How to choose demographics for facebook ads

9 Facebook Ad Targeting Tips for More Conversions

One of the key advantages of social ads over other forms of advertising is the ability to laser-target your audience.

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’re willing to shop.

All of this helps you achieve higher conversion rates with your existing ad budget. And show us a Facebook advertiser who doesn’t love a higher ROI!

1. Target your competitors’ fans using Audience Insights

2. Use Custom Audiences for remarketing

3. Find people similar to your best customers with value-based lookalike audiences

4. Improve targeting with Facebook ad relevance diagnostics

5. Target people who have recently shopped from Facebook ads

6. Find your unicorn content

7. Get ultra-precise with layered targeting

8. Combine two unique audiences together

9. Use broad targeting to find your target audience

Bonus: Get the Facebook advertising cheat sheet for 2022. The free resource includes key audience insights, recommended ad types, and tips for success.

How does Facebook ad targeting work?

Facebook ad targeting helps you define the audience that will see your ads. It can improve the effectiveness of your campaigns — but it will also affect the cost of your ads (in very simple terms, reaching a larger audience is more expensive than reaching a smaller one).

On Facebook, ad targeting is based on three different types of target audience:

Core audiences, which you target based on demographics, behaviors, and location.
Custom audiences, which allow you to reconnect with people who have already interacted with your business.
Lookalike audiences, which allow you to target people similar to your best customers but who may not know about your business yet.

9 tips for effective Facebook ad targeting in 2022

1. Target your competitors’ fans using Audience Insights

The Audience tab in Meta Business Suite 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.

It’s such a treasure trove that we’ve got an entire article dedicated to using Audience Insights for better targeting.

But our favorite Audience Insights strategy is to use the information it provides to learn who you’re competing with on Facebook, then target your competitors’ existing fans.

Here’s a quick how-to:

Open your Audience Insights dashboard in Meta Business Suite and select Potential audience.
Click the Filter button 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.
Don’t click Create audience just yet. Instead, scroll down to the Top pages section to see which pages your target users already connect with. Copy and paste this list into a spreadsheet or text file.
Go back to the Filter selection tool. Clear your existing filters and type the name of one of your competitors’ Facebook Pages in the Interests box. Not all competitors will come up as an interest, but for those that do…
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.
Create a new audience based on these new demographic insights, then test it against one of your existing audiences.
Or, simply click Save and you’ve got an audience based on your competitors’ fans.

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.

You can find more details in our Audience Insights how-to article.

2. Use Custom Audiences for remarketing

Remarketing is a powerful Facebook targeting strategy to connect with potential customers who have already expressed interest in your products.

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.

Before you can use Facebook Custom Audiences based on website visits, you need to install the Facebook Pixel.

Once that’s done, here’s how to create your remarketing audience:

Go to Audiences with your Ads Manager.
From the Create Audience dropdown, choose Custom Audience.
Under sources, click Website.
Choose your pixel.
Under Events, choose which types of visitors to target.
Name your audience and click Create audience.

Another option is to create a custom audience based on data synced from your CRM. For this option, you’ll create your audience within Hootsuite Social Advertising.

In Hootsuite Social Advertising, create a New Advanced Audience.
Choose to target existing customers.
Click Connect Add CRM account to connect your CRM data from Mailchimp, Hubspot, Salesforce, or whichever CRM solution you currently use.
You can get quite specific about who you want to target with your audience based on whether they are existing customers or leads, and whether they have bought within a specific timeframe.

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You can then use your advanced audience to create a Facebook ad campaign directly within Hootsuite Social ads.

An advantage here is that you’re not relying on Facebook pixel data, which may be less robust since the introduction of iOS 14.5.

Find more details in our blog post on how to use Facebook Custom Audiences.

3. Find people similar to your best customers with value-based lookalike audiences

Facebook Lookalike Audiences allow you to build targeted lists of potential customers who share characteristics with all the people who already buy from you.

Value-based lookalike audiences allow you to more specifically target people who share characteristics with your most valuable customers.

Before you can incorporate customer value into a lookalike audience, you need to create a customer value custom audience:

Go to Audiences within your Ads Manager.
From the Create Audience dropdown, choose Custom Audience, then choose Customer list as the source.
Choose your customer list, then from the value column dropdown, choose which column to use for customer value and click Next.
Click Upload and Create.

Now, you can use this list to create a value-based Lookalike audience to target your highest value potential customers:

Go to Audiences within your Ads Manager.
From the Create Audience dropdown choose Lookalike Audience.
Choose the value-based custom audience you created above as your source.
Select the regions to target.
Select your audience size. Smaller numbers more precisely match your source audience characteristics.
Click Create Audience.

Find more details in our guide to Facebook Lookalike Audiences.

4. Improve targeting with Facebook ad relevance diagnostics

Facebook helps you understand how relevant your ad is to your selected audience based on three ad relevance diagnostics:

Quality ranking
Engagement rate ranking
Conversion rate ranking

All measures are based on your ad’s performance compared to other ads targeting the same audience.

As Facebook says, “People prefer to see ads that are relevant to them. And when businesses show their ads to relevant audiences, they see better business outcomes. That’s why we consider how relevant each ad is to a person before delivering an ad to that person.”

The whole point of Facebook ad targeting is to get your ad in front of the specific audience that’s most likely to take action based on that exact ad. This is the very definition of relevance.

Here are some simple ways to help improve your ranking scores for Facebook’s ad relevance diagnostics:

Focus on quality, including great visuals and short copy.
Choose the right ad format.
Aim for low ad frequency.
Time ads strategically.
Optimize your ads with A/B testing.
Keep an eye on your competitors’ ads.

If your ads aren’t performing as well as you like, you can use the ad relevance diagnostics to look for opportunities to improve targeting:

Low-quality ranking: Try changing the target audience to one that’s more likely to appreciate the specific creative in the ad.
Low engagement rate ranking: Refine your targeting to reach people who are more likely to engage. Audience Insights can be a great help here.
Low conversion rate ranking: Target a higher-intent audience. This could be as simple as selecting “engaged shoppers” under purchase behavior (see Tip #5). But it could also mean targeting people who have an upcoming anniversary, or who have another behavior or life event that makes your product or service particularly relevant to them right at this moment.

Remember, relevance is all about matching the right ad to the right audience. No one ad will be relevant to everyone. Effective targeting is the only way to achieve a consistently high relevance ranking. Test regularly and aim for a regular Facebook targeting update to make sure you’re continuing to target the right people with the right content.

5. Target people who have recently shopped from Facebook ads

An oft-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.

Selecting the purchase behavior Engaged Shoppers limits your ad audience to people who have clicked the Shop Now button on a Facebook ad within the last week.

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.

To access the Engaged Shoppers targeting option:

Create a new ad set, or open an existing ad set, and scroll down to the Audience section
Under Detailed Targeting, type Engaged Shoppers in the search bar.
Click Engaged Shoppers.

6. Find your unicorn content

This tip is a little bit different. It’s about targeting your ad’s content, rather than choosing the right Facebook target audience.

