In a constantly evolving digital marketing world, Facebook ads have remained a vital feather in any marketer’s cap. They offer businesses a way to connect with their target audiences at a community source to drive website traffic, boost brand awareness and find leads. With over 2.8 billion monthly active users, Facebook offers access to an enormous and diverse audience, allowing businesses to reach potential customers from all over the world if needed.
If you are new to Facebook targeted ads, this beginner’s guide to Facebook ads is a fantastic place to get you started along your journey.
To access more support setting up and making the most out of your targeted advertising campaigns, get in touch with the team at Dialled In to learn more about our social media management.
Book a free consultation with our social media and marketing experts to understand how Facebook targeted ads could benefit your business.
What is Facebook Ad Targeting?
Facebook Ad Targeting is a strategy of digital marketing that helps make sure your brand reaches the right people on social media platforms like Facebook, not just anyone scrolling past. This is a particularly strong marketing technique for businesses that are working within a very specific target audience. Instead of spending valuable budget on generic ads, Facebook targeted ads help you to cut through the crowds and find potential customers who are looking for businesses exactly like you.
At Dialled In, we use targeting to focus your budget on the audiences most likely to care about your business, whether that’s based on location, interests, behaviours, website visits, previous engagement or customer data. This means your ads can reach the people who are more likely to enquire, buy, book or take action, helping you get more from your campaign budget.
Changes to Facebook Ad Targeting
Facebook has been making big changes to their targeting systems over the last year. These changes are significant and they’ve been causing some people who market on Facebook to wonder what to do next as targeting options are disappearing or changing. For example, location targeting has changed from being able to target ‘people living in’ to now only being able to target ‘reach people living in or recently in this location.’ This has affected businesses that can only target people in specific locations as the ads are now also being shown to people who are just passing through.
Types of Facebook Targeting Audiences
- Core audiences: This is the default audience type in Ads Manager where you can target by location, demographics, interests, behaviours and connections.
- Custom audiences: These audiences are created using your own data (such as people who have visited your website or a customer list) and/or Facebook’s data (such as behaviour on the platform).
- Lookalike audiences: Facebook can create audiences similar to ones you’ve already created or based on an uploaded list.
Demographic Targeting
Facebook advertising demographic targeting is a core audience type. The most basic demographic targeting options are age, location and gender. There are also more detailed demographic targeting options, which include education level, financial or relationship status, whether they’re parents or not, and more. However, certain targeting options, such as the detailed demographic, can’t be used for ads within the ‘special ad categories’, such as any ads for credit services.
Behaviour and Interest Targeting
This is another core audience type. You can target behaviours and interests alongside demographics. Facebook can infer user’s interests and behaviours from their profile and their engagement with sites on Facebook. These targeting options can be useful as they are very specific. For example, the image below shows all the different targeting options related to mortgages and buying property.
Custom Audience Targeting
Advertising isn’t always about finding new audience members. It’s equally important to re-market to those who are already familiar with your brand. This can be done by uploading your own data from website or app activity, offline activity, and customer lists. Alternatively, this can be done by using Facebook’s data which includes people who have interacted with your Facebook assets before such as people who opened a lead form or people who have interacted with your Facebook page. A full list can be seen in the image below.
Lookalike Audience Targeting
Lookalike audiences allow you to choose a source audience (from one of your existing audiences or data sources) that Facebook will then analyse, categorise, and use to find users who behave similarly to the users in that list. The effectiveness of lookalike audiences can be hard to gauge and will depend on the quality of the source audience you input.
How to get started with Facebook ads
In conclusion, Facebook Ads offer a versatile and efficient way for businesses to connect with their target audiences, increase brand visibility, drive traffic, and achieve their marketing goals. By taking advantage of the platform’s targeting features businesses can harness the power of Facebook Ads to drive business growth and success.
If you are looking for an alternative or addition to your Facebook ads, see our A Comprehensive Guide to Google Ads for Beginners.
If you require any help with Facebook Ads or any other digital marketing activities, feel free to get in touch with us for a free consultation by filling out the contact form or emailing [email protected]