Just like other components in an advertising campaign. Facebook Ad Targeting (or targeting audiences on Facebook) plays an important role so you can enhance your advertising performance and results.
Facebook advertisers need to really understand their target audience before getting started with Ads Manager. This article will provide you with everything from basic to advanced so you can target effectively. So keep it up, advertisers!
Table of contents
Facebook Ad Targeting: Audience Research Steps
You can’t just turn on Meta Ads Manager and target your audience indiscriminately. The truth is that the audience you’re imagining could convert isn’t necessarily your target audience. So I have a few clear methods for you to learn specifically about Audience before you start targeting. Let’s follow along.
Use Meta Audience Insight
Meta Audience Insight is a completely free tool provided by Facebook for professional advertisers. Its main effect is to use filters to learn about the demographics, behavior, and interests of Facebook Users.
However, you can absolutely research more closely about the audience’s strange things. They may have pain points and if you find them through Audience Insight, it will be extremely easy to get them to convert.
Research audience from main competitors
You can find your competitors’ audiences and study them. Go directly to your competitor’s Facebook Page and access the ‘Followers’ section. If ‘Followers’ is not available, you can access the ‘Reviews’ section to explore.
These followers have important information for you to learn. They already have a need for products/services or content that your competitors are doing. Try to research them all.
Research audience from Facebook groups
Visit Facebook groups and research the members in them. Usually, Facebook groups have a specific topic and need for a certain product/service. Or they simply have the right information that you need to target.
Even during research in groups, you can find other important information about your competitors or potential audience. In short, the versatility of Facebook Groups is a no-brainer, you just need to know how to use it optimally.
Expert method:
- It’s best to make a list of the most important information about your audience after learning about them in the above ways.
- You need to specifically research information such as: Demographics, behaviors, interests, location, age & gender.
- If possible, find out and analyze customer pain points. What needs does your audience have? Does your audience have something hidden in their subconscious? Can you address their need? When you have customer pain points, you will do well in the ‘Ad Creative’ section.
Effective Facebook Ad Targeting Methods
I have listed Facebook Ad targeting options below very specifically so that even those who are just learning about Facebook targeted ads can understand clearly. One thing to note recently is that Facebook has created an automatic campaign setup feature including automatic targeting. It also proves to be quite useful and effective, so you need to try both ‘Manual targeting’ and ‘Automatic targeting’ to find the most effective method.
‘Age’ and ‘Gender’
The two sections that you need to pay attention first are ‘Age’ and ‘Gender’. Normally, few professional advertisers care about the ‘Gender’ limit here. However, if you want to advertise products that are personalized to a specific gender category, you can also limit it.
Next is about ‘Age’, you must pay attention to the age range that your customer falls into. I have a habit of finding out about age first and then using Ads Manager to limit it.
For example, I want to advertise ‘Interior design services’. I have learned in advance that the age range of 30 – 55 is very suitable and can create massive conversions. So I only focus on this group.
However, if I want to run ads to increase traffic for a Facebook Page about interior design. Then I will not limit the age here. The goal is to let the Learning Machine distribute itself and create higher interactions and visits (because Facebook’s suggestions are quite smart).
Expert advice: If you are sure and have researched your audience before. So you can limit age and gender here. However if you’re in doubt, you must have broader targeting. Then Facebook distributes itself and suggests the most relevant audiences.
Detailed targeting
Detailed targeting is directly related to some criteria right below. These three criteria create countless variations for how you can target potential audiences. To do that, please follow my instructions right below:
Demographics
Currently, demographic information that you can target besides gender and age are:
- Home
- Work
- Realizations
- Generation
- Financial
- Politics (US)
- Ethnic Affinity
- Education
- Life Events
- Parents
Normally, I give special priority to Home, Work, Generation, Financial and Life Events. These demographics can help me specifically target people with unique characteristics. With each of the above options, Facebook provides advertisers with more niche options for that type of information.
For example, when I click on ‘Education’, it displays an ‘Education level’ menu with many options for audience information related to education level:
For example, I want to advertise a high-end car rental service in Boston. Then I will identify some possible information: high income, Gen Y, outdoor work, etc.
Expert advice: If you have researched before, you can target specifically here. However, don’t try too hard and be too specific about everything. That can cause advertising costs to increase or the audience size to be too small.
Interests
To target audience based on Interests, you can start by searching for phrases and keywords that are closely related to the product/service you advertise.
For example, if you want to advertise for ‘Interior Design Services’. You can search and select “Interior design”. Then start selecting Interests that you think are suitable and are likely to be interested in this service. The available ‘Interest’ options are:
- Family & Relationships
- Technology
- Food & Drink
- Business & Industry
- Hobbies & Activities
- Shopping & Fashion
- Fitness & Wellness
Just like ‘Demographics’, ‘Interests’ gives you a menu to target your audience’s specific interests. However, unlike Demographics, you can select a series of interests by clicking the ‘Select all’ button as shown below:
Behaviors
‘Behaviors’ ‘Behaviors’ is a similar option as ‘Interests’. However, you need to pay attention to more specific audience behaviors here. The available ‘Behavior’ options are:
- Financial
- Consumer Classification
- Digital Activities
- Mobile Device Usage
- Anniversary
- Multicultural Affinity
- Seasonal & Events
- Expats
- Travel
- Soccer (assuming this is a seasonal option)
- Purchase behavior
- More Categories
With each of the above options, Facebook Ads will also provide you with specific niche options for that user behavior. When you have researched the behavior of your potential audience in advance. You won’t get confused and know what you’re doing.
