 Thinking of boosting a post or running ads to promote your business? Make sure you have a basic understanding of your targeting options so you're reaching your ideal customers. Facebook Ads are a great way to reach your ideal customers at scale with their targeting options. Although there are many variables to running a successful Facebook Ad, choosing the right targeting is one of the easiest ways to make sure your ad budget is being spent on those most likely to make a purchase. Learn more about the four key targeting options below; Age Age is self explanatory. You can choose an age range of people most likely to buy from you. If you're only targeting a region then you'll likely want to keep age fairly broad, if you're targeting nationwide then age can help you narrow your audience down. Gender Another obvious one that many businesses likely won't need. If you're selling women's clothes, you want to be targeting females, simple! Location Location targeting is a big one many overlook. By default, this is set to NZ-wide and you'll find there is a large skew towards your ad showing in Auckland due to the larger population there. Not much help if you're a local service-based business anywhere else in the country. You can select a region or specific cities, towns and even a radius around a particular location or address if Facebook recognises it. Your location may not be obvious to people seeing your ad for the first time, so as well as setting your location targeting, also ensure your location or service area is stated in your ad copy and business intro/about section. Interests For businesses with smaller advertising budgets, interest-based targeting is what helps make the best use of your ad spend by reaching people who have interests that match your business. Within interests, you can also choose certain industries, job titles and behaviours. For example, if you sell online then the 'online shopping' behavioural interest is an obvious and important one to target. Interests can help narrow your audience down so you're reaching a smaller, more targeted audience; think quality over quantity! When ads shows up your feed, it's possible to view if the advertiser has chosen interest-based options that align with what interests Facebook has associated with your profile. It's possible to view these in your Ad Preferences settings. How targeted should your audience be? First of all it's important to recognise not everyone is your customer. Even if you have a fairly broad product or service, there may be certain demographics that are more likely to make a purchase, more likely to become repeat customers or more likely to spend more. When running ads, these are the people you want to concentrate on targeting. When creating a new ad campaign in Facebook Ads Manager, you'll get an indicator of whether your audience is well-defined (the goal) or if it's too specific or too broad, you have then adjust the above four targeting parameters accordingly. Want a free target audience size estimate for your business?
I believe every business should have an idea of their target audience and given the parameters above, Facebook can provide an estimate of how many people are in it. To help business owners understand the power of Facebook Ads targeting I offer free Facebook Audience size estimates using the process outlined above. To receive this, just fill in the web form on my work with me page and copy/paste the below in the COMMENT field adding in targeting details relevant to your business as below. "Hi Jason, I'd like a free Facebook Ads audience estimate based on the below please: <a brief description of your products/services> Age: <any desired age range between 18 - 65+> Gender: <male, female or all> Location: <your city or region> Interests: <a couple of things your customers might like or care about>" |