If you’ve had to set up your own Facebook ads, you know that it can be quite cumbersome and time consuming. Here at the agency, we’ve spent two hours per week during the last quarter speaking with our ad rep at Facebook to get deeper insights into how to create better campaigns for our clients. Suffice it to say, there are more nuances to getting your ads to work than simply choosing a gender and income level. Today, we figured we would start with the basics of audience targeting. There are FOUR levels of audience targeting in Facebook. Here’s the breakdown below that may actually change the way you choose who you THINK you are trying to reach with your ads.
Demographics:
This is determined by what a user puts in their own PROFILE. Sounds simple, right? Well, if you are targeting new or expecting parents as your MAIN goal, then this information is not something that is part of the profile question. So you’re not necessarily targeting as many of these people as you think you are.
Interests:
This information is based on what a user has DONE in the last 28-days across the site – ONLY. What’s the challenge with that? If your ideal mom hasn’t interacted with a baby product brand or what FB determines is related to parenting in 28-days (think: P&G may not be categorized as a “parenting” target,) then you will NOT reach her.
Behaviors:
This targeting actually comes from a PARTNER of Facebook – not from Facebook itself. It focuses on activity that is happening outside of the site. So much for reaching someone that completely relies on social media or doesn’t share their browser activity with anyone.
Audience:
When using audience targeting, you are helping to segment your message TO (usually) people that YOU have already culled into some format (email, customer lists, lookalikes, app download tracking, etc.) This is great if you have that available. But, it’s a hindrance for anyone that hasn’t done the correct pixel traction on all ads before as it may limit your audience reach greatly.
The audience targeting nuance are just a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to targeting issues. We will continue to share tidbits on the blog. (Sneak Peak: did you know it’s a BAD idea to use Instagram as an option for delivery in the same ad as FB?)
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