How To Optimize Your Facebook Advertising Audience Targeting To Improve Your Campaigns

If a business owner wants to be successful today, they must have a reasonable marketing strategy with a target audience in mind. However, as we all know, merely considering one’s target audience is not enough when attempting to improve a company’s ad campaign these days.

For instance, a recent report by Buffer revealed that 94% of companies invest in Facebook Ads. At the same time, this report found 67% of companies plan to increase their spending in the social media advertisement space. What’s more, estimates states the US will broach $120 billion in spending on digital marketing.

That said, one can see why it’s vital to the success of any business to create the ideal Facebook Ad and get it in front of the people that count.

So, what factors should one consider when strategizing a Facebook Ad Campaign?

Being that Facebook offers so many options with regards to identifying potential customers, there’s a choice for all business types. So, it’s critical to understand which advertisement scheme is right for which business.

Below are five audience-targeting tips & tricks to improve upon any company’s Facebook campaign.

1. Think About It

Devoting some serious thought and attention to whom constitutes a business’ target-audience is key. It's not only necessary to get in front of plenty of people, but it's also essential to reach the right people.

So, whereas larger numbers may look great on a spreadsheet, identifying with the customer is infinitely more important. Furthermore, it helps to get ad material in front of those who are interested, receptive, and motivated.

By considering which platforms audiences use, their methods and means of communication, and their preferred content, your social media advertising strategy can be developed.

2. Know Customer Preference

An excellent place to start when delving into an audience’s preference is through Audience Insights by Facebook. Through this platform, small business owners and entrepreneurs alike can obtain details about an audience or group’s location, interests, behavior, and other useful information.

Narrowing down specific sub-sectors of a target market allows for companies to put out more accurately targeted ads that genuinely connect customers and businesses.

For example, one way to gather data about a target-audiences on Facebook is by analyzing likes related to similar pages and topics. This method of data-scraping is commonly known as “interest-based” targeting, but not to be mistaken for “likes” targeting.

Using interest-based targeting opens up doors to thousands of user-preferences to better customize a Facebook Ad Campaign’s message and design. Find the “interests” section in the ad set settings, type whatever strikes their fancy, and Facebook recommends similar interests. This method is a great way to target bigger crowds.

3. Find People in the Market for a Product or Service in Your Market

Facebook’s online behavior platform implies a great deal about an individual buyer’s intent. By compounding informational data from multiple sources, Facebook can even zero in on someone in the actual process of buying.

It’s obvious why such data would be useful when developing a digital marketing strategy around Facebook Ads. Be that as it may, one can find this option in the section labelled “Behaviors” under ad set settings.

What’s more, Facebook’s behaviour-oriented platform can divide behaviors into further sub-categories. So, where one business might benefit from targeting people in the market for a new car, another might find targeting those in the market for a used-car advantageous.
Through trial and error, finding a targeting strategy that produces maximum profits is a unique process for each company.

Experiment with this targeting option to determine which methods are most profitable for you and your company.

4. Analyze and Interpret Recent Buying Trends Exhibited by Facebook Users

Even though Facebook was once not taken seriously as a commercially viable advertiser, much has changed since 2013. It was at this time when Facebook joined forces with data-specialists and brokers, such as Datalogix, Epsilon, and Acxiom.

These companies effectively changed Facebook’s marketing value in quite a short time-span. Now the social media giant could provide information from brides-to-be to people apartment hunting.

5. Improve Audience Targeting from Academic Information

Gaining insight into an individual’s educational background, academic discipline, and other scholarly credentials are highly effective ways to target specific audiences.

Marketers and businesses can gear their campaign towards individuals in a particular doctoral program or specialization. For instance, when marketing a professional tutoring service for graduate students, it makes sense to use this method to weed out unlikely consumers and matching potential buyers according to their academic acumen.

Even though education is a demographic sub-category, it shows the power that knowledge can have with regards to affecting a successful Facebook Ad Campaign.

Bio:

Ben Maden is the founder of Matter Solutions, a digital marketing agency based in Brisbane, Australia. Founded in London in 2000, Matter Solutions has been helping clients get the most out of the web for nearly 20 years.