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Last Updated on October 7, 2022 by Arif Chowdhury
Almost everyone on this earth has a Facebook account. Around 2.8 billion Facebook accounts exist, roughly 33% of the world’s population. With these vast audiences, Facebook is one of the best platforms for marketing. Though Google ad is the king of all marketing, Facebook is the queen.
Do you know there are 60 million business pages on Facebook? Yes, with these vast numbers, you should realize how profitable Facebook marketing is. But, of course, you have to know the right way to approach these 2.8 billion audiences. Otherwise, you will waste thousands of dollars on the Facebook ad without getting any positive results.
So, in this guide, I will reveal seven advanced ad targeting strategies for Facebook marketing to help you generate revenue for your business without wasting dollars.
Why is Facebook marketing one of the best choices for your business?
Before I show you the advanced ad targeting strategies, I want to tell you why you should invest time & money in this platform.
- Facebook has a 2.8 billion user base. (33% of the world population)
- Ordinary people spend at least 38 minutes daily.
- Around 1.82 billion people log in to Facebook daily.
- From 25-34, people are the most extensive user base on Facebook.
- India, the USA & Indonesia has the most extensive user base on Facebook.
- 86% of internet users with more than $100,000 income use Facebook.
- 98.3% of Facebook users use mobile devices to log in.
- 36% of Americans use Facebook to get updated news.
What do you think? Facebook is just as significant as Google, yet it has a different ad targeting system; we will discuss it in a separate guide. But, for now, let’s begin with Facebook’s advanced ad targeting strategies.
Strategy #1: Leverage Google Analytics to gather audience data.
If you haven’t used Google Analytics for your site, then you should immediately start using it. You can extract vital information about your audience that can be used in all types of advertising, including Google ads, Facebook ads, Twitter ads, YouTube ads, etc.
Head to Google Analytics, and on the left tab, you will find the “Audience” option. It will provide you with audience information, i.e., active users, user age, gender, location, devices, interest, etc.
This information is beneficial for identifying what type of audience your business currently has. For example, a Facebook ad in Canada or the UK won’t be effective if your audience mostly comes from Mexico. The same goes for the audience’s age; if most of your paid customers are between 30-45, selecting any other age range in the Facebook ad will waste your advertising budget.
Understanding this information will make a big difference in your marketing campaign. For example, if you have a business page on Facebook, this information will help you to identify what sort of advertisement will perform best. Maybe sometimes a funny video will draw more attention than a formal advertisement.
Facebook ad campaigns offer you several objectives to target, not just raw visitors.
- App install
- Brand awareness
- Conversion
- Engagement
- Lead generation
- Reach
- Store visits
- Traffic
- Video views
Google Analytics data will significantly help you when targeting your specific ad objective.
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Strategy #2: Targeting multiple options will reduce cost & increase effectiveness.
When I launched my first Facebook ad campaign, I didn’t realize these simple tricks. Instead, I always used to target a broad audience & end up losing lots of dollars. I thought a general audience would help me reach many audiences at once. However, most of these broad audiences are not interested in my product. Thus, the overall ad campaign was always a mess.
Take a look at this chart, a comparison between cost per click (CPC) & click-through rate vs. relevance of your ad. The fact is, the more relevant an ad is, the less expensive it will be. As you can see, from $1 CPC, it reduced to nearly $0.02 CPC because it is more relevant.
Besides, it’s so obvious. Why waste a budget on someone who is not even interested to see it? So here is a chart of average ad costs based on the campaign objective.
Before you launch your campaign, first decide your campaign’s ultimate objective. Also, don’t forget that these objectives are interrelated. As a result, you may receive some extra benefits; for example, if you choose only “get more website visitors,” then Facebook will focus on this objective; however, among 1,000 clicks, you may receive 50-100 page likes and 20-30 inquiry messages.
Therefore, focusing on the main objective is vital. After you choose your primary goal, it is time to narrow your audience to make it more relevant.
Choose gender, then age, location & finally, detailed targeting.
In detailed targeting, you can focus on almost anything. So my advice is – to try to be very specific, as it will reduce your overall CPC & increase the click-through rate.
Strategy #3: Use excludes option to make your Facebook ad more relevant.
Most Facebook ad campaigns forget this fantastic option “exclude.” Why is it essential? This option can deselect a specific audience irrelevant to your ad.
