How to Master Facebook Ad Targeting

Mastering Facebook ad targeting is about utilizing all the tools available in a meaningful fashion. There are many ways to get to your target audience and find motivated buyers.

However, it does take a fundamental understanding of the ins and outs of Facebook, its tools, and how to use them. These tools can help you get to the data and the best target audiences for your small business ads. Facebook has made this extremely accessible by providing many tools for this express purpose.

The Nuts Bolts and Elements of Effective Ad Targeting

Effective ads are highly personalized and detailed. These are the ads that almost seem to be reading your mind because they cater to a specific group of people in an incredibly detailed fashion.

These ads logically take into consideration persona targeting which encompasses demographics, personal interests, and behaviors. This information is vital when it comes to zeroing in on a target audience and using the type of data that will attract a specific group of people. There is a simple way to explain this concept.

The more you understand about a person, the easier it is to tailor your communication and find out what truly motivates them.

This concept is perfectly exemplified in the way we form friendships and other close relationships. As we get to know a person, we gain more influence over them as well as a greater perspective of what makes them tick.

That’s why successful Facebook ad targeting encompasses all these highly personal factors, including:

➤  Demographics

Such as age, gender, relationship situation, household, education, parental status, and language.

➤  Personal Interest

E.g. areas of specific concern or focus that can be linked to your product or service.

➤  Behaviors

Like buying behaviors or habits, digital activity, and even travel practices.

Facebook has tools that allow you to collect the precise data your business needs to find your target audience and tailor your advertising to a specific group of people.

Concert Audience

 

What Are Facebook Audiences?

A Facebook audience is a group of people you’re trying to zero in on or target in your advertising.

Data regarding demographics, behaviors, interests and more are gathered by Facebook to uncover or discover your target audience. Without all this pertinent information, it is difficult to zero in on, in a highly specific manner, your target audience.

For example, you may be interested in focusing on mothers between the age of thirty-five and forty or college students that attend in-state universities. Facebook has the tools to allow you to be as specific as you want to be.

How To Use Facebook Ad Targeting and Audience Tools

Facebook provides you with a plethora of tools that you can use to gather information about the audience you are trying to target.

Facebook also has alliances with data brokers like  Epsilon, Acxiom, and Datalogix. These alliances give them access to trillions of data transactions that are extremely beneficial when it comes to collecting crucial information about key audiences.

Not only does Facebook have access to a generous amount of data about their users but they also have highly specialized tools and strategies that can be put to use to advertise to a highly specific audience. This data helps advertisers choose the most effective ad formats for a particular audience as well as other measurable ad targeting factors.

There are several things that you can do to get your message in front of the right motivated audience.

Stats

Let’s examine 5 of the most powerful ways you can create Facebook audiences to create highly targeted advertising on the social media platform.

1. Recent Purchasing Activity

Businesses need to know who’s most interested in their products or services. As a result, information gleaned from collective shopper loyalty programs that link to specific user profiles can be a powerful tool for many businesses looking for a highly motivated audience.

Facebook advertising allows a business to gain access to specific data regarding purchasing behaviors.

These buyer profiles can be broken down into subcategories that allow you to get even more specific when you’re looking for a particular audience or group of people to target.

2. Targeting Life Events

Facebook is a social media platform based heavily on life events which means that it has many tools that help you create a target audience around specific milestones that people experience.

Facebook’s life events parameter allows advertisers to specify certain events that can be filtered by time, a specific experience, as well as many other criteria.

For instance, if you’re a business that sells wedding cakes, you might look for people who are planning a wedding because you know they will be shopping for a wedding cake at some point.

3. Create Facebook Custom Audiences

This option allows advertisers to benefit from their existing customers and app users. You can do this by uploading customer emails and phone lists to Facebook in a text or CSV format.

You can use game or app activity, site visitors and users who visited specific pages to create custom audiences.

The custom audiences tool can also be used to exclude a custom audience in instances where you’re not focused on existing customers or users.

4. Create Facebook Lookalike Audiences

Facebook also allows you to create Lookalike Audiences. This type of audience resembles your current customers.

Because the lookalike audience mirrors your existing audience even though they are not current customers or users you can target them without access to specific emails, phone numbers, or subscriber information.

You can use a tracking pixel to find lookalike audiences using Facebook’s tracking pixel. This tool will find the top percent of users with the same traits as your existing customers making it an incredibly powerful tool that allows you to be very specific or broad depending on your search.

5. The Power of Layered Targeting

Facebook has a tool that allows you to blend demographics, geolocation data, and behaviors to filter an audience. This tool also allows you to create specific ads designed for a smaller audience.

Layered Targeting works by combining various pieces of data to find a small group of people to target.

Layered targeting is audience filtering that’s precise enough to find an audience of one if needed.

Facebook is a valuable online platform for driving new customers to your small business.

Facebook has a wide variety of tools that make it easy to find a highly specific audience based on demographics, life events, buying behaviors, age, time, and many other variables.

These tools help you to gear your advertising to the right audience which improves your ability to attract new customers most interested in your products and services and retain your existing customers as well.

Need help?

When it comes to digital advertising and paid media, including Facebook ads, there are many variables. If you’re still confused or need help, reach out by posting your question or problem in the comments below. We’ll get back to you asap!