Targeting On Facebook
There are hundreds of targeting options on Facebook, and
they’re adding more all the time.
You can target by basic demographics such as location,
languages spoken, education, where they live, their politics, religion,
relationship status, age, and occupation, but also by deeper methods such as
hobbies, entertainment, business industries, and more.
Plus, there are advanced targeting methods such as lookalike
audiences that will let you target an extremely specific group of people, and
website traffic that will target to people have recently visited your website.
If you already have an existing user base of some sort—such
as an email list, phone number database, etc.—you can import it into Facebook
and let them match the data to as many of their user profiles as possible. This
will help you target people you have already done business with or connected
with in the past.
Lookalike audiences are also great if you have existing
users or traffic, because you can not only target people who have visited your
website or subscribed to your email list—but also to profiles that are
extremely similar to those people.
This extends your reach beyond your own network, but still
allows for fairly tight targeting.
You can also target by location, so if you have a
brick-and-mortar location, or if you know your product appeals to people in
specific areas more than others, you can narrow down that way.
For example, if you’re selling products specifically for
German citizens who have moved to other countries, you’d want to target just
those countries that have a high German immigrant population, and NOT Germany
itself.
Or if you are selling a class on speaking Spanish for French
speakers, you’d wanted to target France, and perhaps the French-speaking areas
of Canada or other countries, but not Spain or Mexico.
This can even be used to exclude certain areas, which can be
helpful if you get a lot of fraud from a certain location, or if you know the
traffic from certain places converts terribly for you.
You can target by age and gender, but unless you’re
absolutely certain of your demographics, you might want to leave these open.
For example, you might be targeting women’s lingerie ads to
females, and later discover that males tend to buy more of your lingerie for
their partners (or themselves) than women do for themselves. In that case,
you’d have missed out on a lot of traffic and sales.
You can let the targeting work its magic and find target
users without focusing on age or gender.
You can target by the languages they speak, which is very
helpful if your material is in a specific language, or if you’re marketing
language services.
Finally, there’s more detailed targeting. Here, you can
target things such as interests, behaviors, and more. You can target by
education level, field of study, ethnic background, housing status, interests,
hobbies, what they buy, what they read, and so much more.
It’s a good idea to really go through all of the targeting
options available and look for those that might fit your target demographic.
For example, if you are selling pet supplies, you would want
to target pet owners, and you might also want to target people who like Cat
Fancy or Dog Fancy magazine, people who like the American Kennel Club, and
people who like PetSmart.
If you’re selling cars, you might want to target people who
bought their car more than three years ago, as they would probably be the most
likely to buy a car. You might also want to target young people (under 25) who
have never bought a car before.
Remember this handy little motto that you can use to figure
out who you should be targeting:
“THIS
person would do this, but no one else would.”
For example, your target audience member would read
Cat Fancy magazine, but no one else would. (Meaning, no one except someone
who really likes cats would be likely to read it.)
It’s critical to know as much as possible about your target
demographic, so take every opportunity you can to learn more about them.
Finding Targets
It can be tough to figure out exactly what type of interests
and pages to target if you’re not extremely well-versed in your niche. Let’s
say you’re targeting the gold niche, but you’re not a big golfer yourself.
You’d obviously target fans of the PGA Tour, and probably
some of the big golf club brands, and of course a few of the biggest names in
golf from yesterday and today, but who else?
You’ll need to dig deeper, because you want to target only
the most die-hard fans of golf in order to keep conversions high.
Let’s say you target Tiger Woods. How many of his fans are
die-hard fans of golf? Quite a few, I’m sure, but there are probably also
people who follow him only because he’s a big name, or because of the scandal
he was involved in. They may not even be interested in the game of golf itself,
just the individual.
So, it’s a good idea to drill down as far as you can.
Remember that motto:
“THIS
person would do this, but no one else would.”
Research your niche as thoroughly as possible so you can
find out what people in your target niche would be interested in, but no
one else would.
Tips & Tricks
Here are a few tips and tricks that
will help you take your Facebook Ads marketing to the next level.
· Be sure to use text on your images, but
remember to keep it under 20% of the total image. (Check your text overlay
percentage here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay)
· Stick with the desktop news-feed
placement option initially. It’s the most effective in almost every scenario,
and has a decent average cost per click. The biggest exception is when you’re
specifically targeting mobile users. In that case, use the mobile news-feed
placement.
· Test out multiple ad formats and then
stick with the few that perform best for you. Try out stuff like carousel ads, canvas
ads, and video ads if they make sense for your business. You never know what
might perform best.
· Use lots of bright colors in your
images and videos to grab attention. Try not to blend in with Facebook too
much!
· If you’re having any sales or special
events, be sure to mention that in your ads, but don’t forget to put a time
limit on the ad if your specials will expire. No one likes to click an ad only
to find out the deal is expired!
· Include a strong call-to-action in
every ad. Want people to opt in to your email list? Tell them! Want them to
buy? Tell them! A strong call-to-action can mean the different between stellar
results and no results.
· Don’t focus so much on CTR that you
lose sight of ROI. Spending too much time trying to optimize your CTR may save
you some money on your ads, but if the results harm your ROI, you will lose
money in the long run.
Conclusion
Facebook has been one of the biggest sources of traffic
online for many years, but recently its organic reach has declined to the point
where it’s almost necessary to pay for ads if you want any significant traffic
from the site.
This isn’t always a bad thing. Without so much organic
clutter from pages, ads are more effective than ever. They are noticed easier,
because there’s less content to sift through.
Fortunately, Facebook Ads can be remarkably affordable if
you take the time to choose the right ad type for your needs and optimize your
campaigns properly. It’s important to test different options and try to find
the best combination for your needs.
Take the time to familiarize yourself with all of the
various options available in the ad creation dashboard. You’ll want to closely
study targeting and placement, as these options can have a huge effect on the
success of your campaign.
Remember to stick with the desktop news-feed placement in the
beginning unless you are specifically targeting mobile users. You’ll save a lot
of money this way. You can always branch out later.
This concludes our guide on Facebook Ads. I hope you enjoyed
it.
Good luck with your campaigns!
Resources
For your convenience, here are links to some of the
resources mentioned throughout this guide:
Facebook Ads Dashboard
>> http://www.facebook.com/ads
Check Your Text Percentage
>> https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay
