Features of Facebook targeting:

• One ad account for setting up and running Facebook and Instagram campaigns.
• Automatic configuration and management tools.
• More than 600 ready-made audiences.
• Bulk work with generic ads.
• Creation of nested campaigns.
• More than 50 metrics to analyze performance.

A limitation in working with Facebook is the use of personally identifiable information.

Where to begin

The first stage is drawing up a portrait of a potential client. It does not depend on the advertising platform used, it includes a set of characteristics, for example:

• Gender, age.
• Place of residence.
• Education, profession.
• Family status.
• Hobbies, interests.
• Income level.

This list can be changed and supplemented depending on the characteristics of the proposed product. In essence, this is a list of parameters for which the detailed targeting of the campaign carried out on Facebook will be further configured.

Target selection

When creating a campaign, you need to define a goal. The ad display format and targeting options may vary depending on the purpose. Possible targets:

• Raising awareness and increasing audience coverage. At this stage of campaigns, ads are shown to users who are more likely to remember the information about a new product or brand. If you are primarily interested in recognition, then impressions will be the key parameter. The same ad can be viewed by the same person several times. When the reach increases, the ad is shown to the maximum number of users, but once.

• Increased interest. This stage is aimed at generating user interest, performing targeted actions, increasing traffic, stimulating interaction with the company. Contact forms and questionnaires can be embedded in advertisements. This allows you to effectively communicate with the target audience, expand the client base, study the interests of potential customers, and clarify the user’s profile.

• Increased conversions. The ad must prompt the user to take the final action – to make a purchase, use the advertiser’s product or service. It is possible to set up a campaign to track conversions not only in the online space. When using the goal “Attendance of points”, ads will be seen by people who are within the specified radius from the specified address.

After choosing a target, the main characteristics of the campaign are set (choice of currency, time zone) and the parameters of the audience and detailed targeting are set.

Simplified setup

For aspiring advertisers, Facebook offers several tools to make it easier to create and run campaigns:

• Dynamic creatives. All you have to do is upload images, titles, videos, descriptions, and other components, and the system itself will generate ad formats for displaying to selected audiences. The goal of optimization is to select a format that finds the greatest response from users.

• Automatic placements. The system will automatically select placements. This will take into account the efficient use of the budget while maximizing the coverage of the Facebook ad platform family.
• Ready-made audiences. You can use the database of ready-made audiences, which includes more than 600 samples, compiled for popular commercial niches. The samples are constantly refined and replenished.

• Optimization of the campaign based on the chosen goal. The service allows you to reduce the price of a targeted action.

Audience customization

You can create and manage audiences in the Ads Manager section and when creating a campaign.

Facebook allows you to use your own sources and system sources.

Site traffic – metrics collected using a pixel pre-installed on the site are used. Users can be distinguished by several parameters:

• Length of stay on the site.
• Pages visited.
• Actions taken (for example, filling the basket).
• All visitors.

Users are counted for a specified time period. The list is constantly updated – new visitors are added, and people whose visits are older than the set interval are excluded.

This pool of settings is useful for retargeting, for working with regular customers, for excluding this audience segment when conducting a campaign for new customers.

List of clients – Facebook can upload a customer database from your CRM. The list allows you to get a fairly high conversion while reducing the duration of the campaign – customers are already familiar with the brand or product. In addition, you can optimize expenses by specifying the estimated amount of the check for each person. Based on this, the algorithm will calculate the value of the targeted action. When working with the customer list, you need to keep it up to date and regularly update.

Actions in the application – the selection of the audience is carried out on the same principle as when using traffic from the site. The only difference is that app traffic is estimated.

Offline actions – a tool for keeping track of the audience that has used or was interested in your services through offline channels.

To attract new visitors and in the absence of your own databases, you can use Facebook sources to create a custom audience. The service allows you to highlight people who were interested in your page on Facebook and Instagram, watched videos, filled out forms, attended your events on social networks.

Connecting similar audiences

The tool allows you to find people who are similar to visitors to your website, Facebook page, customers whose data you have downloaded from your own database. The larger the reference sample (available audience), the more accurate the search will be.

The algorithm works in automatic mode. When specifying the audience size (item 3 in the settings), the initial value of 1% corresponds to the maximum match with the source. But the number of new visitors is minimal. The higher the percentage, the more blurry the user’s portrait, but the larger the sample size. For campaigns conducted in regions with more than 100,000 people, it is recommended to set the coincidence within 2-3%.

You can connect up to 6 audiences, after completing the search, the service will show the number of people who meet the specified criteria.

Saved Audiences

Several tools are provided for fine-tuning targeting.

Geo targeting. In the location targeting settings, you can select a region, city, or set an exact location.

You can also specify multiple locations at once. If the business is tied to different offline branches, audience geo-settings indicate all addresses and radii around the marked points. If there are separate campaigns for the city and the region, then settlements can be excluded. You can also exclude areas where the likelihood of finding potential customers is minimal: for example, it makes no sense to advertise budget goods to people living in luxury real estate and vice versa.

The display is customizable for different categories of people. Gender, age, language are set in special fields.

Detailed targeting. It is used to fine tune the audience by demographic characteristics, interests and hobbies, and behavioral factors.

In the section, you can single out people working in the same company, occupying the same positions, having similar hobbies, visiting the same places, and so on. When disclosing each item, you can mark the necessary criteria:

Using detailed settings allows you to target as accurately as possible. In addition to taking into account socio-demographic characteristics, the interests and behavioral characteristics of the desired audience are set. The difference between interests and behavior is that interests are determined by subscriptions and visits to communities, viewing posts. And behavior is an analysis of a person’s actual actions: his trips, payment activity, application use, and so on. For example, a person once subscribed to a repair group, but at the moment the question is not relevant to him. The advertiser is running a promotion for finishing materials. Behavior assessment will show that the visitor is not an engaged buyer. The ad will not be shown to him. At the same time, according to behavioral factors, it is possible to single out people who did not get into the target audience for other parameters.

In Facebook, you can automatically expand targeting – the system will show the ad to those people who may fall into the target audience, but the manual settings of these users were not taken into account.

Connections. At this point, you can select users who have a connection with the advertiser’s page or other pages.

Here you can both add and exclude categories of visitors. After setting up, the audience is saved and can be used for other campaigns later.

What to look for

1. When setting strict restrictions, there is a risk of losing part of the target audience, and with minimal restrictions, the audience is diluted. At the initial stage, you need to continuously monitor the campaign, use Facebook analytics tools, and refine the targeting settings.
2. Separate campaigns if a heterogeneous audience is possible. For example, the organization is engaged in finishing work and cooperates with developers and private customers. In this case, it is recommended to create different audiences: one for the B2B segment, designed for employees of development companies, and the second for the client segment.
3. When targeting by age, it makes sense to divide your audience with an interval of no more than 10 years. Different creatives, ad formats, and placements can work effectively across age groups.
4. Consider the change in demand depending on the days of the week and the time of day.
5. It is better to create separate campaigns for different types of advertising messages.

Facebook allows you to conduct A / B tests – experiment with formats, creatives. Do not forget to test new audiences, update already created ones.

The material was prepared by Lyubov Polosina.