How to target the right audience with your Facebook advertising campaigns

Learn about ad targeting options for your Facebook ads. Reach your audience by location, gender, age, likes and interests, education and more.

Christmas is a great time to ensure that your adverts reach relevant audiences. As targeting on Facebook is more than twice as accurate than most online advertising networks (in narrowly targeted campaigns, the average online reach is 38% accurate, compared to Facebook, where the average reach is 89% accurate), you will only pay to reach people who will love your business.

Take a look at 4 ways that successful businesses target their adverts.

1. Target connections: Use advanced connections to grow word of mouth

When a person sees that their friends like your business, they are 50% more likely to remember your advert and 35% more likely to make a purchase. Here is how to reach your fans’ friends:

– In the adverts creation tool, in the Audience section, choose Connections. Select Advanced connection targeting. Then, enter your Page name to have your adverts shown to people whose friends are connected to your Page.

– To only reach those who aren’t yet connected to your Page, exclude your Page fans.

Example: e-Commerce jewellery business, Joseph Nogucci, targets its link adverts to the friends of its fans to gain new customers from word-of-mouth marketing and drive product sales.

2. Target interests: Appeal to your customers’ interests

Interests targeting lets you find people based on information they’ve added to their Timeline, keywords associated with Pages they’ve liked and other sources. Remember to:

– Be creative: Use different keywords to narrow your targeting. For instance, if you’re a fitness clothing retailer, instead of running shoes use marathons, cross-training and hiking boots.

– Be relevant: Choose keywords that are tailored to different audience niches, like handmade jewellery or sterling silver

– Experiment: There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Try selecting different interests to see which ones reach more customers.

3. Target demographics: Be specific about who you reach

You can refine your advert’s target audience based on content that people have shared about themselves in their Facebook profiles. Some of the most frequently used demographic targeting choices are:

You can refine your advert’s target audience based on content that people have shared about themselves in their Facebook profiles. Some of the most frequently used demographic targeting choices are:

– Age

– Gender

– Relationship status

To learn more about the demographic details of your audience, visit the Audience Insights tab in your Adverts Manager.

4. Show adverts on mobile: Show up in the right place at the right time

One of the best ways to drive sales is to simply be there when people are on the go and looking to make a purchase. Here’s how to make sure that your targeted adverts show up to people on mobile:

– Visit the adverts creation tool to create a new, targeted advert

– Select Mobile News Feed in the Advert Preview and Placement area, so you’ll only pay to have your adverts shown to people on their mobile devices

During holiday shopping, people access Facebook through mobile devices four times more often than through search engines. Make mobile a part of your holiday campaigns to reach more interested audiences from wherever they are.

Source: Facebook for Business

Iñigo Etxebeste, September 5, 2016