This concept was coined by MobileMonkey CEO and Inc. columnist Larry Kim. He suggests that

only 2% of your content will perform well both on social and in search engine rankings, while also achieving high conversion rates. He argues that content marketing is a volume game, and you simply have to create lots of “donkey” content (you can guess what that means) to get to the unicorns.

So what’s your unicorn content? It’s 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.

You can’t predict what will “go unicorn” based on factors traditionally used to define great content (like great writing, keywords, and readability). Instead, you’ve got to keep a close eye on your social media analytics and performance.

When you spot overachieving content, repurpose it as a Facebook ad. Make it into an infographic and a video. Test this content in various formats for your key audiences to make it work even harder.

Most importantly, use the rest of our Facebook ad targeting tips to make sure you match your unicorn content to the audience that’s most likely to engage with it.

7. Get ultra-precise with layered targeting

Facebook offers tons of targeting options. On the surface, the options are divided into three main categories: demographics, interests, and behaviors. But within each of these categories, things get pretty granular.

For example, under demographics, you can choose to target parents. Or, more specifically, you could target parents with toddlers.

Then, you can click Narrow Audience 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.

Think about how these layers of targeting combine to create a hyper-focused audience. You could choose to target divorced parents of toddlers who work in management. And that’s just looking at demographics.

Under Interests>Travel, you could then limit your target audience to people who are interested in beach vacations. Then, under behaviors, you can even further narrow your audience to target frequent international travelers.

Do you see where this is going? If you run a high-end beach resort that offers a childcare program and no single supplement, you could create a promotion that specifically targets single parents in management-level jobs who love beach vacations and travel frequently.

If you market products or services tied to life events, even tangentially, you can target people who have recently moved, started a new job, gotten engaged or married. You can target people in their birthday month, or leading up to their anniversary. You can even target people whose friends have an upcoming birthday.

As you build your audience, you’ll see on the right side of the page how small your audience has become, as well as your potential reach. If you get too specific, Facebook will let you know.

This strategy works best for specific promotions designed to target a precise audience, rather than ads to promote your business in general. Combine this layered Facebook ad targeting with a landing page that speaks directly to the exact audience for best results.

Note: Each time you want to add another level of targeting, be sure to click Narrow Audience or Narrow Further. Each item should say Must also match about the selected criteria.

8. Combine two unique audiences together

Of course, not every product or promotion is naturally suited to the kind of precise Facebook targeting explained in the tip above.

Maybe you don’t know exactly which demographic or behavior categories you want to target with a specific ad. You only have a broad sense of a category you’d like to target. So, what do you do if that Facebook target audience is just too large?

Try combining it with a second audience, even if that second audience seems completely unrelated.

For example, let’s think about creating an ad audience for this GoPro video featuring LEGO boats:

GoPro: LEGO Ship Survives Wave Onslaught

#GoProAwards recipient Canvas 23 Studios sent his creations into the high seas with #GoProHERO10 Black as cargo 🚢 Show us your unique GoPro videos at GoPro. com/awards for the opportunity to take home $500 + a social feature, like Evan.

Posted by GoPro on Thursday, July 21, 2022

To start, we could build an audience of people who are interested in GoPro, videography, or video cameras. Even limiting the audience to people aged 22 to 55 in the United States, that creates a potential audience of 31.5 million people.

Now, in this case, the video features LEGO boats. So, what’s the obvious audience to add in here?

Yep, LEGO fans.

That cuts the potential audience size down to 6.2 million. And it would likely result in a much higher engagement rate, since people would be specifically interested in the video content, not just the product featured in the video.

In this case, we worked backwards from an existing video. But you could also decide on two unrelated audiences to combine, then create a targeted piece of content to speak directly to that group.

9. Use broad targeting to find your target audience

What if you’re just getting started and you don’t know yet who your target audience is? We’ve got a whole blog post on how you can start to figure this out through audience research.

But you can also learn a lot by starting with a broad Facebook ad targeting strategy. This works best for brand awareness campaigns rather than conversion-oriented ads, but the information you learn can help refine your conversion targeting strategy over time.

Create a new brand awareness campaign with some very basic targeting, such as a broad age range within a large geographic area. Facebook will then use its algorithms to determine the best people to show your ads to.

Once your ad has been running for a little while, you can check Audience Insights or Ads Manager to see which kinds of people Facebook chose for your ads, and how they responded. This can help you understand how to create your own target audiences for future campaigns.

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Facebook Ads Target Audiences: Full Guide

Targeting ads to precisely tailored audiences can increase CTR, drive traffic to your website, build brand awareness, or achieve any other advertising goal.

Crafting the right marketing message and choosing attractive creatives is helpful, but the real challenge is reaching the right people. That’s why you should dig into Facebook Ads target audiences and rock your targeting. Keep on reading to check out the details and get inspired by our targeting ideas.

Content

What are Facebook Ads Target Audiences?Why should you use advanced targeting options on Facebook?Types of Facebook Audiences11 Facebook targeting options to boost performance8 tricky Facebook targeting options you should be aware ofTarget your Facebook audience without hassle

What are Facebook Ads Target Audiences?

A Facebook audience is the group of people you want to reach with your ad. Facebook creates an opportunity for businesses to choose demographics, locations, and interests of its users so that they can receive the most relevant ads.

How to target an audience with Facebook ads?

You can create and manage Facebook Ads target audiences in your Business Manager in the ‘Audiences’ section.

You can also find a summary of every created audience there, as well as usage in campaigns and a history of changes within a particular audience. Therefore, you can manage your audiences to update target groups and optimize your efforts.

Another way to create Facebook Ads target audiences is to craft one while setting up an ad campaign in your Ads Manager. During this process, you can choose your pre-defined audiences or create a new one (and save it if you’d like to use it again in the future).

Finally, you can create a Facebook audience while using the ‘Boost post’ option that appears below every published post on your brand’s profile. You can run your campaigns on the go, but always pay attention to a well-targeted audience. Nevertheless, for advanced targeting options, you have to go to Ads Manager.

As you can see, there are three ways of creating Facebook Ads target audiences. The most advanced and beneficial method may be using the Ads Manager and Audience section, because you can select the type of audience and target precise groups.

Using Ads Manager gives you access to some features that are not available through the “Boost Post” option. We’re talking about audiences, but also about ways of reaching them effectively. Via Ads Manager, you can choose such advanced options as displaying ads on specific devices to narrow your Facebook Ads target audiences even further.

Why should you use advanced targeting options on Facebook?

#1 You can target your ads more effectively

You can target people based on their interests, demographics, and even behaviors. This ensures that your ads are seen by people who are more likely to be interested in what you’re selling. Also, you can exclude people who have already bought your products or started interacting with you after seeing your ads.

#2 You can save money

By targeting your ads more effectively, you’ll ultimately end up spending less money on advertising. Facebook’s advanced targeting options allow you to laser-focus your ad campaigns, so you won’t be wasting money on impressions that don’t convert.

If you’re not using Facebook’s advanced targeting options, you’re missing out on a valuable tool that can help you save money and increase your conversion rate.

#3 You can fine-tune your campaigns and test different audiences

When you use advanced targeting options, you can constantly test different audiences to see what works best for your products or services. You can also fine-tune your campaigns on the fly to make sure they’re as effective as possible.

This is a huge advantage that paid traffic has over organic traffic. With the latter, you have to wait for people to find your content and then hope they’re interested in what you have to say.

With the former, you can go out and find people who are already interested in what you have to say. Then, you can show them your content and start building relationships with them.

#4 You can build a competitive advantage

You can gain a huge competitive advantage with paid campaigns, especially if your competitors rely on the much less targeted and less effective organic traffic.

You can get a leg up on your competition by using targeting, and start generating leads and sales that they can’t match.

Types of Facebook Audiences

Facebook provides four types of Facebook Ads target audiences so that marketers have a lot of options to target their potential customers. Read on to find out more.

Facebook Saved Audience

You can store your commonly used targeting settings for future campaigns and save time on choosing the same options multiple times. To reach your target group, you can select demographics, interests, and behaviors.

When it comes to demographics-based targeting, Facebook enables you to determine Facebook Ads target audiences based on the following demographics of users:

Location (country, region or city) – you can include or exclude one or more locations to narrow down your audience, as well as choose among the additional options of people living in this location, people currently in this location, or people traveling to this location.
Age – you can show your ads only to adults by choosing an age range from 18 to 65+, for example.
Gender – you can select men, women or “all”.
Language – enter a language to show your ads to people who use a particular language.

Facebook demographic targeting can be very precise. You can also choose particular traits such as educational, financial, life events, relationships, work, and even determine if your target group is represented by parents of children who are a specific age.

Interest-based targeting allows you to reach specific Facebook Ads target audiences by looking at their interests, activities, the Pages they have liked, and closely related topics. It’s a great way to advertise your products or services to potential customers who have specific interests and hobbies. You can browse interests in the menu or type your own suggestions to find the most suitable options.

Behavior-based targeting can be handy as well. It enables you to target users who have completed a certain action, such as purchased a product using Facebook Payments in the last 30 days, celebrated anniversaries, frequent travelers, and many more. The wide range of available behaviors creates incredible opportunities for brands to show relevant ads and increase conversions.

When to use Facebook Saved Audience?

A saved audience, also known as a core audience, can be used in various cases. First of all, it’s suitable for businesses that start their marketing on Facebook. Core Facebook Ads target audiences can help them explore the market and gather data to conduct further and more advanced campaigns, and experiment with Facebook targeting options. Second of all, this option can be useful as a target group for creating Lookalike Audiences. Facebook provides many possibilities for mixing types of Facebook Ads target audiences, so a well-tailored core

Facebook Custom Audience

This type of audience can be highly effective, but it’s also challenging to create. Via this kind of Facebook Ads target audiences, you can connect with people who have already shown an interest in your business or product based on your sources, such as customer contacts, website traffic, mobile app or offline activity (people who have interacted with your brand by phone, in-store, etc.). Make sure that you have enough records on your list – this option might not work with just a few contacts (Facebook may display an “Audience too small” alert not let you run any ads). The right size database will also allow you to test, scale, and optimize your performance.

By adding Facebook tracking pixels to your website, you can track users’ behavior on your page and use that information in your campaigns. Therefore, you can tailor your Facebook Ads target audiences based on events you want to focus on, such as purchases, sign-ups, adding items to a shopping cart, and more.

Providing Facebook with customer lists allows you to target specific users. The more identities (email address, phone number, mobile advertiser ID, Facebook app user ID, Facebook Page user ID, first name, surname) you can upload, the better the match rate with Facebook.

You can also make the most of Facebook’s sources to create a custom audience based on people who have:

watched your videos on Facebook or Instagram
opened or completed a form in one of your lead generation ads
interacted with your products in a shopping experience (shop section or tagged products on Facebook and Instagram)
opened your Instant Experience on Facebook or Instagram
visited or interacted with your Instagram professional account or posts
interacted with your events on Facebook
followed or have interacted with your Facebook Page

When to use Facebook Custom Audience?

Retargeting options can work wonders for brands that run advanced campaigns and collect information about their customers. For example, if you:

have built a vast newsletter list with GDPR consent for using the data in your marketing campaigns
have ran some campaigns before and you can retarget your ads to remind users about your content or products, for instance, retarget Facebook Ads target audiences who watched your videos but haven’t visited your website
are co-organizing an event and you’d like to reach people interested in other events, then such an audience can be more engaged in your content and willing to sign up for upcoming concerts or festivals
have an advanced marketing funnel, and you can retarget people with relevant content and generate valuable leads.

Facebook Lookalike Audience

This option can be used to target people who are similar to the Facebook Ads target audiences you’ve already identified. You can tailor a lookalike audience based on a retargeting pixel, custom audience, people who like your Facebook Page, and more. Thanks to this option, you can reach more users who match your target group. Facebook uses advanced algorithms to find people who are suitable for your Facebook Ads target audiences. This way you can expand your target group to relevant people instead of guessing who might be interested in your offer.

First, you need to define your core audience to show Facebook what type of customers you’d like to reach. To narrow down your targeting of Facebook Ads target audiences, you can select audience location and audience size. That way, you’ll determine additional conditions and create a more precise target group.

When to use Lookalike Audiences?

Lookalike Audiences can be effective for brands that have already run campaigns effectively and know who is their ideal customer. Use Lookalike Audience when:

you’ve used all of your sources for creating Custom Audiences, and you’d like to expand your reach
your Saved Audience was resultful in one location, and you’d like to reach similar people in other cities, regions, or countries.

This type of audience is extraordinary because it can only be used to advertise credit, employment, and housing. The mechanism corresponds to that of the Lookalike Audience. You need to select data sources, such as Custom Audience, so that the system can find people who have similar interests and behaviors online. A Special Ad Audience is compliant with the audience selection restrictions associated with your chosen special ad category. You can also select audience location and size depending on your business goals.

Schedule your first Facebook post the right way with our definitive guide that tells you how to schedule a facebook post.

11 Facebook targeting options to boost performance

Besides the basic Facebook targeting options, there are plenty of opportunities to maximize your efforts and get really creative with your Facebook Ads target audiences. Check out our pro-tips and get inspired for your future campaigns!

F#1 Using Facebook Audience Insights

Learn more about your target group from the Audience Insights section. You can check out information about all Facebook users or people connected to your Page. You can learn about user demographics, locations, and activities. Such research can give you an idea of who your existing and potential customers are and how to reach them. Therefore, you can make the most of Facebook demographic targeting.

#2 Targeting based on saved posts

Facebook allows you to target people who have saved your posts. It can be a great opportunity to remind your followers about content that they wanted to check out later. This target group can be narrow, but it’s very engaged as it includes users who have already shown interest in your posts.

#3 Excluding existing followers

As you can imagine, your followers match your Facebook ads target audience. When promoting your page and content to new users, remember to exclude people who are already engaging with your content. This way, you’ll avoid causing user frustration and focus on reaching new Facebook Ads target audiences.

#4 Targeting based on several major cities

If your products or services are suitable for people who live in bigger cities, you might want to target the whole country. Unfortunately, that way you’ll reach many users who live in smaller cities and villages. Therefore, it’s worth choosing multiple locations manually and reaching a tailored audience.