For example, your Facebook page has 500K followers. You will waste a huge budget if you do not exclude them from your ad campaign. Because this 500 K already following you means you can reach them in your regular post for free.
Hence, excluding them in your ad campaign will effectively deselect them from targeting, leaving you targeting new audiences who do not yet follow your page.
Strategy #4: Remarketing based on audience behavior.
Have you ever wondered why you always see relevant Google ads everywhere? For example, yesterday, you suddenly visited an online casino site & browsed a few more gambling-related sites. From today, you started to see gambling & casino-related Google ads almost everywhere you go.
Why did this happen? It’s called “remarketing.” This way, Google remarkets you to a product you have visited. Showing you the same effect everywhere will convert you soon, maybe today or tomorrow.
This way, Google ensures you are not getting irrelevant ads in front of your nose. You won’t feel annoyed as well, as marketers won’t lose their valuable budget.
So, how does it work in the Facebook ad? First, you need to install code from Facebook Pixel on your website. Then, you can find all the details on the website.
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Strategy #5: Utilize audience political affinity.
It could be a contradictory strategy, yet I will not ask you to follow this; instead, you can measure this strategy’s strength to decide. First, the political connection within your article or Facebook post can make a big difference. Second, it can make things worse or best. Third, it depends on which group of audience you are targeting.
For example, suppose you publish an article about Donald Trump. In that case, it will catch even the general audience’s attention as recently, the US election has been trending news & everyone is still talking about it.
Though your business or Facebook page does not have to be news related, you can take this advantage. However, as I said before, politics is always a contradictory subject. Thus some of your existing audience might not take it positively; in that case, think carefully before implementing this tactic in your Facebook ad campaign.
Strategy #6: Custom Facebook ad & landing page based on audience.
Facebook is a popular platform, but it has many audience segments. Not all of your audience use a desktop to access their Facebook account. Instead, most Facebook users utilize their handheld devices to log in to their accounts. Thus, you must be careful about which audience segment you are targeting. Wrong targeting could lead you to waste thousands of ad budget dollars.
Let me give you an example. You have crafted a landing page specifically designed for desktop users. However, when launching an ad campaign, you did everything right but forgot to target desktop users; instead, you targeted all devices.
Do you know what will happen? If 50% of your audience uses a smartphone, they won’t even see your landing page, so converting them is not the question. As a result, your ad campaign performance reduces to 50% before it even begins.
So, before you launch your ad campaign, understand audience segments very clearly & customize your landing page & Facebook ad according to it to maximize its performance.
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Strategy #7: Smart, emotional targeting with life events.
It could be one of the most innovative ways to draw your audience’s attention. For example, you are wishing them on their birthday with a special discount coupon.
Not only birthdays but also any other life events you can find on Facebook. It’s obvious; almost all of us wanted to share our life events on Facebook to let others know, i.e., new baby, new job, graduation, promotion in job, starting a new business, etc. And the good thing is almost everyone is likely to add this event to their Facebook profile page.
And this is your gold mine. Utilize these particular segments and try to draw your audience’s attention. Most of the time, it works perfectly.
Conclusion.
Facebook marketing is different from Google ads, so do not confuse yourself. Do not even bother to say which one is best. In my opinion, “best” is a subjective term & maybe a Facebook ad is best for you, but others will find a Google ad is perfect for their business.
However, “word of mouth” is something that Google ads do not have. When you launch a campaign in Google, if you pay for 1,000 site visits, you may receive an extra 20-50 clicks, but that’s it, nothing more. But, when you launch a Facebook ad campaign, if everything is in the correct order, you may receive 100-200% extra views, clicks, comments, likes, etc.
It happens because of “word of mouth.” When someone sees your ad, if they like it, they might share it or comment on your post. It will trigger a word-of-mouth event and bring extra exposure to your ad for free. For example, if you paid for 1,000 link clicks, you may receive an additional 200-500 engagements (likes, comments, shares) for free. These extra engagements will bring you more exposure, as their friends can also see your ad. However, it will only happen if you can target the right audience.
Further Reading on Cliobra: if you read this guide about Facebook’s advanced ad targeting strategies, I assume you are probably looking to know more about social media marketing. Well, in that case, I suggest you read my other guide, “How to Build a Perfect Social Media Marketing Plan (Complete Guide).”