One of the key advantages of social ads<\/a> over other forms of advertising is the ability to laser-target your audience.<\/p>\n Smart Facebook ad targeting can help you reach the people who are most likely to be interested in your brand. With advanced targeting options, you can go a step further and reach the people who are likely to be interested in specific products, and who have already shown they\u2019re willing to shop.<\/p>\n All of this helps you achieve higher conversion rates with your existing ad budget. And show us a Facebook advertiser<\/a> who doesn\u2019t love a higher ROI!<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Bonus: Use our<\/strong> free Facebook Ads budget calculato<\/span>r<\/strong> to figure out exactly how much you need to spend to get the results you want. Let us do the math for you!<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Facebook ad targeting is a way to make sure your ads are seen by the people who are most likely to be interested in what you\u2019re offering.<\/strong><\/p>\n Imagine you\u2019re throwing a party. You wouldn\u2019t invite everyone you know if only a handful of them actually enjoy the kind of event you\u2019re hosting, right? Instead, you\u2019d send invites to people who share your interest in the theme, activities, and even the food you\u2019re planning.<\/p>\n Facebook ad targeting works the same way. It lets you \u201cinvite\u201d the right people to see your ads by using various criteria. This not only narrows down your ad targeting, but also saves you money in the long run (in very simple terms, reaching a larger audience is more expensive than reaching a smaller one).<\/p>\n Pro tip: <\/strong>Check out the best Facebook ad examples<\/a> to inspire your strategy. Then, learn how to perfect your Facebook ad strategy in minutes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Facebook ad targeting works by helping you zero in on the audiences most likely to interact with your brand, and buy from you.<\/p>\n On Facebook, ad targeting is based on three different types of target audiences<\/a>:<\/p>\n Core audiences use basic characteristics and behaviors to target your ads. For example, you might target your audience by selecting criteria such as age, gender, education, job title, interests, and geographical location.<\/p>\n Use case:<\/strong> If you\u2019re promoting a new line of fitness apparel, you might target women aged 25-40 who live in urban areas and have shown an interest in fitness-related pages.<\/p>\n Custom audiences allow you to re-engage with people who have already interacted with your business. You can create custom audiences based on data such as website visitors, customer email lists, app users, or people who have engaged with your Facebook content.<\/p>\n Use case:<\/strong> Targeting users who visited your website but didn\u2019t make a purchase, encouraging them to return and complete their transaction.<\/p>\n Lookalike audiences enable you to reach new users who share similarities with your existing customers. Facebook identifies common characteristics of your custom audience and finds new users who resemble them, but who may not yet be familiar with your brand.<\/p>\n Use case: <\/strong>A SaaS company can create a lookalike audience based on their current customers to attract new leads who share similar software preferences, or work for similar industries.<\/p>\n Demographic targeting on Facebook lets you select who sees your ads based on specific traits such as:<\/p>\n This type of targeting helps ensure your ads are seen by people who match the demographic profile of your target audience.<\/p>\n Behavior and interest targeting focuses on users\u2019 actions and what they like on Facebook. Facebook interest targeting takes your efforts a step further, by focusing on:<\/p>\n This targeting helps connect with users interested in topics related to your business, increasing engagement.<\/p>\n Value-based targeting goes beyond demographics and interests\u2014it focuses on appealing to the shared values of your potential customers:<\/p>\n Value-based targeting on Facebook helps you create more meaningful and relevant ad experiences, increasing the effectiveness of your campaigns and driving better results.<\/p>\n Ready to start targeting Facebook? Use these tips and strategies to boost conversions and keep your audience interested.<\/p>\n The Audience tab in Meta Business Suite<\/a> Insights offers a ton of valuable information that can help you understand your Facebook followers. You can then use the data to learn how to target potential new followers and customers.<\/p>\n It\u2019s such a treasure trove that we\u2019ve got an entire article dedicated to using Audience Insights for better targeting<\/a>.<\/p>\n But our favorite Audience Insights strategy is to use the information it provides to learn who you\u2019re competing with on Facebook, then target your competitors\u2019 existing fans.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a quick how-to:<\/strong><\/p>\n Open your Audience Insights dashboard<\/a> in Meta Business Suite and select Potential audience<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Click the Filter button<\/strong> on the top right of the page and use the basic targeting options like location, age, gender, and interests to start building a Facebook audience that matches your target audience persona<\/a>.