Who do you target with Facebook Ads?
There are options for age, location, whether or not they like MarketingProfs, where someone likes to shop, if someone folds their socks…. Okay maybe not that last one, but building an audience on Facebook can get really, really targeted. Like, creepy targeted.
From a marketing standpoint, that’s exciting. Why? Marketers are able to serve up better ads to people who actually want to see them.
Here are a few audience strategies for a top of funnel or brand awareness campaigns.
Lookalikes
Lookalike audiences are built from pixel events or custom audiences. Facebook dives deep in its algorithm to find people comparable to those who have high interaction with your brand. Some examples of base audiences to use for a lookalike are:
- 4-5 star subscribers (if you have engagement scoring set up in your email marketing)
- Those who watched 75% of a video
- A purchase event
Create your base from high-interest interactions. If you have a video that’s a minute long, the person that watches 50 seconds probably has more interest than the person who watches 3 seconds, right? Similarly, the person who buys from you or opens your email every time is probably really interested in your brand.
When it comes to lookalike audiences, it’s all about leveraging those high-interest points.
TIP: When you’re making a lookalike audience there’s an Audience Size scale at 1% to 10%. For Awareness campaigns, test 3% to 5%.
Broad
Back in the day, it was important to dial in your audience as niche as possible. The tides are turning. Facebook’s algorithm is so in tune now that it’s better to let FB do its thing.
Here’s why this is happening. Like we said FB’s algorithm is getting smarter. If you have your pixel set up correctly, Facebook will understand exactly who converts in your ads. The more data your pixel has the more efficient Facebook can become.
It’s just a matter of audience size after that. What sounds better – Looking for customers in a pool of 10k or 100K? Yep, you guessed it. Bigger is better.
Now, just how broad are we talking? Leave your audience as open as possible. If you are 1000% sure your audience is females in the US then that’s all you adjust. Don’t layer in a custom audience, or interests. Don’t even mess with age if you don’t have to.
TIP: One thing you do want to adjust for in brand awareness campaigns is excluding audiences. You should exclude people who are already on your email list or who have already purchased from you.
You may find that a broad audience outperforms the others by a landslide. On the other hand, maybe it doesn’t. The overall point is testing. Test to see what works, and more importantly, test to see what doesn’t work.