#5 Using pins and post-codes for precise locations

Another social media tip is to use pins for narrowing your Facebook Ads target audiences down. Pins determine a location within a one kilometer radius, and post-codes can be more precise than a whole city as well. When advertising events, shopping malls, or restaurants, etc., you can make the most of these Facebook targeting options.

#6 Retargeting people who have clicked on specific links

Using Facebook retargeting pixels can be resultful for companies, but sometimes it’s not precise enough. Thanks to tools like RocketLink, you can shorten any URL and add retargeting pixels to them. That way, you can make the most of external content shared with your followers or in Facebook groups. By tracking people who have clicked your links on Facebook, but also on other social media platforms or a newsletter, etc. , you can create a precise Custom Audience and reach users who are highly interested in specific topic or products.

Also, we thought you might find this helpful – how to edit link preview on Facebook.

#7 Targeting operating systems

When promoting a mobile app you can choose to target only users who are on a given operating system. This way you can avoid causing frustration because customers will only see relevant ads and they can download the app on their OS.

#8 Reminding about unfinished shopping or sign-ups

You can add retargeting pixels to multiple pages. Use these to track customers’ behavior on your website and retarget people who have added products to carts but haven’t finalised the purchase, or have started a sign-up process to your newsletter, platform, or any other form but haven’t completed it. This can be especially helpful for mobile-devices users, as their shopping or sign-ups could easily be interrupted on the go.

#9 Avoiding mobile targeting for non-mobile-friendly websites

Nowadays, every business needs to optimize their websites for mobile users. It’s not a trend; it should be a standard. Nevertheless, if your page isn’t mobile-ready yet, exclude targeting ads to mobile devices to avoid redirecting users to an unresponsive website.

#10 Targeting people who make purchasing decisions

Some products are meant to be used by certain people, but someone else is making the purchasing decision. A great example is a brand that sells toys for kids. In that case, the target group includes parents of kids who are a certain age – such an option is provided within demographic traits. You can also target users by life events to advertise particular products or services. For example, a jewelry company can try to reach people who added engagement as a life event to their profiles in the last 6 months, with wedding ring offers.

#11 Targeting based on customer LTV

By adding a well-crafted customer list with clients who have a high lifetime value, Facebook can help you reach similar people. This way, you can gain new customers and maximize your chances to reach the most beneficial target groups.

8 tricky Facebook targeting options you should be aware of

#1 Targeting users who sent you a message

Even though it sounds like an amazing opportunity to reach users engaged in communication with your brand, take a moment to think about customers who usually interact with your business via Messenger. Yes, very often, such messages include complaints. Don’t push your offer to people who have just complained about your products or customer support.

#2 Reaching anyone who has visited your page

Sometimes users can visit a page by mistake or for many other reasons than being interested in your offer. No matter how resultful this technique might seem, it can be disappointing because of imprecise targeting. A lack of segmentation can result in a higher cost per click and decreased effectiveness.

#3 Targeting based on a Lookalike Audience

Facebook algorithms are not transparent, so marketers can’t be sure how the system matches users with the provided data. You can try out this option, but be aware of its limitations.

#4 Narrowing your target group too much

In this article, we’ve been trying to convince you to put effort into precise targeting. How come narrowing your audience can be adverse for your marketing performance? Facebook won’t accept too small Facebook Ads target audiences, and you’ll have to expand your criteria. Such a narrowed audience may also be insufficient in the long run.

#5 Choosing the wrong type of interest

When browsing interests, you need to pay attention to the details. For example, if you’d like to target people who are interested in learning digital marketing and you type this phrase, you’ll also see suggestions regarding job title and employer. Therefore, you should choose the options deliberately.

#6 Doing too much at once

When you first start using Facebook’s advanced targeting options, it can be tempting to try and target as many people as possible. However, this is usually not effective and can end up costing you a lot of money.

It’s important to start small and then gradually scale up your campaigns. This will allow you to test different audiences and find the ones that are most likely to convert.

#7 Targeting the viewers of videos without checking how long they were played for

Facebook allows you to target video viewers, but this option can be very tricky.

The first 3 seconds of your video are the most important because that’s when people will decide whether or not to watch the rest. If your video doesn’t capture their attention in those first few seconds, they’ll scroll on by and you’ll lose out on a potential viewer.

That’s why it’s important to make sure your opening is catchy and interesting. You want to hook people in and make them want to watch the rest of your video. So think about what makes your company or product unique and how you can communicate that in a brief, attention-grabbing way.

Don’t just blindly set up campaigns to push your audience further down the sales funnel if they are not familiar with your brand and video.

#8 Making your videos too long

On the other hand, you don’t want your videos to be too long. The average attention span of an internet user is only about eight seconds, so you need to make sure your videos are short and to the point.

How to capture your target audience on social media in only a few seconds? If you have a lot of information to communicate, consider breaking it up into multiple videos and then invest in paid traffic to make sure people actually watch them.

Remember, you only have a few seconds to capture someone’s attention, and you need to make the most of them.

Target your Facebook audience without hassle

Facebook provides almost endless possibilities for precise targeting. Once you dig into the most advanced options, you’ll find that you can indeed reach your target group. Don’t hesitate to try out different types of Facebook Ads target audiences, mix them, and optimize your campaigns. Start with exploring Facebook Audience Insights and learning more about your followers. We hope that now you have some ideas about how to target your audience with Facebook ads.

Facebook Targeting*: The Definitive Guide

Creating and preparing a page Setting up an advertising account Create a new campaign Create an ad group Audience settings Create ads Running ads Analysis of results A/B testing Facebook Ad Pixel* Checklist for self-examination

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I will never forget the time when I first started working with targeted advertising on Facebook*. Colleagues said that the indignation could be heard even in neighboring offices. Basically, these were statements about blocking, less often about an inconvenient and stupid interface. nine0003

The Ads Manager is really complicated. But it allows you to be very flexible in setting up ads and get great results. Face the task for the first time (or something did not work out last time) - let's figure it out together.

It is important that the Facebook* account is created with your real first and last name. The social network prohibits the use of company names or positions.

Step 1

Creating and preparing a page

To run targeted advertising on Facebook*, you need a Page (similar to a business account on Instagram*). If you have it and have already been issued, you can immediately proceed to setting up your account. If not, you will first have to create a Page:

Write the name of the Page, for example, "Online store of soft toys in Moscow."
Specify a category. You can type a couple of letters and then choose one of the options.
Add brief information about the company - who you are, what you do, what products or services you offer.

And click the "Create Page" button.

Then go to your Pages section and select the one you want.

The created Page needs to be prepared so that the visitor understands who you are and what you do, what and how he can buy. Blank Pages without design do not inspire confidence. nine0003

Avatar and cover

A company logo works well as a profile photo. The recommended size is 180×180px. And for the cover you need a different resolution - 820 × 312px.

It's better to upload both images in png format so that Facebook* doesn't reduce their quality. You can take images of higher resolution, the main thing is to keep the proportions.