I still keep the example of ‘Interior design’, and I target people who have needs for furniture or related interior services. According to my inference, there is a high possibility that people who already have a high income are most likely ‘Shop admins’, also known as people who have been successful and have high income on Facebook.
Normally, I remove ‘New Active Business < 6 months’. I don’t rate these people highly because they seem to be new and don’t really have a good income to create conversions with a high-priced service like interior design.
Exclude and Narrow Audience
This is also a feature that Facebook provides to advertisers to eliminate useless Audiences that are not capable of generating conversions. Although many advertisers do not care about this section (few people use it), I recommend that you still know when to use it.
In my personal experience, it’s better to exclude new Facebook accounts from targeting. New Facebook accounts, active for less than 6 months on Facebook, are accounts that are mostly clones or used for other purposes that cannot create conversions for you.
‘Advantage detailed targeting’ button
If you turn this button on, Facebook will automatically target and show your ads to a few audiences who don’t have the interests and behaviors you just provided to Facebook (but are also likely to make a purchase).
This is one of the useful features so you can automatically find more potential audiences for advertising. However, if you only focus on advertising to audiences with specific interests and behaviors listed before, turn it off.
About Languages option
Language preferences help you target people who use specific languages. This is an option that few people use. Just because you usually already know which country you’re advertising to. And you also create an Ad Copy in that country’s language.
However, this option is very good in certain situations. For example, let’s say you want to target an Italian-speaking audience in California. Then you can choose Location as California and select ‘Languages’ as Italy. It will only be visible to people who know or are using Italian in California. Pretty awesome.
Facebook Ads location targeting
Next, location targeting with Facebook Ads is a useful feature that I want to share with you here. This feature basically helps you target based on geographical location. You can also add more locations, narrow or remove some areas that you don’t want to target.
Looking at the image above, you can see that I’m using this feature to target people in New Jersey. To be able to perform targeting, click on “Drop pin” as shown in the image above. I can also change the radius of this area via the triangle button like the image above. Next, I wanted to further target people in California, a completely different area from New Jersey. I’ve seen some feedback and engagement from a few California audiences so I really want to target them now.
So I need to enter the keyword “California” into the search bar -> Click “Drop pin” and drop it into the desired area -> As a result, I was able to target two different locations, New Jersey and California. And I can also remove some of the less populated areas of a few areas. Because I’m sure this area is very difficult to create conversions. I will perform “Add exclusions” to remove those locations and also click “Drop pin” (same operation as above).
Note that you can combine multiple targeting locations at the same time, not just the 2 target locations I showed above.
In short, you should use Location Targeting to target places with high population density. It will be very easy for you to create conversions. If you are meticulous in your targeting, you should also reread the Exclusions operation to remove unnecessary areas.
Expert tips: I want to share some experiences here about Location Targeting, also known as Facebook Geographic. Basically, pin drop depends on many factors. Especially the type of product/service you advertise.
- Wide pin drop: Especially suitable for products with shipping, especially E-commerce or Dropshipping. Location target with wide pin drop will ensure large order quantity.
- Narrow pin drop: Especially suitable for restaurants, hotels, or F&B (food and beverage) services. You can drop pins within a 5 to 10 mile radius to drive more engagement and conversions.
Automated targeting – Advantage+ audience
Actually, this tool didn’t prove useful last year. However, with the strong development of AI, it has received great trust from Facebook Advertisers.
Businesses who work directly with me have also expressed that this tool is pretty great. To use it, you simply provide Facebook with the information you already know about your potential audience.
For things you’re not sure about, “leave them alone” and let Facebook Learning Machine deliver your ads to the most potential audiences.
Don’t worry too much here, Facebook is developing algorithms and AI in a very different and effective way. It can search and recommend your ads to people who are truly ‘potential’ and ‘highly likely to convert’.
Combine multiple target methods
Simply put, if you only use one targeting method, you won’t be able to generate a large number of conversions.
It’s like playing a shooting online game like CS:GO, if you’re only good at one type of gun like Rifles. You will be eaten by Snipers. Snipers here are your opponents. They always make troubles for you in many situations at many times.
Therefore, mastering and combining many targeting methods and skills from basic to complex is necessary to become a successful professional advertiser. Or at least create positive profits for the business.
The above are the basic methods that I want to share so you can understand targeting. The part below will be completely different. It involves more advanced and technical skills.
Audience size
Audience size is also something that you cannot ignore here. Audience size tells you the number of people who can be reached by your ad. And of course it also has some notes that I will discuss with you here as follows:
- Specific: This is when you are targeting too small, too specific audiences on Facebook. Even though you think it can generate good conversions in many cases. But sometimes it is a double-edged sword, it is very difficult to create conversions if the number of people approached is too small.