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t<\/strong> click Create audience just yet. Instead, scroll down to the Top pages <\/strong>section to see which pages your target users already connect with. Copy and paste<\/strong> this list into a spreadsheet or text file.<\/p>\n Go back to the Filter selection tool.<\/strong> Clear your existing filters and type the name of one of your competitors\u2019 Facebook Pages in the Interests box<\/strong>. Not all competitors will come up as an interest, but for those that do\u2026<\/p>\n Check out the presented demographics information to see if you can gain any additional audience insights that will help you target your ads more precisely. Then, create a new audience<\/strong> based on these new demographic insights, then test it against one of your existing audiences.<\/strong><\/p>\n Or, simply click Save<\/strong> and you\u2019ve got an audience based on your competitors\u2019 fans.<\/p>\n Of course, you can further target this audience to make sure you get the best fit for your specific business and campaign goals, but this is a great way to start finding relevant people on Facebook.<\/p>\n You can find more details in our Audience Insights how-to article<\/a>.<\/p>\n Retargeting is a powerful Facebook targeting strategy to connect with potential customers who have already expressed interest in your products.<\/p>\n Using Facebook Custom Audiences targeting options, you can choose to show your ads to people who have recently viewed your website, people who have looked at sales pages, or even people who have looked at specific products. You can also choose to exclude people who have purchased recently, if you think they are unlikely to convert again soon.<\/p>\n Before you can use Facebook Custom Audiences based on website visits, you need to install the Facebook Pixel<\/a>.<\/p>\n Once that\u2019s done, here\u2019s how to create your remarketing audience:<\/strong><\/p>\n Another option is to create a custom audience based on data synced from your CRM. For this option, you\u2019ll create your audience within Hootsuite Social Advertising<\/strong>.<\/p>\n You can then use your advanced audience to create a Facebook ad campaign directly within Hootsuite Social ads.<\/p>\n Pro tip: <\/strong>Find more details in our blog post on how to use Facebook Custom Audiences<\/a>. And, Learn more about targeting Facebook audiences with Hootsuite here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Facebook lookalike audiences allow you to build Facebook targeted ads lists of potential customers who share characteristics with all the people who already buy from you.<\/p>\n Before you can incorporate customer value into a lookalike audience, you need to create a customer value custom audience:<\/p>\n Go to Audiences<\/a> within your Ads Manager and choose Create a custom audience<\/strong><\/p>\n Then, choose Customer list<\/strong> as the source.<\/p>\n Choose how you\u2019ll import your customer list from the options given. Then, click Next, <\/strong>and upload your customer list<\/strong> on the following screen.<\/p>\n Click Upload<\/strong> and Create<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Source: <\/em>Facebook Ads Manager<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Now, you can use this list to create a value-based Lookalike audience to target your highest-value potential customers:<\/p>\n Find more details in our guide to Facebook Lookalike Audiences<\/a>.<\/p>\n Facebook helps you understand how relevant your ad is to your selected audience based on three ad relevance diagnostics:<\/p>\n All measures are based on your ad\u2019s performance compared to other ads targeting the same audience.<\/p>\n As Facebook says<\/a>, \u201cPeople prefer to see ads that are relevant to them. And when businesses show their ads to relevant audiences, they see better business outcomes. That\u2019s why we consider how relevant each ad is to a person before delivering an ad to that person.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The whole point of Facebook ad targeting is to get your ad in front of the specific audience that\u2019s most likely to take action based on that exact ad. This is the very definition of relevance.<\/p>\n Here are some simple ways to help improve your ranking scores for Facebook\u2019s ad relevance diagnostics:<\/p>\n If your ads aren\u2019t performing as well as you like, you can use the ad relevance diagnostics to look for opportunities to improve targeting:<\/p>\n Remember, relevance is all about matching the right ad to the right audience. No one ad will be relevant to everyone. <\/strong>Effective targeting is the only way to achieve a consistently high relevance ranking. Test regularly <\/strong>and aim for a regular Facebook targeting update to make sure you\u2019re continuing to target the right people with the right content.<\/p>\n An often overlooked option within the detailed targeting options for Facebook ads is the ability to target people who have already expressed interest in making a purchase from Facebook ads<\/a>.<\/p>\n Selecting the purchase behavior Engaged Shoppers<\/strong> limits your ad audience to people who have clicked the Shop Now<\/strong> button on a Facebook ad within the last week.<\/p>\n While some Facebook users might scroll past ads, this option ensures you reach people who have already (and very recently) shown that they are willing to shop from ad content.