Display of blocks

To make it convenient for visitors, you need to configure the display of various blocks: reviews, photos, general information. nine0003

Go to "Page Settings" on the left panel and open the "Templates and Tabs" section. Then choose one of the ready-made templates, for example, for services or purchases. Or set up the display of blocks manually - in the "Tabs" section.

CTA button

A CTA button is a button with a call to action. Everything is simple here. You need to click "Add button" and select the desired target action: subscribe, call, register, write to WhatsApp or other. nine0003

upload photos or videos;
add reviews;
publish at least 5-10 posts;
fill in the "Services" section if you provide them;
create a store in the appropriate section and add product cards if you sell them.

Be sure to read the Advertising Policies before setting up Facebook* ads. There are many important points.

Step 2

Setting up an advertising account

Open the Ads Manager advertising account. If Facebook* asks you to accept any agreement, such as the non-discrimination policy, please read and accept.

Click Add Payment Method.

Enter your country, currency and time zone. Choose a payment method and enter your card details.

Click on "Confirm".

Then on "Continue" in the upper right corner.

Important points in this step:

1. Card data must match the first and last name of the account.

2. The card must belong to the country where you are located. If you try to attach a Russian card from Europe, the advertising account will be blocked.

3. Indicate the country where you are located. If you specify Russia, but you are somewhere in Australia, the advertising account can be disabled.

Step 3

Creating a new campaign

The advertising account has a hierarchical structure that includes three levels:

Campaign. This is the first stage, which indicates the goal and budget for advertising. It partially determines the settings in the following steps.
Ad group. At this level, you can set up a schedule, places for displaying ads, and an audience. There can be multiple ad groups in one campaign.
Announcements. Here they upload pictures or videos, write advertising texts. Each group can have multiple ads.

Follow this link and click the Create button. nine0003

Goal

At this point, Facebook* prompts you to enter a goal, the actions you want your users to take. Algorithms will show ads to those who are most likely to reach the selected goal, that is, take the actions you need.

Decide on one of the options:

Brand awareness to help people remember and recognize the company.
Reach, if you want your ad to be seen by as many people as possible.
Traffic to drive people to the right place: website, WhatsApp, Facebook app* or Messenger. nine0030
Engagement, if likes, reposts or comments on posts are more important. Separately, you can select “Page Likes” or “Invitation Responses” if you are promoting an event.
Application installs if you want to increase the number of users.
Video views to serve and optimize video ads.
Lead generation will help you get people's data through special forms. You will be able to request a phone number, email and other information. nine0030
Messages to lead users directly to Facebook* Messenger.
Conversions, if the main thing is actions on the site: calls, purchases, applications.
Catalog sales if you want to advertise products. If you select this goal, you must first create a store and catalog in your Page settings.
Attendance points will help to attract offline visitors to a restaurant, store, beauty salon or other local business. Before launching the ad, follow this link and add the addresses of the outlets. nine0030

As of this writing, Facebook* has begun updating the Goals section. Perhaps instead of eleven goals, you have only six displayed - they were combined to make it easier to navigate. But the essence does not change.

Name

Be sure to name your campaigns, ad groups, and ads clearly. Then you will not get confused when the structure becomes many times more complicated. It is important to quickly understand where the campaign is, what settings the ad group has.

For example, I do this:

▪️ In the name of the campaign, I write what I am advertising and indicate the goal. For example: "Promotion arrival by the New Year, coverage."

▪️ In the name of the ad group, I briefly indicate the data of the audience and placements. For example: "Fb, Inst, mzh, 24-35, Moscow time, Drawing."

▪️ Sometimes I also give important information in the ad title: format, image description, call to action, and so on. For convenience, I add abbreviated names of UTM tags.

And you can come up with your own algorithm for creating names. nine0003

Budget

In this section, Facebook* offers to use Campaign Budget Optimization. If you're creating more than one ad set, enable this feature.

The algorithm will distribute the budget in favor of more effective groups: well-performing ads will receive more money, poorly performing ones - less.

Choose one of the ways to allocate the budget - specify the amount you are willing to spend for one day or the entire period of the advertising campaign. You can try both options and see what is more convenient and more suitable for you. nine0003

Do not bet too much if you have just created an advertising account and are running ads for the first time. This is a guaranteed lock. In new offices, I start with a meager amount of $2-8. Only when the ad passes moderation and shows the first results, I gradually increase the budget to the desired one.

If you have little experience, leave the minimum price in the rates section. Facebook* will set its own bids, trying to get more results for less money. When you feel ready to go further, start reading Facebook*'s guide to bidding strategies. nine0003

If your targeting is actions that you need to respond to quickly (for example, calls), turn on the "Show ads on schedule" feature. Then people will apply only during working hours, you will not miss a single application.

To enable this feature, set a budget for the lifetime of the ad. You can set up a display schedule later - at the ad group level.

If everything is ready at this stage, click the "Next" button in the lower right part of the cabinet. nine0003

Step 4

Create an ad set

In this step, when you select some goals, Facebook* asks you to select a Page to promote.

Target sites

If you selected the Traffic, App Installs, Lead Generation, Messages, or Conversion goals, select where you want to drive people.

For example, this is how the site selection for the "Conversion" goal looks like. You need to specify the location where the target action will occur (for example, a purchase or a visit to a website). nine0003

If you want to direct people to WhatsApp, link it to your Page. Next, select a country and enter the number.

Dynamic creatives

In dynamic creative ads, the algorithm combines different variants of text, buttons, images or videos. Accordingly, you will have to download several variants of each of these elements. Facebook* will analyze which combinations provide the best results and show them instead of ineffective ones.

This function is optional, but worth a try - it can bring good results. nine0003

Optimize for ad delivery

This feature improves ads at the ad group level. If you are just starting to work and do not know what will fit, pay attention to the recommended option. Facebook* respects the selected campaign objective.

Some options are not marked with this label, but are selected by default. You can read a brief description and, if everything suits you, leave it as it is.

Show scheduling

Set the start time for ads. An expiration date is optional, but it's best to do so. In the future, you can extend the show if necessary.

If you are advertising a temporary promotion, the expiration date is required.

One day I hoped that I would turn off advertising when there were enough sales. I go to the advertising office for this - and my account is blocked. But the ads keep popping up. People call, but the goods are no longer available - everything was quickly sold out. As a result, ads were shown for nothing for more than a day - I just bled the money. Given the time frame, this would not have happened. nine0003

Step 5

Audience Settings

For Facebook* targeted ads to work, you need to know who your audience is and what they want from your product, where they live and what they are interested in. Without it, you will only be wasting your money.

How and why to divide the audience into groups

Not all entrepreneurs can clearly name who exactly their audience is. A common answer is “Everyone needs my product.” But this is true only if the product is salt or toilet paper. Most often, the audience is a group of some people. And you need to target them, not everyone in a row. nine0003

One way to define these groups is the Khramatrix model. Sample questions and answers:

What product or service do you provide? English lessons for children from 6 to 11 years old.

Who uses the product or makes the purchase decision? In our case, these are the parents of children aged 6-11.

Why does the consumer need your product? Parents of children aged 6 need preparation for school, parents of children aged 7-11 need help in learning the language or doing homework, filling in gaps in knowledge. nine0003

When exactly is your service needed? In our case, the main flow falls on the period approximately from August to March.

