Why is Facebook Advertising so effective?
There are 2 billion monthly users on Facebook. This means that it’s very likely that your clients are also on there. Facebook advertising allows you to reach the right segment of your audience so you don’t waste your budget on people who aren’t interested in your products or services. How do they know who to target? Facebook gathers all the data from their customers. They know exactly what do you find interesting, what websites do you tend to visit and even what are your political views. Marketers can now target people who matter to them the most. Facebook has all the categories needed to reach the right people at the right time. We will now go through every step of Facebook Ad Targeting so you can make the most of it. Let’s begin.
There are three categories of Facebook Ad Targeting: Core, Custom and Lookalike Audiences.
Core Audiences:
This category uses Facebook data to target your customers. It allows you to build an audience based on their location, demographic, interests, behaviours and connections.
Demographics let you target people who share publicly information about their “education, political views, family/relationship status, life events, career, and more”.
When you combine that with their location, you have a great chance of finding your potential clients. You can choose people who live at certain location, who just moved there or just visited.
Additionally, you can target people with specific interests. The options here are endless; from entertainment and hobbies to relationships and fitness.
Behaviour targeting focuses on people’s spendings behaviours. You can target people who drive certain cars, visit certain countries and even people who are more likely to donate to a charity.
Connections’ section allows you to choose from:
- People who already like a page or an app,
- Friends of people who like a page or an app
- People who don’t like a page or haven’t used their app
- People who responded to your event
- People who didn’t respond to your event
Custom Audiences:
Custom audiences allow you to target people who already interacted with your website, your app or with your Facebook page.
You can either upload your own data e.g. from Mailchimp or you can create an audience based on the website traffic. You can do it by installing Facebook Pixel on your website. Facebook Pixel is a piece of code you include on your site to track consumers’ behaviour online. It’s a fantastic tool because it allows you to reach people who already know your brand. In addition, Custom Audiences allow you to target people who visit other websites. That is a great option if you want focus on customers of your competitors.
With Custom Audiences you can also reach people who engaged with your app. In order to do that you have to get SDK (“a pixel-equivalent for mobile apps”). Its task is to track specific behaviours of your customers who have used an app e.g. people who completed the registration or reached a certain level in a mobile game.
Additionally, you can create your audience based on the data gathered from Facebook. Measuring the engagement of your customers allows you to reach people who:
- Visited your page
- Engaged with your posts
- Clicked on any call-to-action buttons
- Sent a message to your Page
- Saved content from your Page
Lookalike audiences:
Facebook Lookalike Audiences allow you to target people who are similar to your existing customers. The first step is to gather information about your clients. In order to do that you need to combine the data from Custom and Core Audiences. This means that you need choose your Custom Audiences as wells as your customers’ demographics, interests, location, etc.
When targeting a Lookalike Audience, it’s important to pick a small number of Facebook fans as it will higher the chances of reaching the right people (ideally between 1,000 to 50,000). You can manage that by scrolling the tab (1-10%). The great aspect of this type of targeting is that, you can reach people who are likely to buy your product or a service.
Facebook Ad Targeting is a fantastic marketing tool. With all the options to choose from, it may seem a bit overwhelming at first. However once you get your head around it, it gives you endless possibilities. It can help you attract your potential clients, generate more leads and convert them into sales. At the end of the day, your customers are a few clicks away.
