Check out our Facebook Ads Targeting guide. We cover all of the targeting options for your ads on Facebook. The targeting audiences you use are vital to your campaign success.
You can watch our video below, or watch it directly on YouTube. If you keep scrolling below, you will learn more about the different types of audiences you can create when targeting ads on Facebook.
Facebook Ads Targeting
How to Create Facebook Audiences
My favorite way to create Facebook audiences is to go to Ads Manager, click on the menu in the top-left corner, click on ‘Audiences’ under the Assets section, and then create Saved Audiences. You can always add your Saved Audiences on Facebook to your campaigns.
Then, you can click on the drop-down menu and click to create a Saved Audience, and you will see a screen like the one below.
Targeting Ads on Facebook
When you are creating audiences for your Facebook Ads, you should learn about all the different targeting options you have. Below, we cover custom audiences, lookalike audiences, and saved audiences. In addition, we will go over Facebook Ads interest targeting, location targeting, audience sizes, and more.
Facebook Ads Custom Audiences
You can start with the image below to understand some of the Custom Audiences you can create. You can use your own retargeting sources from your website, customer files, offline activity and app activity. In addition, you can target people who have interacted with your Facebook or Instagram pages as well.
Custom Facebook Audiences From Your Sources
If you collect data from your customers, you can use that data to target them with advertisements. Some examples include people who visit your website, purchase history on an eCommerce website, a customer file of people who have called your business, or people who have used and installed your mobile app.
Website Traffic:
Reach people who have visited your website, visited specific pages, and the people that have spent the most time on your website.
Customer File:
Upload a customer file from information you have either collected from previous purchases, or from people who have signed-up for your newsletter. You can connect directly with your Mailchimp account as well.
App Activity:
If your company has a mobile app, you can target people on Facebook who have installed it on their phone and actively use it.
Offline Activity:
If you collect data from your customers offline, including their phone number, name, email address, address, and more, you can upload this file directly to Facebook.
Custom Facebook Audiences From Facebook Sources
If people are interacting with your Facebook or Instagram page, they have shown an interest in your business. In addition, if they have filled out a lead form, responded to an Event, or used one of your instant experiences, you can target them with your advertisements.
Facebook or Instagram Videos:
If you regularly upload videos to Facebook and Instagram, you can choose to target people who watch all of your videos, or specific videos.
Instagram Business Profile:
People usually only interact with businesses they are interested in on Instagram, and you can reach people who interact with your page.
Lead Form:
If you run Lead Form ads, you can retarget people on Facebook who fill out your form.
Facebook Events:
Facebook Events can be a great way to reach people who have responded to your event, especially people who will be attending your event.
Facebook Instant Experience:
You can target an audience of Facebook users who have interacted with one of your instant experiences or multiple experiences.
Facebook Pages:
Targeting Facebook Ads to people who like your page is a popular option because you know they follow your business, so they will want to know about new products and services.
Facebook Ads Lookalike Audiences
Lookalike audiences are just like Similar Audiences through Google Ads. Essentially, you can take your custom audiences above, and use them to find people on Facebook with similar Interests, Behaviors, and Demographics. We created a video below that will help guide you through the process as well.
Facebook Ads Targeting Options
With so many options available on Facebook, I listed all of the different options you can choose from when it comes to targeting. You can also combine languages, locations, interests, behaviors, and every option to create custom combinations that work for your business. I prefer to create saved audiences so then I can use them in all my different campaigns.
Facebook Ads Retargeting
You can watch our video below for more information. The Retargeting Audiences on Facebook are also referred to as Custom Audiences. When you create Custom Audiences, you create them using your own customer information like website traffic, customer files, and offline activity. In addition, you can create audiences based on people who have interacted with your Facebook page or Instagram page.
Facebook Ads Demographics Targeting
You can choose an audience based on ages, genders, education levels, relationship status, job titles, and more. You can incorporate the demographics of your audience on your Facebook page, or use a source like Google Analytics to ensure that you reach the right people at the right time.
Facebook Ads Interest Targeting
The broad Facebook Interest categories include Business and Industry, Entertainment, Family and relationships, Fitness and wellness, and more. You can reach people based on their food preferences, hobbies and activities, shopping activities, and more. Facebook is able to use the data they have from people based on the pages they like and websites they visit so you can target their interests.
Facebook Ads Behavior Targeting
There are a lot of behaviors to choose from on Facebook, including behavior targeting for Anniversaries, consumer classifications, gamers, expats, mobile device users, soccer fans, travelers, small business owners, and politics. Facebook incorporates purchase behaviors, device usage, and a variety of activities so you can reach the right people.
Facebook Connections
You can reach people or exclude people who are connected to your Facebook page. In addition, you can target the Friends of the fans of your Facebook page to see if they would have an interest in your products and services. And, you can target people who are connected to one of your events, which can be beneficial for optimizing campaigns.
If you want to ensure you are reaching a new audience, make sure you exclude fans of your Facebook page when you create audiences.
Facebook Ads Geo-Targeting
Geographic targeting and Facebook location targeting is generally where you want to start with any advertising campaign. Whether you want to reach people in specific countries, or you serve a small city area, you want to reach the right people in the right locations. With Facebook, you can choose to target a radius, city, state, country, or DMA. Therefore, you can always reach customers in the markets you serve, or in a radius around your business.
Facebook Ads Language Targeting
When it comes to language targeting, you can reach most languages with your advertising campaigns. You want to target the languages that your customers speak and incorporate the languages you use in your advertisements and on your website. If you want to target multiple languages, you will see better results by translating your own campaigns and running them separately.
Additional Facebook Advertising Targeting Tips
You probably had a lot of questions about targeting your ads on Facebook, so we tried to give you even more options below. Take note that targeting options will change over time, so you need to keep up with the audiences you are creating.
Types of Audiences to Target
Some popular options include facebook radius targeting, Facebook age targeting, facebook email targeting, facebook income targeting, facebook language targeting, facebook zip code targeting, Facebook ads targeting by employer, Facebook targeting by job title, Facebook ad targeting likes and interests, Facebook ad targeting location, Facebook ads targeting group members, facebook ads device targeting, Facebook ads advanced connection targeting, Facebook ads behavioral targeting, Facebook ads country targeting, Facebook ads exclusion targeting, and more.
Incorporate Customer Lifetime Value
If you are able to track the Lifetime Value (LTV) of your customers, you can create audiences and target your most profitable customers. If 50 customers are repeat customers with your business, and they spend a lot to buy your products or services, you can incorporate LTV when you create audiences. Then, Facebook can use that data to help you drive more conversions. Lastly, you can create lookalike audiences, which will help you find more potential profitable customers for your business.
Facebook Ads Targeting Audience Sizes
As you set-up your campaign, you might see “Potential Reach” and “Estimated Daily Reach” as two metrics for how many people your audience will reach. When it comes to potential reach, you should use your budget to guide your audience sizes. For small budgets and narrow audiences, shoot for a number between 75,000 – 250,000 people for your reach. If you have a large budget, you can target a large audience of 500,000 or even over 1,000,000 people.
There is no perfect rule and it is something you will need to test with your budgets. I prefer to use smaller audience sizes and I will split each targeted audience into a different Ad Set.