- Broad: When the status is Broad, it means you are targeting widely and reaching many people with your ads. It can create massive conversions. However, this situation is also a double-edged sword. You can increase your ROAS or profits very quickly. But if your audience does not create conversions but still clicks on your ad in this case, it can cause you to lose all the money in your advertising account.
I want you to stay in the green space. And continue testing to find the most suitable audience for advertising. Targeting that is too specific or too broad can create unique effects and can be effective in some cases. But it’s better to know what you’re doing with that audiences.
Some Special Techniques For Facebook Ad Targeting
The next section directly addresses effective targeting techniques on Facebook. If you are still looking for good tips and tricks, this part is for you, absolutely.
Create custom/lookalike/saved audiences
This is a special section that is also part of the main features of Meta Ads Manager. Basically, you can create specific audiences for smoother and more accurate targeting. These options include:
- Custom audiences: You need to choose a source for Facebook to get audience information. It could be from people who have interacted with or followed the Facebook Page, people who have made a purchase, or people who have visited the website. All audience behavior is recorded to serve your next target.
- Lookalike audiences: It is based on your old audience information. However, Facebook will suggest you completely new audiences with exactly the same information as your old audience.
- Saved audiences: You can create new audience information for future targeting. It’s similar to creating ‘Detailed targeting’ and ‘Advantage+ audience’ but you don’t need to create a new Facebook ad campaign.
Choosing one of the three options above in the ‘Audiences’ section helps you target specific customizations more carefully and effectively.
Compare the performance of audience groups using A/B Test
A/B Testing is a feature available on Facebook Ads. I’ve talked a lot about how this feature works and how to use it before. You can visit Facebook Ads Blog to read about it.
Essentially, you can use this feature to test two different versions of your ad. But to check the effectiveness of Audience, you need to check two Ad Copies that are the same and only have different targeting methods. As a result, this tool will give you better Ad Copy performance. And from there you can know which Audience is more suitable to target.
Target based on recent purchase behavior
Recent purchase behavior is what’s new and is considered the latest information from potential audiences. If you really understand this and use personalized ads. Then there is a high chance that they will make a conversion. This targeting method supports businesses that want to create conversions with potential audiences or loyal customers in remarketing campaigns.
Target is based on life events
Life events affect the most active audiences on Facebook. For example, if you want to advertise baby products, you need to consider the age of your audience when they get married. People who have just experienced a wedding in their lives will be very interested in children’s products. And they are certainly more likely to convert with baby products/services. Not only that, different life events create variations in audience preferences and behavior. Try to learn more about this part.
Target Facebook Groups
It sounds like a pretty complicated technique because you can’t directly target people who are active in Facebook groups.
However, this basically consists of 3 steps, which are:
Step 1: Create a document or a topic and post it on Facebook Groups to attract interaction from Facebook Members.
Step 2: Access Ads Manager and set up a new campaign.
Step 3: Choose to target people who have interacted with the post in that group.
Groups on Facebook are people who have a certain need for a certain type of product or service. They often interact, post, or create Q&A topics for people to exchange and transact. Targeting this group is effective when you know they already have a need for you.
Retargeting strategy
Facebook remarketing is one of the best methods to improve conversion efficiency. Because in the first targeting and advertising, you may miss many potential customers.
Why do I target quite well but they don’t convert? Simply because the audience has their own reasons that you will never know. It is possible that they are comparing the price of your product/service with other brands and places of sale. Or maybe they really want to buy but also want to wait for the next promotion.
Whatever the reason, retargeting to improve conversions and increase revenue is the right thing to do. If you don’t want to miss out on valuable conversion orders.
Expert tip: In this section, I want you to focus on the ‘warm audience’. Those are the audiences that give you good advertising metrics, high interaction rates, and even access to Facebook Page and continue to interact after seeing your ads. Besides, you must visit my article about Average CTR for Facebook Ads to to know and control this audience metrics.
Although retargeting ‘warm audiences’ will produce the best conversion results (according to businesses I work with in early 2024). But it’s best to pay attention to optimizing costs to advertise to this audience group (because the cost of ‘warm audiences’ is not always cheap, it will be expensive at times and you have to deliberation).
Expert advise: Try to create an Ad Copy with a stronger CTA, a better proposition for the audience. You have to do things better than your old ads to truly gain trust and motivate those audiences to convert.
Epilogue
It seems like it’s been quite a long time. Actually, I still have a ton of knowledge I want to share with you about Facebook Ad Targeting. However, everything depends on you. You know, running Facebook Ads effectively is a process of learning, experiencing and improving skills.
Either way, it requires you to try and focus on the smallest things. I hope that you will soon learn a lot after reading this article and improve many things. You can also refer our expert service about Facebook Ads, that is: Facebook Agency Account For Rent With Fee From Only Low Price.
Finally, good luck with Facebook advertising! Our SpeedX Agency expert team is always ready to help you at all times.