Usually the fifth question is "Where can I find your audience?". But for targeted advertising, it is more useful to answer the question “ What is your audience interested in ?”. Our audience of parents is interested in what is connected with children. For example, education, health, family.

Specify general demographic characteristics: gender and age, where they live, what level of income . Women 26-37 years old, live in Moscow. Above average income.

How prepared is a person to buy? Perhaps he is thinking that the child would need to improve his English, but has not yet looked for a teacher. Or already looking for a teacher, reading reviews, studying prices and other conditions.

What influences the choice? What is important to him in the product? When choosing a teacher, it is important that he be delicate, tactful, supportive, able to find an individual approach to the child and explain everything in simple terms. They want to see immediate results. nine0003

What action do you expect from a person: call, subscribe, register, fill out a form or something else? It is necessary that the parent fill out the form, leave his name and phone number - the teacher will call him back. You can also write to WhatsApp or Direct.

Now it's clear who exactly to launch targeted Facebook ads*, what settings to choose in the advertising account and what to convey to the audience. All information is easier to pack in a special table:

Please note that after answering the questions and completing the table, there may be several different groups. In this case, it is better to create individual ads or ad groups to hit the right target.

Life hack: to answer the eighth question “What influences choice? What is important in the product?”, read reviews about competitors - people write what is important for them.

How to create and set up a new audience

Now you can do the settings. Write the name of the city in the field "Search for locations" and select the desired option. nine0003

You can also enter individual streets and metro stations. Or set up a narrower geography for displaying ads through the "Tag" button. It is located at the bottom right of the map.

Select gender and age.

Now specify more precise audience settings - interests, behavioral characteristics and demographics. In the "Detailed targeting" section, find the search bar and click "View". Select a category and find a suitable interest. You can start writing and choose from the options offered. nine0003

For example, in the section “Demographic interests → Parents → All parents”, you can find parents of children of different ages.

How do I target on Facebook* an audience with an above-average income? Think about what characteristics these people have. For example, they often travel, visit prestigious restaurants and other establishments, hold status positions, use Apple technology and expensive smartphones. All these settings can be found in the advertising account.

Pay attention to the right side of the advertising cabinet. Here Facebook* suggests how wide or narrow the audience is. nine0003

Where else can you get an audience for targeted ads

Facebook* can create audiences from people who have already interacted with your company or ad. In the Custom Audience section, click New → Custom Audience.

Hover over each source and read the description. You might want to create an audience with one of these.

If you have a customer base with phone numbers or email addresses, create an audience of these people. Select "Client List" and click "Next". nine0003

Facebook* will tell you what to do: you will download a file with a sample filling, create your own file and upload it back to your account. It is convenient that this file can only contain phone numbers or email - you do not need to enter any other data.

Look for the created audiences in the Custom Audience → Custom Audience section.

How to Create a Lookalike Audience

One of the cool features of Facebook* targeting is finding and collecting audiences that are similar to yours. The tool is called Look-alike and usually gives good results. nine0003

For example, you have a ready-made audience of people who interacted with an Instagram account or ad*. In the Custom Audience section, click New → Lookalike Audience.

Select the source for which you want to build a Lookalike Audience.

Select a percentage from the drop-down list or scale. The lower the percentage, the more the audience is similar to yours, the higher the percentage, the wider the audience. Start with 1-2%, then you can try a higher range.

Click "Create Audience" to finish. If you choose above 1%, Facebook* will create a separate audience for each percentage. Look for these audiences under Custom Audience → Lookalike Audience.

Detailed targeting extension

Meaning: you allow the algorithm to show ads to those who do not fit the selected interests, but are highly likely to respond. It is worth enabling the function - it can improve the result.

The Facebook* Detailed Targeting extension is available for all campaign objectives except Brand Awareness and Reach. nine0003

Selecting placements

Select Manual placements.

Advertising account offers four main options:

Facebook* - placement within the social network: feed, Stories, Right column, search and so on.
Instagram* - impressions only there: feed, Stories, Reels.
Audience Network - partner sites and apps.
Messenger - respectively, advertising in the Facebook messenger *.

Instagram* is excluded as we work with Facebook* targeted advertising. If you still want to run ads on Instagram*, it's best to set them up separately. nine0003

Below you can manually remove or add specific placements.

In Devices, you can turn off impressions for PCs or smartphones. For example, if you know for sure that for some reason they don’t buy from mobile devices.

Another interesting feature is showing ads only to users of specific devices or operating systems.

Step 6

Create announcements

Now you can work with announcements.

How to create a new ad

In the "Ad settings" section, select "Create ad" from the drop-down list. Available formats:

Single image or video.
Ring gallery.

If you chose "Single Image or Video", upload your media, write your ad text and title.

If you plan to lead people to the site, provide a link. Add a call to action that will be on the button.

If you have chosen a gallery, do the same. Add a photo or video, title, description, link for each card. Below, write the main text and select a call to action. nine0003

Activate the item "Automatically show the highest scoring cards first". This will help keep attention on advertising and improve results.

The screenshot shows what a targeted Facebook* ad with a carousel looks like. A person will scroll through all the cards and, if he likes something, will follow the link.

How to promote an existing post

If there is a good post on the Page, you can start promoting it from the ad account. In the "Advertising settings" section, select "Use an existing post" from the drop-down list. nine0003

In the Promotional Creatives section, click the Select Post button.

Find the publication you want to promote in the list and click on it.

Upload images in jpg or png format that are up to 30MB in size. Consider the minimum dimensions, be sure to read the aspect ratio requirements. Stick to them so that the ad looks organic.

Basic requirements for videos and gifs - no more than 4 GB in size, duration from 1 sec. up to 241 min. nine0003

Step 7

Launch ads

To launch targeted Facebook* ads, click the "Publish" button in the lower right part of your account. If something went wrong - for example, you forgot some settings or incorrectly specified the budget - turn off impressions with a special switch. In the same way, you can disable ads at the ad or group level.

It remains to wait until the ad passes moderation - a check for compliance with Facebook* rules. The official note states that most campaigns are moderated within 24 hours. But this does not mean that you will definitely have to wait a day - usually much faster. nine0003

After the launch, the learning phase begins - the algorithm analyzes which audience responds best to the ad in order to show ads to similar people. Don't make any major changes to the ad while the tutorial is running or it will start over again. You can read more about this step in the official Facebook* guide.

Step 8

Analysis of results

To understand whether advertising is effective or not, study the indicators at different levels, taking into account promotion goals. nine0003

Let's say you need leads: applications or orders on the site. Then you need to watch not only reports in the advertising account, but also web analytics data. For example, it is worth tracking how users who have switched from Facebook* targeted ads behave.

Important:

Advertising may not work. Target is not a magic “Loot” button. There are many factors that affect performance: product quality and price, seasonality and demand, the right choice of audience, the readiness of the Page or site for advertising, the quality of the ad. nine0030
Target may not give quick results. The client may not buy right now, but remember: take a screenshot of the ad, subscribe to the Page, write down the number. And make a decision later.

