach more users who match your target group. Facebook uses advanced algorithms to find people who are suitable for your Facebook Ads target audiences. This way you can expand your target group to relevant people instead of guessing who might be interested in your offer.
First, you need to define your core audience to show Facebook what type of customers youâd like to reach. To narrow down your targeting of Facebook Ads target audiences, you can select audience location and audience size. That way, youâll determine additional conditions and create a more precise target group.
When to use Lookalike Audiences?
Lookalike Audiences can be effective for brands that have already run campaigns effectively and know who is their ideal customer. Use Lookalike Audience when:
This type of audience is extraordinary because it can only be used to advertise credit, employment, and housing. The mechanism corresponds to that of the Lookalike Audience. You need to select data sources, such as Custom Audience, so that the system can find people who have similar interests and behaviors online. A Special Ad Audience is compliant with the audience selection restrictions associated with your chosen special ad category. You can also select audience location and size depending on your business goals.
Schedule your first Facebook post the right way with our definitive guide that tells you how to schedule a facebook post.
Besides the basic Facebook targeting options, there are plenty of opportunities to maximize your efforts and get really creative with your Facebook Ads target audiences. Check out our pro-tips and get inspired for your future campaigns!
Learn more about your target group from the Audience Insights section. You can check out information about all Facebook users or people connected to your Page. You can learn about user demographics, locations, and activities. Such research can give you an idea of who your existing and potential customers are and how to reach them. Therefore, you can make the most of Facebook demographic targeting.
Facebook allows you to target people who have saved your posts. It can be a great opportunity to remind your followers about content that they wanted to check out later. This target group can be narrow, but itâs very engaged as it includes users who have already shown interest in your posts.
As you can imagine, your followers match your Facebook ads target audience. When promoting your page and content to new users, remember to exclude people who are already engaging with your content. This way, youâll avoid causing user frustration and focus on reaching new Facebook Ads target audiences.
If your products or services are suitable for people who live in bigger cities, you might want to target the whole country. Unfortunately, that way youâll reach many users who live in smaller cities and villages. Therefore, itâs worth choosing multiple locations manually and reaching a tailored audience.
Another social media tip is to use pins for narrowing your Facebook Ads target audiences down. Pins determine a location within a one kilometer radius, and post-codes can be more precise than a whole city as well. When advertising events, shopping malls, or restaurants, etc., you can make the most of these Facebook targeting options.
Using Facebook retargeting pixels can be resultful for companies, but sometimes itâs not precise enough. Thanks to tools like RocketLink, you can shorten any URL and add retargeting pixels to them. That way, you can make the most of external content shared with your followers or in Facebook groups. By tracking people who have clicked your links on Facebook, but also on other social media platforms or a newsletter, etc., you can create a precise Custom Audience and reach users who are highly interested in specific topic or products.
Also, we thought you might find this helpful – how to edit link preview on Facebook.
When promoting a mobile app you can choose to target only users who are on a given operating system. This way you can avoid causing frustration because customers will only see relevant ads and they can download the app on their OS.
You can add retargeting pixels to multiple pages. Use these to track customersâ behavior on your website and retarget people who have added products to carts but havenât finalised the purchase, or have started a sign-up process to your newsletter, platform, or any other form but havenât completed it. This can be especially helpful for mobile-devices users, as their shopping or sign-ups could easily be interrupted on the go.
Nowadays, every business needs to optimize their websites for mobile users. Itâs not a trend; it should be a standard. Nevertheless, if your page isnât mobile-ready yet, exclude targeting ads to mobile devices to avoid redirecting users to an unresponsive website.
Some products are meant to be used by certain people, but someone else is making the purchasing decision. A great example is a brand that sells toys for kids. In that case, the target group includes parents of kids who are a certain age â such an option is provided within demographic traits. You can also target users by life events to advertise particular products or services. For example, a jewelry company can try to reach people who added engagement as a life event to their profiles in the last 6 months, with wedding ring offers.
By adding a well-crafted customer list with clients who have a high lifetime value, Facebook can help you reach similar people. This way, you can gain new customers and maximize your chances to reach the most beneficial target groups.
Even though it sounds like an amazing opportunity to reach users engaged in communication with your brand, take a moment to think about customers who usually interact with your business via Messenger. Yes, very often, such messages include complaints. Donât push your offer to people who have just complained about your products or customer support.
Sometimes users can visit a page by mistake or for many other reasons than being interested in your offer. No matter how resultful this technique might seem, it can be disappointing because of imprecise targeting. A lack of segmentation can result in a higher cost per click and decreased effectiveness.
Facebook algorithms are not transparent, so marketers canât be sure how the system matches users with the provided data. You can try out this option, but be aware of its limitations.
In this article, weâve been trying to convince you to put effort into precise targeting. How come narrowing your audience can be adverse for your marketing performance? Facebook wonât accept too small Facebook Ads target audiences, and youâll have to expand your criteria. Such a narrowed audience may also be insufficient in the long run.
When browsing interests, you need to pay attention to the details. For example, if youâd like to target people who are interested in learning digital marketing and you type this phrase, youâll also see suggestions regarding job title and employer. Therefore, you should choose the options deliberately.
When you first start using Facebook’s advanced targeting options, it can be tempting to try and target as many people as possible. However, this is usually not effective and can end up costing you a lot of money.
It’s important to start small and then gradually scale up your campaigns. This will allow you to test different audiences and find the ones that are most likely to convert.
Facebook allows you to target video viewers, but this option can be very tricky.
The first 3 seconds of your video are the most important because that’s when people will decide whether or not to watch the rest. If your video doesn’t capture their attention in those first few seconds, they’ll scroll on by and you’ll lose out on a potential viewer.
That’s why it’s important to make sure your opening is catchy and interesting. You want to hook people in and make them want to watch the rest of your video. So think about what makes your company or product unique and how you can communicate that in a brief, attention-grabbing way.
Don’t just blindly set up campaigns to push your audience further down the sales funnel if they are not familiar with your brand and video.
On the other hand, you don’t want your videos to be too long. The average attention span of an internet user is only about eight seconds, so you need to make sure your videos are short and to the point.
How to capture your target audience on social media in only a few seconds? If you have a lot of information to communicate, consider breaking it up into multiple videos and then invest in paid traffic to make sure people actually watch them.
Remember, you only have a few seconds to capture someone’s attention, and you need to make the most of them.
Facebook provides almost endless possibilities for precise targeting. Once you dig into the most advanced options, youâll find that you can indeed reach your target group. Donât hesitate to try out different types of Facebook Ads target audiences, mix them, and optimize your campaigns. Start with exploring Facebook Audience Insights and learning more about your followers. We hope that now you have some ideas about how to target your audience with Facebook ads.
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