2. Audience: choose the target audience
Determining your target audience is one of the most important steps in creating Facebook Ads, as it ensures that your advertising reaches the right audience - which has a positive effect on the profitability of Facebook Ads. Thus, for the campaign to be effective, it is necessary to make individual adjustments and define the Custom Audience . Alternatively, it is also possible to use the targeting services offered by Facebook..
Custom Audiences
Custom Audiences defines the target audience for an advertising campaign on Facebook and requires prior contact information for your customers - such as phone numbers or email addresses. You can upload this information through the ad manager. Thus, Facebook identifies those customers who are users of the social network and automatically creates a Custom Audience. But remember: In Spain, the Organic Law on Data Protection and the Law on the Defense of Competition are very strict, so it is only allowed to use personal information of those users who have so arranged, such as with the subscription to a newsletter.
Website Custom Audiences
Using the information collected through your own website will always be more effective. Under the classic principle of retargeting, advertising on Facebook reaches those users who visited the web at some point and who are registered on its network. The biggest advantage is, therefore, the notable decrease in the bounce rate as a result of the ads being aimed at those users who showed interest in the content or products of the web project at a certain time. For a better retargeting tracking through Facebook Ads it is recommended to integrate a code snippet (Pixel) on your website.
Lookalike Audiences
Once a Custom Audience is created, Facebook will determine the so-called Lookalike Audience . Your goal is to find potential users similar to your frequent customers . In case there are similarities in factors such as location, age, gender or interests, Facebook will classify a user as? Similar? and it will create a list with which the ads will be deployed.
Standard targeting options
In case a user does not have any kind of data about their customers or visitors, Facebook offers some targeting tools. These define the target audience of a campaign depending for example on:
- Venue
A shop in Barcelona will want to target its Facebook ads to natural customers of or residents of Barcelona, just as a car rental company operating throughout Europe will not want to locate its services in a small area near its headquarters. Facebook allows customer ads to be based on places that are relevant to your business. This selection includes countries, regions, cities, and postal codes.
- Demographics
For many products, it makes sense to target exclusively male or female, and even only specific age groups. Selecting demographics, such as age, gender, and language, ensures better ad reach . There is also the possibility to take into account characteristics such as level of education, profession or income level.
- Interests
The selection of categories and subcategories predefined by Facebook allows you to specify categories that group the interests of a certain group of users. These interests are the result of specific metrics and statistics depending on the activity of a user, such as "likes", events or places visited. For a much more specific targeting, is it advisable to select the most appropriate categories? for example,? Linux? instead of? software ?.
- Connections
This category refers to those users who follow certain pages on Facebook, who use certain applications or who have participated in events, selectively including them within a specific target audience. A combination of these types of connections is also possible? for example, Facebook Ads takes as connections the friends of those people who have liked? in one or another Fanpage.
During the manual selection process of a target audience, the Facebook ad manager also displays a barometer for defining the audience . It summarizes and identifies the characteristics specified during the creation of a campaign and serves mainly to identify if the audience is too large or too specific. After this step is complete, you can continue budgeting and scheduling your ad.