Advertising account

Facebook ad results* - to the right of the campaign, ad group or ad name.

Main indicators:

Reach - how many people saw the advertisement.
Impressions — how many times the ad was viewed. There are more impressions than reach, as a person can see the same ad two or three times. nine0030
CPM — cost per 1,000 ad impressions. The lower the score, the better – it’s beneficial to make impressions as cheap as possible.
Cost per result - The average cost of achieving campaign goals.
Link clicks — number of times the link in the ad was clicked.
Click through rate (CTR) is the ratio of the number of clicks to the number of impressions. The higher the score, the better — it pays to have as many people as possible click when they see the ads. For starters, you can focus on a minimum of 0.6-0.8%. In general, CTR depends on many factors, including the business area. nine0030
Cost Per Click (CPC). The lower, the less advertising costs. Click-through rate (CTR) affects the cost of a click.
Video views at point 25, 50, 75, 95, 100%. The indicator helps track the viewing depth - how long people watch videos. If the score is low, you can try another video.
Conversions - the number of targeted actions that the user performed. To track conversions on your site, you need to install the Facebook pixel* (more).

Which metrics to pay attention to depends on the goal.

Let's say we need to increase conversions. Then it is worth tracking their number and coefficient (the ratio between the number of conversions and, for example, the number of clicks / transitions). And also the cost of one conversion and the payback of advertising. If it turns out that the costs are higher than acceptable, analyze the site, advertising, product to find the problem.

Additionally, it is worth looking at coverage, impressions and cost per 1,000 impressions, the number of clicks, click-through rate and cost per click. Explore different metrics as you work on ad performance. nine0003

To understand the approximate average values for your industry, it will be useful to ask around in the communities of entrepreneurs, SMM-specialists and targetologists. Perhaps one of the colleagues worked with the same niche and will tell you something.

Sometimes, by default, extra indicators are displayed, but there are no necessary ones. Therefore, it is easiest to customize the columns for yourself. Click the table icon and select Customize Columns.

Check the required metrics and remove unnecessary ones.

Behavior on site

If you bring people to the site, track how they behave here. This will help web analytics, or rather, Google Analytics and Yandex.Metrica. You can explore:

Conversions, such as placing an order or adding an item to the cart.
Bounce rate - how many people left the site within 15 seconds. A high score may indicate an irrelevant page that is being landed on from an ad, an incorrect audience choice, or poor website design. nine0030
View depth - the average number of pages visited by one person. The higher the score, the more the site is interesting to visitors.
Time on site - how long does one session last on average. The longer a person is on the site, the better for the same SEO.

One of the Yandex.Metrica tools, Webvisor, allows you to see the site through the user's eyes. Screencasts will visually show how the visitors who were brought by targeted advertising Facebook* behave. nine0003

Behavior on the Page

You can evaluate the growth of new subscribers, the reach of posts, messages in Messenger, as well as engagement - likes, comments, shares.

In general, you can even find out how FB advertising affects offline sales. The options are different: surveys, the use of a special number (call tracking), promotional coding. There is also end-to-end analytics that allows you to more accurately calculate the effectiveness of advertising and ROI (return on investment).

A/B testing

You must have seen this feature when creating a new campaign. Useful if you want to test different versions of text and images, audiences and other settings.

The algorithm is as follows:

Enable A/B testing when creating a campaign.
Setting up your first campaign and ads.
After posting, Facebook* creates a copy and offers to edit it.
Next, the algorithm evenly distributes impressions between an equal number of users. nine0030
Based on the results, you can see which advertisement worked better and use it.

Test one thing: an image, text, or another parameter. If you change several parameters at once - for example, the text, the image, and the interests of the audience - you will not understand why the ad worked better or worse. And if only the picture was replaced, it is immediately clear how it affected the result.

Facebook Advertising Pixel*

A pixel is a special code that is embedded on a website. With it you can:

Track and remember the people who visited the site so that you can show them targeted ads. Or, on the contrary, to exclude from impressions.
Understand how many conversions you get from ads. And calculate how effective it is.

For example, an online clothing store might store the data of those who have visited the section with dresses, and then show them ads with new products. Or find potential customers who put items in their shopping cart but didn't buy and offer a personalized discount. nine0003

The Unisender blog has detailed instructions on how to install an FB pixel on a website. This is not necessary to run ads, but is very useful for ad analysis.

Self-check checklist

Created an account with a real first and last name.

Page design

Information about the company, its address, phone, email and other means of communication.
Avatar and cover.
At least 5 publications.

Customer Reviews.
Call to action button.

Advertising account and payments

Attached your card: the name on it matches the name of your Facebook account*.
Specify the country in which you are located, and the bank card corresponds to it.
Set a not too big budget.

Auditorium

Know exactly who your audience is.
Divided the audience into groups using the Khramatrix model.
We chose the city, gender and age.
Specified interests or behavioral characteristics.
Enabled "Detailed targeting extension".

Placements and devices

Manually selected placements, excluded Instagram*.
Selected specific placements, excluded unnecessary ones.
Selected the desired devices, operating systems or device models to display ads. nine0030

Ads

Select a format and upload images or videos that meet Facebook* guidelines.
Wrote the title and text of the ad.
Added a link if you want to lead people to third-party sites.
Added a button with a call to action.
Activated the item "Automatically show the highest scoring cards first".

Advertising launch and analysis

Clicked "Publish" - the switch to the left of the ad name turned blue.
No major changes were made so as not to interfere with the learning process.
We studied indicators at different levels: coverage, CTR and other advertising metrics, conversions and behavior on the site.

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Facebook & Instagram Fine-Targeting Guide

Fine-Targeting is a targeting option available in the Audience section of the Ad Group Tool. It allows you to specify which group of people to show ads to. You can use information such as additional demographics, interests, and behaviors of people. nine0003

Detailed targeting options depend on the following factors:

Ads people click on.
Pages people interact with.
People's activities on Facebook (such as device usage or travel preferences).
Demographic information such as age, gender and location.
Mobile devices used by people and internet connection speed.

Use of detailed targeting

How to define the audience more precisely?

Once you've selected your campaign objective, go to your ad group and select audience options by location, age, gender, and language, and then set your criteria for fine-grained targeting.

With fine-grained targeting, you can more accurately define your audience in the following ways.

To include certain demographics, interests or behaviors , enter at least one word or term in the default text box and select one of the suggestions, or click View to search for suggestions.

Parameters do not complement each other. This means that if you add three interests (for example, "movies", "books" and "TV"), we will look for people who match the selected location, age, gender and language, as well as one of the three specified interests .

If you want to further narrow your audience, after adding the options you want, select Narrow Audience. In this case, we will form an audience whose representatives must meet at least one of the specified criteria and additional parameters. For example, if you initially chose to include people who matched "movies", "books" or "TV" and then added "yoga", we would look for people who match "yoga" and one of previously specified parameters.

To exclude certain demographics, interests, or behaviors , leave the default text field blank and select Exclude People. In the new text box, enter the options you want or choose from the options. nine0030
To enable and to exclude combinations of demographics, interests, or behaviors, enter at least one word or term you want to include in the default text box, then select "Exclude people" and add options to exclude.

