Are your Facebook ads performing as well as you’d like?
Are you sure you’ve been targeting the right audiences?
It’s long been understood that the real power of Facebook advertising is in its targeting capabilities, but targeting correctly is much easier said than done.
If you want to improve the performance of your ads, you need to make the best possible use of the Facebook graph search and audience insight data.
Below you’ll learn about how you can give a boost to your own Facebook ad campaigns by taking advantage of these unique features.
Why Targeting?
Making the most out of your ad dollar requires you understand the demographics that you’re going after.
This includes where they live, what they like, and who they are.
When you achieve this, you can almost immediately lower what you pay in cost per click, improve conversion rates, and even boost your audience relevance scores to well above average.
In short, you’ll get higher performing ads at less cost.
Research Fan Data
As you probably know, Facebook advertising allows you to target pages on the basis of what someone is like.
Let’s say you’re a burger restaurant competing against brands like Wendy’s and McDonalds, Then you can research the interests of their fans to create your own successful ads.
Whenever you find yourself researching for potential audiences to advertise to, it’s a good idea to pay attention to the types of pages those audiences like.
This is because those pages will provide insight into the kind of interests, hobbies, and brands that those audiences find relevant.
Head to the audience insights page and search for “pages liked by people who like Pepsi page.”
This will show you all the people who are already a fan of Pepsi, or in the case of your business, people who are fans of your competitors.
These results will allow you to gain insight into your competition, as well as learn about the types of pages that interest that type of audience.
Some of the most important elements to pay attention to include: devices being used, income level, purchase behavior, age, gender, and household size.
Location of Fans
When it comes to advertising, location matters.
People who live in Seattle are very likely to have different interests than those who live in Houston or Boston.
And those seemingly small details can make all the difference in creating a campaign that speaks to your audience.
Location specific advertising involves focusing on either specific zip codes or cities with the graph search.
Use the graph search to look for “pages liked by people who like Pepsi who live in Seattle.”
You’ll receive impressively specific results for people who have the precise interests and residency that you’re looking for.
This kind of data can be absolutely crucial in choosing the direction and content of your next ad campaign.
If you cross-reference that information with audience insights, you may discover that Pepsi fans from Seattle are 21% more likely to be home owners, or have 16% higher income than the national average.
Information like this might appear to be somewhat inconsequential at first.
But every bit of data you can gather brings you one step closer to perfectly understanding your audience.
Occupation by Location
Another important element to consider targeting is the occupation of your target audience.
For example, if you’re a Seattle-based chiropractor with a product that might interest other chiropractors.
You can try searching for pages that interest those individuals.
Search “pages liked by chiropractors who live in Seattle.”
Once you’ve got the results, head to the Audience Insights page and compare those pages to the graph results.
This will allow you to view an enormous amount of data regarding those individuals, including interests, income, family size, and so on.
Using Audience Data
Prepared with this information, you’re already ready to take action.
Consider starting by targeting a specific age demographic.
Use what Facebook has told you about the age of people who like chiropractors in Seattle, or whatever your business and location may be.
Next, look to the education and relationship status of those individuals.
Finally, view the lifestyle category to find all the right keywords to describe that audience.
Do these chiropractor-fans like football and Ford trucks?
This is where you can find the kind of elements will speak to them in your next campaign.
The Right Solution
There’s a great deal of information available regarding precisely who your fans are and what kind of things they like.
All it takes a little bit of research to piece together exactly what kind of that will speak to them.
Although it can take considerable research and diligence to improve your ad campaigns, the effort is all but certain to pay off.
