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Optimize Your Facebook Ads with Better Targeting

Optimize Your Facebook Ads with Better Targeting

Trapica Content Team

Marketing Guides
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6 min read
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April 29, 2021

Do you want to reach your target audience using Facebook advertising and maximize your result? If so, you’re in the right place. According to Facebook, a total of 3 million businesses use the platform for paid advertising. However, the number of businesses that are happy with the performance of their ads is much lower. 

Whether you've been using Facebook Ads for awhile or are just starting out, it's important to learn how to optimize the targeting of your campaigns and reach the right audience. This article will show you how to do so, now let’s get started! 

1. Combine the Three Basic Demographics Carefully 

With the power of Facebook targeting, we can reach tiny demographics of our audience with very little effort. However, you don’t want to get so caught up in all the targeting options that you forget the big three. When first creating a campaign, Facebook asks you to choose a location, gender, and age. Pay close attention when picking these options, and don’t make your audience too broad. 

Let’s say that your product appeals to men and women between the ages of 30 and 80 - this audience is huge on Facebook. If you then partner this with a broad location, your ad will struggle to find the people genuinely interested in your product. In this scenario, segment your audience and reach out to them through different campaigns. 

If you need help with the basics of targeting, we highly recommend the free Facebook courses. Facebook has developed a lot of great courses for businesses using the advertising platform. 

2. Consider Targeting by Income Level 

This is a controversial targeting option, but there’s value in narrowing down an audience based on their income level. Through Facebook, we can target based on liquid assets, income, and even net worth. Some products are specifically designed for the wealthy whereas some are designed for poor college students. Why ignore one of the biggest targeting functions that allow you to find your target audience?

Although Facebook doesn’t know the income of all users, it does compile a profile for all users based on third-party data.  Facebook combines this data with general information regarding various demographics. For example, people of a certain age or in a certain area will have a higher net worth compared to other areas. 

3. Target Interests 

Another effective way of optimizing Facebook ad targeting is to create a campaign based on the interests of your chosen audience. After setting the three basic demographics, choosing interests will narrow the field further by bringing your ads into specific niches. As you browse through the various interests, Facebook will show you an estimated number of people with this interest (based on their behaviors and likes). 

It’s important to break the audience down into smaller segments because you don’t want to target millions of people all in one ad. By creating segments, you are able to focus on different interests each time. You are able to target people interested in basketball, gardening, fishing etc.  With the three tips we have gone over, you can target an ad to 18-24-year-old males with little money, based in New York, and with an interest in golf. You’ve managed to narrow down the audience with these targets without getting lost in the mix. 

4. Install the Facebook Pixel 

Facebook Pixel is a genius little tool that lets you in on all the little secrets about your audience. Over time, you’ll have a stronger understanding of your audience. This will allow you to be able to retarget people who have engaged with content and can create campaigns based on the purchase history of the individuals. 

One of the best features of the Facebook Pixel is the data that is gathered to generate Lookalike and Custom Audiences. 

5. Life Events and Milestones 

One of the great things about Facebook is that users continually update their profiles based on the events of their life. The updates people post about milestones and life events are well worth our attention. Offering products that could be considered gifts is a great way to generate interest in this market. For example, It’s possible to target ads based on people who have an anniversary within the next 30 days. Don’t worry, it’s not all about anniversaries. You can also target based on birthdays, people expecting a baby, and others who have just moved into a new home. In fact, you can even target close friends of people with a birthday. They see your ad, remember their friend’s birthday, and buy a product from you just in time. 

6. Track Valuable Metrics 

At this point, it shouldn’t be a surprise that metrics and analytics contribute to successful ad targeting. In addition to using the Facebook Pixel, check the analytics for metrics that help to shape your targeting. We should note that there’s a fine line between checking the analytics and looking every 10 minutes. We understand that it’s exciting checking the performance of campaigns, but ads need some time to settle. 

After first launching a campaign, let it sit for the first two days. On the third day, you can then obtain some insights from the many graphs, tables, and numbers. 

7. Try Various Ad Formats 

To complement your targeting efforts, you can play around with different ad formats. With the popularity of Instagram and Facebook, the audience is accustomed to visual experiences. Therefore, photo and video ads can provide you with a lot of benefits. Sometimes, businesses focus on targeting so much that they forget the importance of varying the ads they offer to the market. 

Other examples of ad formats on Facebook include: 

  • Messenger Ads 
  • Story Ads 
  • Carousel Ads 
  • Collection Ads 
  • Slideshow Ads 
  • Playable Ads 

In particular, Messenger ads rarely get the attention they deserve on Facebook ad targeting. Even though more and more people are using Messenger it is still an under-appreciated platform when it comes to advertising. 

In 2020 many people are turning to Messenger and other apps like it to keep in touch with family, friends, and colleagues. Since Facebook has such a varied user base, most businesses will be able to find their audience on this platform. 

8. Use Split Testing 

Do you ever question what would happen to a campaign after a hypothetical alteration? Well, now you don’t need to wonder because it’s possible to split ads in two and take them down different routes. While one continues with the original settings, the other is adjusted for testing purposes. If the experiment doesn’t work, it’s easy to revert back to the original settings. If the new targeting settings increase performance, you can implement them across the whole campaign. 

Depending on how you want to test, Facebook offers three options: 

  • Duplication 
  • Guided Creation 
  • Quick Creation 

If you don’t want to worry about split testing yourself, know that there are AI solutions that do this for you…and this leads nicely to our penultimate suggestion. 

9. Invest in an AI Solution 

Some will feel as though they don’t have the time to implement our suggestions in this guide, and this is absolutely fine. This doesn’t mean you need to abandon attempts to optimize targeting and give up. Instead, invest in an AI optimization automation tool. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, these tools continually assess the bidding, targeting, and creatives on a campaign while looking for opportunities to boost results. 

One of the benefits of using an AI automation tool is that the very best extend beyond Facebook. You are able to optimize several aspects of your ad across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and plenty of others.

10. Tailor to Your Audience 

This might sound obvious, but the best way to optimize Facebook ad targeting is to consider YOUR audience. It’s all well and good reading stories of successful campaigns online, but these campaigns were only successful because they tailored the targeting to their own audience. Rather than copying others, start from within and think about the people you want your ad to reach.

After this, you can target based on: 

  • Buyer profiles 
  • Education 
  • Finances 
  • Parents 
  • Life events 
  • Relationship status 
  • Age 
  • Gender 
  • Location 
  • Type of home 

Remember, always find the balance between segmenting an audience and not setting too many restrictions with an ad. If you’re narrowing down too much, you’re only going to appeal to a handful of people. With the right balance, cost per acquisition reduces while conversions increase. 

With these ten ways to optimize ad targeting on Facebook, you’ll utilize the budget effectively and enjoy plenty of new customers!

Marketing Guides
|
6 min read
|
April 29, 2021