Detailed targeting recommendations

You can refine your audience reach using detailed targeting. Below are tips on how to do this.

"and" targeting and "or" targeting

If you add criteria in the Include people or Exclude people field, your audience will include (or exclude) people who meet at least one of the criteria. Let's say you include people in your audience who:

travel frequently;
are interested in cooking;
have higher education.

A person who is interested in cooking but doesn't travel much and/or doesn't have a college degree will be in your audience. This is "or" targeting as the audience will consist of people who travel frequently or is interested in cooking or graduated from high school.

If you only want to include or exclude people who meet all criteria, you can narrow the audience. To do this:

Include people who travel frequently in your audience.
Click Narrow Audience .
Include people who are interested in cooking in the audience.
Press Narrow even further .
Include people with higher education in the audience. nine0030

This audience will only include people who travel frequently and are interested in cooking and are university graduates.

Combination of "and" and "or" targeting

Include/Exclude > Narrow audience > Narrow further can be thought of as different levels of targeting. You can be more flexible by adding multiple criteria at each level, since you only need one option from each level to include or exclude. nine0003

Let's continue with the example. Your audience at the Include/Exclude level is people who travel frequently, at the Narrow Audience level, people who are interested in cooking, and at the Narrow Even More level, people who are college educated.

You can have multiple "Narrow Even More" levels that are related to each other in the same way as the "Include/Exclude" and "Narrow Audience" levels (they will have the same name).

You can add vegetarians at the Include/Exclude level, and people who are interested in gardening at the Narrow Audience level. Here's what you get:

Include/Exclude: people who travel frequently, or vegetarians.
Narrow audience: people who are interested in cooking or gardening.
Narrow down even more: people who have completed higher education.

Inclusion/exclusion requires one criterion to be met from each level. For example, a vegetarian who is interested in gardening and has a college degree will be in your audience, but a person who travels frequently and is interested in cooking but has no college degree will not. nine0003

Important! When you narrow your audience, try not to make it too narrow. This can lead to your audience being too small and ineffective. We automatically try to select people from the target audience who are most likely to bring the result for which you configured optimization when creating the ad group. Therefore, there is no need to significantly narrow the audience. When creating an audience, you can see its predicted size . If your audience is too narrow or too broad, adjust your targeting options.

Detailed targeting updates

Starting January 19, 2022, some detailed targeting options will not be available. Changes relate to settings that are rarely used, perform the functions of other tools, require too detailed configuration, or, within the framework of projects, organizations and public figures, affect confidential issues related to, for example, health, race or ethnicity, political or religious beliefs, and also sexual orientation. nine0003

Existing ad groups that use the affected targeting settings will continue to serve until March 17, 2022, but this may require you to update your targeting settings. If your targeting is set to exclusion, the affected ad groups will pause after the specified date to prevent delivery errors. If the affected targeting options are set to enable, they will be automatically removed. Where possible, we will offer alternative targeting options in Ads Manager. nine0003

Alternative Reaching Tools

In addition to the remaining detailed targeting options, you still have access to the following reach tools.

Broad targeting , which allows you to set gender, age, and location parameters. By setting up broad targeting, you allow our system to search for target audience to which your ad will be shown. This approach helps you reach potential customers you didn't even know existed. nine0030
Custom Audiences , which allows you to find existing audiences among people who use Facebook products. To create custom audiences based on people who already know about your business, use sources such as your customer list, website or app user data, or Facebook engagement information.
Lookalike Audiences which are based on existing audiences and help you optimize your reach. nine0030
The Lookalike Audiences extension, which is applied automatically when you use Lookalike Audiences and use the Conversions objective to optimize for conversions, value, or in-app events. You manage the audience that the Lookalike Audience was created from. However, we may show ads outside of our 1-10% range for Lookalike Audiences if that improves performance.
A targeting extension that uses the advertiser's fine-grained targeting settings as a display guide. However, we may show ads outside of the selected dimensions if doing so improves performance. Targeting extension is not available for Brand Awareness and Reach goals. nine0030

Note . Starting January 19, 2022, affected campaigns can be seen in your Ads Manager account. Affected ad groups and targeting options may not be available for new campaigns.

Update ad group

To check and edit the affected ad groups:

Open Ads Manager .
Select Affected Ad Groups in the top right corner of the screen. If any of your ad groups need to be updated, you'll see a notification that some of your detailed targeting options will be removed. nine0830
Hover over the desired ad group to make changes.
Open ad group and navigate to Audience to replace or remove the settings you want.
Click the Remove selection button at the top of the screen to update your targeting settings. Publish your changes.

Note . In some cases, the system may prompt you to confirm and publish the changes , after which the affected targeting will be removed.

Where possible, we will offer alternative targeting options.

How to choose demographics for facebook ads

9 Facebook Ad Targeting Tips for More Conversions

How does Facebook ad targeting work?

9 tips for effective Facebook ad targeting in 2022

1. Target your competitors’ fans using Audience Insights

2. Use Custom Audiences for remarketing

3. Find people similar to your best customers with value-based lookalike audiences

4. Improve targeting with Facebook ad relevance diagnostics

5. Target people who have recently shopped from Facebook ads

6. Find your unicorn content

7. Get ultra-precise with layered targeting

8. Combine two unique audiences together

9. Use broad targeting to find your target audience

Facebook Ads Target Audiences: Full Guide

What are Facebook Ads Target Audiences?

How to target an audience with Facebook ads?

Types of Facebook Audiences

Facebook Saved Audience

When to use Facebook Saved Audience?

Facebook Custom Audience

When to use Facebook Custom Audience?

Facebook Lookalike Audience

11 Facebook targeting options to boost performance

F#1 Using Facebook Audience Insights

#2 Targeting based on saved posts

#3 Excluding existing followers

#4 Targeting based on several major cities

#5 Using pins and post-codes for precise locations

#6 Retargeting people who have clicked on specific links

#7 Targeting operating systems

#8 Reminding about unfinished shopping or sign-ups

#9 Avoiding mobile targeting for non-mobile-friendly websites

#10 Targeting people who make purchasing decisions

#11 Targeting based on customer LTV

8 tricky Facebook targeting options you should be aware of

#1 Targeting users who sent you a message

#2 Reaching anyone who has visited your page

#3 Targeting based on a Lookalike Audience

#4 Narrowing your target group too much

#5 Choosing the wrong type of interest

Target your Facebook audience without hassle

Facebook Targeting*: The Definitive Guide

Creating and preparing a page

Avatar and cover

Display of blocks

Company information

CTA button

More

Setting up an advertising account

Creating a new campaign

Goal

Name

Budget

Create an ad set

Target sites

Dynamic creatives

Optimize for ad delivery

Show scheduling

Audience Settings

How and why to divide the audience into groups

How to create and set up a new audience

Where else can you get an audience for targeted ads

How to Create a Lookalike Audience

Detailed targeting extension

Selecting placements

Create announcements

How to create a new ad

Share

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Facebook & Instagram Fine-Targeting Guide

Use of detailed targeting

How to define the audience more precisely?

Detailed targeting recommendations

Detailed targeting updates

Learn more