<\/p>\n To access the Engaged Shoppers targeting option:<\/strong><\/p>\n This tip is a little bit different. It\u2019s about targeting your ad\u2019s content, rather than choosing the right Facebook target audience.<\/p>\n This concept was coined by MobileMonkey CEO and Inc. columnist Larry Kim. He suggests that<\/a> only 2% of your content will perform well both on social and in search engine rankings<\/strong>, while also achieving high conversion rates. He argues that content marketing is a volume game, and you simply have to create lots of \u201cdonkey\u201d content (you can guess what that means) to get to the unicorns.<\/p>\n So, what\u2019s your unicorn content?<\/strong> It\u2019s that blog post that absolutely blows up on your social channels, climbs to the top of the Google rankings, and drives a ton of traffic to your landing pages.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t predict what will \u201cgo unicorn\u201d based on factors traditionally used to define great content (like great writing, keywords, and readability). Instead, you\u2019ve got to keep a close eye on your social media analytics<\/a> and performance.<\/p>\n When you spot overachieving content, repurpose it as a Facebook ad<\/strong>. Make it into an infographic and a video. Test this content in various formats for your key audiences to make it work even harder.<\/p>\n Most importantly, use the rest of our Facebook ad targeting tips to make sure you match your unicorn content to the audience that\u2019s most likely to engage with it.<\/p>\n Facebook offers tons of targeting options. On the surface, the options are divided into three main categories<\/strong>: demographics, interests, and behaviors. But within each of these categories, things get pretty granular.<\/p>\n For example, under detailed targeting<\/strong>, you can choose to target parents. Or, more specifically, you could target parents with toddlers. Or, exclude parents altogether.<\/p>\n Then, you can click Narrow Audience<\/strong> to add additional layers of targeting. For example, under demographics, you can choose to limit your Facebook target audience based on relationship status and job industry.<\/p>\nWhat is Facebook ad targeting?<\/span><\/h2>\n
How does Facebook ad targeting work?<\/span><\/h2>\n
1. Core audiences<\/span><\/h3>\n
2. Custom audiences<\/span><\/h3>\n
3. Lookalike audiences<\/span><\/h3>\n
Basic types of Facebook ad targeting<\/span><\/h2>\n
Demographic targeting<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Behavior and interest targeting<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Value-based targeting<\/span><\/h3>\n
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10 Facebook ad targeting strategies that actually convert<\/span><\/h2>\n
1. Target your competitors\u2019 customers<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"arrow](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.hootsuite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Facebook-ad-targeting-1-620x370.png?resize=620%2C370&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"facebook](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.hootsuite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Facebook-ad-targeting-2-620x538.png?resize=620%2C538&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"bar](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.hootsuite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Facebook-ad-targeting-3-620x354.png?resize=620%2C354&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"filter](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.hootsuite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Facebook-ad-targeting-4-620x1298.png?resize=620%2C1298&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n2. Use custom audiences for retargeting<\/span><\/h3>\n
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3. Find people similar to your best customers with value-based lookalike audiences<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"create](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.hootsuite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Facebook-ad-targeting-5-620x540.png?resize=620%2C540&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"custom](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.hootsuite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Facebook-ad-targeting-6-620x510.png?resize=620%2C510&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n![\"customer](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.hootsuite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Screenshot-2024-06-24-at-9.13.03-PM-620x125.png?resize=620%2C125&ssl=1\")
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![\"lookalike](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.hootsuite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Facebook-ad-targeting-7-620x623.png?resize=620%2C623&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n4. Improve targeting with Facebook ad relevance diagnostics<\/span><\/h3>\n
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5. Target people who have recently shopped from Facebook ads<\/span><\/h3>\n
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6. Find your unicorn content<\/span><\/h3>\n
7. Get ultra-precise with detailed targeting<\/span><\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.hootsuite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Facebook-ad-targeting-8.png?ssl=1\"){kind=link}