Have You Mastered the Facebook Ad Targeting Strategy?

Key points of this article

  • Facebook ad targeting mechanism
  • How does Facebook ad targeting work?
  • Five major Facebook ad targeting strategies
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1. Facebook ad targeting mechanism

Facebook ad targeting is a strategy that allows your ads to be accurately presented to potential users who are most likely to be interested in your products.

You can imagine that if you need to prepare a party, you will definitely not invite everyone at will, especially when you know that some people may not want to come. The most reasonable way is to select and invite those who have common interests and enthusiasm for the party theme, event arrangements, and the food you prepare.

Facebook ad targeting also follows this logic. It allows you to “select” and “invite” the most suitable audience group to watch your ads based on a variety of criteria. This approach not only makes your advertising more accurate and reduces the waste of resources, but also effectively saves costs in the long run.

2. How does Facebook ad targeting work?

The sharp increase in data advertising has put overseas companies in a battle for consumer attention. How to connect with customers in a personalized way has become the key to brand success. The three core advertising targeting options provided by Facebook in a timely manner can help overseas companies accurately reach the target audience, thereby meeting the needs of both brands and consumers.

1.Core audience groups (saved audience groups)

Core audiences are Facebook’s default precision targeting tool, which allows advertisers to create or lock target audiences based on demographic characteristics, behavior patterns, interest preferences, geographic location and social connections. Through the rich information shared by users on Facebook, advertisers can more effectively attract potential customers. This feature is especially suitable for businesses that are new to Facebook advertising or businesses seeking to expand new audiences.

Geographic location targeting: advertisers can accurately target countries, regions, cities, postal codes and market areas, and flexibly select users who live, visit or have been to the place, and customize the inclusion or exclusion of specific groups.

Age, gender and language targeting: set the age range, select gender (male, female or all), and specify the language for non-local mainstream language users to ensure accurate communication of information.

Audience targeting: Use demographic data such as education, finance, occupation, relationship and life events to accurately reach target users, with a special focus on the family market with children of a certain age.

Interest targeting: Target based on user interests (activities, page preferences, topics), covering multiple areas to ensure that ads are closely related to user interests.

Behavioral targeting: Analyze purchasing habits, device usage and online activities to attract users with high interaction or conversion potential, including anniversaries, consumer categories, mobile device users and other segments, to help precision marketing.

2.Custom audiences

This targeting feature is specifically targeted at users who have been interested in your products or services, such as website visitors who browsed products but did not place orders, and users who are targeted based on the information we already have. It is based on information shared by user resources, which not only ensures information security, but also improves the accuracy of targeting.

The custom audience feature helps overseas advertisers use existing customer information across Facebook, Instagram and multiple device platforms to accurately reach these users and establish connections while respecting user privacy. You can create custom audiences using two types of Facebook sources, including:

Exclusive custom audiences: interact with existing customers and potential interested parties to observe user behavior in apps or games; discover new audiences through offline physical stores and phone conversations; on social media, track purchase intentions and customize advertising content.

Facebook Custom Audiences: Create custom audiences with Facebook resources. Target interested users based on video viewing history, instant experiences, shopping interactions, Instagram account visits, and Facebook page activities.

3.Similar audiences

Just create a similar audience from a custom audience, and you can use this feature to find new users who are similar to your existing customers or advertising audiences to promote your products and services.

For example, you are the owner of a women’s clothing online store and have used custom audiences to reconnect interested users and buyers. Now, want to attract new customers? Use the similar audience feature to help you find new people with similar characteristics to existing customers, allowing you to accurately deliver ads.

When creating, you need a “source audience”, that is, existing customer data, and Facebook will find similar people based on this data. When selecting a source audience, you can set population characteristics, such as age, interests, etc., and set the size of the similar audience you want to find. It should be noted that the “source” audience is recommended to be between 1,000 and 50,000, and the quality should be good, so as to ensure that the similar audience found is also high-quality.

4.Positioning problems you should avoid (why my Facebook ads can’t convert)

An effective targeting strategy can significantly improve the conversion rate of your ads on Facebook. On the contrary, inappropriate targeting may cause the conversion rate to drop or even zero, which will lead to audience fatigue, that is, users frequently see but do not feel the ad display. Here are 3 key points to avoid ad conversion failure:

  • Before advertising on Facebook, analyze the target audience and find the users who are most likely to be interested. Avoid misplacement, reduce costs, and improve results.
  • Pay attention to audience overlap and don’t let different ad groups share too many users, especially when the budget is large. Use Facebook tools to check to ensure that the ads are accurately reached.
  • Exclude users who are unlikely to click on ads, such as customers who have already completed transactions. Customize audiences based on user behavior to make ads more accurately find potential customers.

3.Five Facebook ad targeting strategies

Are you ready to start targeting Facebook? Use these tips and strategies to increase conversions and keep your audience interested.

