Facebook is a powerful marketing platform and there are lots of ways to reach really precise audiences on Facebook. So here are a few tips and tricks for marketers small and large who want to make the most out of the Facebook algorithm, Facebook ad targeting and the immense treasure trove of data housed within Facebook. The basic idea is to target based on interests that your audiences has. In this post we’ll talk about how to come up with those targets.
Step One – Think About The Person You Are Targeting
Often times large marketers will have lots of information about the people who buy their products. Small marketers may not have the same valuable insights into products to drive your marketing decisions. But there are ways to infer knowledge about who your target audiences and so here’s how we do that. Think about your audience and the places they go. Think about the people they meet and the things they’re interested in.
For example for business to business advertisers I often ask my clients about the types of places your audience will go for work. This helps me understand what Facebook ad targeting options I have in the platform. Do they go to conferences, meet up at professional events, or patronize specific types of establishments? Do they read specific types of media like industry trade publications or websites that cater to their business? Is there a set of jargon that is particularly relevant to your audience? For example, if I am looking at ad agencies who are the programmatic advertising space I will use keywords related to the programmatic ecosystem such as RTB, real-time bidding, programmatic advertising, ad exchanges, Adexchanger, Pubmatic, MediaMath, The Trade Desk and many other.
In this list there are a number of different types of businesses that make up the programmatic ecosystem. So for business to business targeting think about the ecosystem and the companies in that ecosystem.
Step Two – Think About Your Users Digital Footprint
Think about your audience and the places they go online and on mobile apps. Which sites do they go and which apps do they use to make life easier? It’s these places that you can also target in Facebook.
If your marketer is a realtor or a business tied to people buying homes you can target people on Facebook who are connected to, or interested in, Zillow and realtor.com. These two sites show an indication of interest around buying and selling a home so if you are realtor who wants to reach people these people will be of interest to you. To target people with higher net worth layer in a target for household income over $100k.
If it’s your job to get new customers for a car dealership you may want to target people who are interested in the make and model of car that you’re selling and who also have old cars. Layer in a target for in-market buyers, and identify the top 3-5 terms that relate to the process of buying a car. Maybe target people who are interested in Polk and Kelly Blue Book.
Step Three – Think About Your User’s Lifestyle
Facebook has lots of data from three major sources: Axiom Datalogix and Epsilon. These data providers source data from many different providers including publicly available data, registration data, subscription services, blogs and social media. This data is all stitched in a meaningful way. Facebook will then connect that data to a user via their Facebook IDs and the information they know about you. Put together a more holistic profile of the consumer is created. The result is not just interest and behavior targeting, but also powerful lifestage targeting. For example in Facebook we can talk to people who are about to get engaged, who are already engaged or married, or who are having children. We can target users who are attending school for the first time, entering university for the first time, or whose children are going into first grade. We can target people by seniority at jobs (via their job title) and even their life stage. Life stages speak to the accumulation of factors related to marriage status, financial status, health and property ownership.
In practice, here’s an easy guide for targeting consumers.
List out all the places the user would visit online and offline; the magazines they buy, sites they visit, TV shows they watch and events they attend.
List the places the audience goes and the digital products and apps that help them with their day.
List out your competitors, industry jargon and industry specific tools.
This is how you make Facebook ad targeting work best for your business.