Top 4 Ways to Target Audiences on Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads is possibly the most powerful advertising platform in the world today. It supports all ads in the largest social media and messaging platforms - Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.

Their audience is around 4 billion people according to Statista. This covers north of 50% of the world's population.

Key features that make Facebook Ads so good are its Artificial Intelligence and growing pool of users. Marketers can identify audience based on hobbies, interests, age groups, locations and more. Compared to traditional ads, the accuracy is remarkable. All these are achievable with as little as RM3 a day.

Along with the level of details come the complexity of operation. It is equally easy to do it well and get it totally wrong. Success or failure comes down to target methods. So, here are the top 4 tips we think you may find helpful.

The Boost - The Most Misconceived.

Marketers often mistake Post Boosts for advertising, which I can assure it isn’t. When you publish a post, they only stay on Newsfeeds for a while. After that, they will disappear beneath other content. It is a waste of your effort creating that post if nobody sees it.

Boosted posts work well to increase visibility of your content. It also extends the lifespan of your content.

The organic way to keep your posts resurfacing to the top is through Reactions and comments. By Boosting posts, you are doing it using money instead.

Boosted Posts shouldn't do more than Reach and Awareness. Avoid applying Call to Actions so they appear more organic.

Creating Our Own Audience - The Beginning

Before we venture deeper into ad controls, we begin by creating one. This feature sets the audience age group, gender, locations, and languages. Interests and behaviors track who the audience interacts with. When selected, Facebook will show your ads to similar people.

For example, we can find people interested in Luxury Goods and sell them luxury apartments. We can also target users who interact with competitor brands.

Custom Audience

Consumers interact with a brand multiple times before buying from them. It doesn't make sense to run one ad expect them to spend money instantly.

Custom Audience is a powerful but underused feature. We can import contact files, which includes emails and mobile numbers. It is also possible to retarget your Followers or visited your website from a past ad.

Inserting Contact Lists

This feature is kind of hit-and-miss but doesn’t hurt to try. Upload your existing list of emails and mobile numbers, and Facebook can connect them with users.

Remember that Facebook can only match your list with users who declared similar emails and phone numbers in the accounts. This also works with customers who claimed your offline code, where you can up sell or cross-sell.

You may not get all the contacts connected, but some is better than none. It's nonetheless a good way to reutilize existing contacts.

Retargeting Audiences Who Took Action

Let’s say you ran an ad that got people to buy a product. The Call-To-Action (CTA) button led your potential customers to your website's product page. Due to many reasons, some may end up not making a purchase. They could be in the middle of their decision-making process, or you may have caught them at the wrong time.

You are still able to reach them again through Retargeting. If you link your CTA with a Facebook Pixel, Facebook will know what happens in your website. They collect a list of users who did or did not take actions. You can reuse this list for a Remarketing campaign. Perhaps sell them related products or provide offers to encourage purchase.

People Who Downloaded Your Apps

This tool is similar to Retargeting Audiences, but specific to app downloads. If you have an app, choose this targeting method instead. Facebook will compile a list of users who hit the 'download' button for your remarketing efforts.

Lookalike Audience

As the name suggests, Lookalike Audience can expand your Custom Audience to include similar users. Facebook can compile users with similar demographics to those of your original Custom Audience list.

There are limitations to this function, as described by Facebook themselves. The Similar Audience can only come from one country. Say you have a source audience from Malaysia and Singapore. Facebook's Similar Audience can only come from one country, not two. They will either be in Malaysia or Singapore, not both.

It is also not a way to pool a massive number of leads. A minimum of 100 source audiences only generates around 500 Lookalike Audiences. That doesn't mean it's not useful. When you're dry on leads, this feature really helps.

Conclusion

Facebook Ads is a powerful tool that most do not know how to maximize. When done wrong, it can be a giant waste of time and money. But equipped with the right knowledge and planning, it can do wonders to your sales team.