  1. Target your competitor’s audience

To target your Facebook competitor’s audience, you can use the ‘Audience’ feature of Meta Business Suite Insights for in-depth analysis.

First, log in to Meta Business Suite and focus on the audience analysis interface to initially build your target user portrait through basic targeting tools such as location, age, gender and interests.

Then, instead of rushing to create an audience, check the ‘Popular Pages’ area to understand the pages that your target users are passionate about, providing clues for subsequent analysis.

Next, clear the existing filters and directly enter the name of your competitor’s Facebook page in the ‘Interests’ search box to find user groups similar to your competitor’s fans. Analyze the demographic data of these users in detail and discover additional audience characteristics to optimize your ad targeting strategy.

Finally, based on these findings, you can log in to the Media Manager platform for free, start Facebook advertising business, and then quickly build an audience based on competitor fans, and refine and optimize according to business characteristics and activity goals, so as to accurately target and reach these high-potential users.

  1. Retargeting with Custom Audiences

Retargeting is an effective way to reach potential customers who have shown interest in your products. Facebook’s Custom Audiences feature gives you the flexibility to advertise to users who have recently visited your website, viewed a sales page, or even looked at a specific product.

You can also use this feature to exclude customers who have recently purchased a product if you think they are unlikely to convert again in the short term. To build a Facebook-based Custom Audience, the first step is to install the Facebook pixel. Once installed, you can follow the guide below to create a remarketing audience:

Access Ads Manager and navigate to the Audience Management interface.

Click the “Create Custom Audience” option.

In the “Source” section, select “Website” as the data source.

Next, select the pixel code you have installed from the list.

Go to the “Events” settings and select the corresponding visitor type to target based on your marketing goals.

Name your audience, making sure the name clearly reflects its characteristics, and then click “Create Audience” to complete the setup.

  1. Mining high-value similar audiences and replicating successful customer groups

With Facebook’s similar audience feature, you can customize Facebook targeted ads to target potential customer groups that have the same characteristics as customers who have purchased products.

First, build a customer value custom audience:

  • Access the Ads Manager, click “Audience” and select “Create Custom Audience”.
  • Set “Source” to “Customer List”.
  • Follow the instructions to select the import method of the customer list, complete the upload and confirm the creation.

Then, use this list to build a value-based similar audience group:

Return to the “Audience” page in the Ads Manager.

Click “Create Similar Audience”.

Select the previously created customer value-based custom audience as the basis.

Set the target audience’s geographic location and desired audience size (smaller numbers represent higher feature matching).

Finally, confirm and create a similar audience group to accurately target high-value potential customers.

  1. Target users who have recently purchased through Facebook ads

An often underestimated feature in the advanced targeting settings of Facebook ads is the ability to target users who have clearly expressed the intention to purchase through Facebook ads. Selecting the purchase behavior option in “Engaged Shoppers” can accurately target users who have clicked the “Buy Now” button in your ad within the past week. Although users may browse through many ads, this option ensures that your ads are only shown to those who have actively shown their willingness to buy recently.

To enable “Engaged Shoppers” targeting, follow these steps:

Create a new or open an existing ad group and navigate to the audience setting section.

In the detailed targeting options, use the search bar to enter “Engaged Shoppers”.

Select “Attracted Shoppers” to complete the targeting settings for this type of high-potential customers.

  1. Find your unicorn content

Compared to the previous content, this strategy is very different. It focuses on optimizing the targeting of advertising content rather than simply selecting the right Facebook target group.

This concept comes from Larry Kim, a columnist for nc. magazine. He believes that content marketing is actually a competition about quantity. It is necessary to screen out “unicorn” content from a large amount of content-that is, content that has caused a sensation on social platforms, ranked first in Google searches, and driven web traffic.

So, what content can be predicted to “evolve” into a unicorn? Traditional evaluation methods based on writing skills, keyword optimization, and readability standards are not reliable. On the contrary, it is more scientific to continuously monitor data performance on social media platforms.

Once you find content that exceeds expectations, you can make full use of its value and transform it into various forms such as Facebook ads, infographics, or videos. At the same time, overseas advertisers can also test this content in multiple formats for different key audiences to further improve its effectiveness.

It is important to remind everyone that combined with the Facebook ad targeting strategy we provided earlier, you can ensure that your unicorn content accurately reaches the audience most likely to convert and achieve a perfect match between content and audience.

In addition to the above 5 strategies, overseas advertisers can also use the following 5 strategies to improve your conversion rate:

Use relevance diagnostic tools to optimize positioning strategies

Improve accuracy through detailed positioning

Cleverly combine two unique audiences

Use a wide range of positioning strategies to accurately target the target audience

Use Advantage+ advanced audience targeting function

If there is a strategy you want to know more about, you can leave a message in the comment area, and we will have a professional advertising optimizer to answer you!

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