*This is the third post in a series on paid traffic 101.
I’ve seen a lot of confusion lately about how Facebook ads work, whether or not they still work, and what’s the best way to go about using them. The reality is that Facebook ads are still very effective. Paid traffic, in general, is a great way to grow and scale your business because it helps you to move faster.
Organic traffic is fabulous and good content is so, so, so important…however, if you really want to move and scale faster, paid traffic is the way to go.
Before diving into paid ads, you need to get clear on what you want to use them for and who you want to target. So, let’s talk about targeting!
Targeting
I often joke that Facebook can target people right down to their shoe size. While that is an exaggeration, it’s not much of one.
One of the areas where Facebook really shines, better than any other platform, is allowing you to select an audience for your Facebook ads. This means that you are able to send advertisements to those who would find them useful and increase the chances of generating leads and making conversions.
As you will see, you can target people based on almost anything!
There are several strategies that you can use to select the right audience for your business and ad. Let’s explore:
Once you select the type of Facebook ad you’d like to run, the next screen you will see is the audience settings tab. Here is what you will find:
- Geographic targeting
- Creating a custom audience
- Target by behavior or interest
- Target based on how someone is connected to your page
- Audience selection overview
- Age, gender, and language targeting
- Audience selection scale
The audience settings page lets you select exactly to whom you want to send your Facebook ads.
You have the option to filter your audience based on many different factors. The main ones include:
1. Location
This option lets you exclude or include people who will see your Facebook ad based on where they are located around the world.
You can target people based on the flowing options:
- Everyone in this location
- People who live in this location
- People recently in this location
- People traveling in this location
You are also able to add the exact location by including information such as country, state, city, region postal code, and address.
Having done this, click on the “+25mi” that is situated next to the name of the city. You will get a drop-down menu from which you will select the distance of the radius of the area that you want to target. You can fine-tune it anywhere between 10 miles to 50 miles.
You can also repeat the above steps for multiple different locations.
2. Age, gender, and language
You can choose the age that you are looking to target by inputting a minimum and maximum age. The ads will then be sent to people who fall within your age requirements.
The same goes for gender. While the default settings include all genders, you can, instead, choose to target either men or women.
The language section can be left blank. However, if you intend to send ads to people who live in a region that speaks a certain language, you might want to input the language your ad will appear in.
3. Interests and behavior
When it comes to targeting people based on interests and behavior, Facebook gives you the opportunity to get really granular with your audience. There are plenty of options available to you here ensuring that you target the specific audience that you require.
For instance, if you were to choose a target based on demographics, some of the options available under this category include:
- Job titles
- Education level
- Relationship status
- Income level
Let’s say perhaps you choose your audience based on interest. You could choose:
- Business
- Sports
- Fitness
- Shopping
Behavior is another way you can choose your audience by selecting options such as:
- Purchasing behavior
- Operating systems used
- Homeowners
4. Custom audiences
This is where I think you get the biggest bang for your buck! Custom audiences refers to people who have already interacted with your business before. They could either be contacts or they could be previous customers. Either way, you set up an audience based on previous contacts and send ads to these people.
To set up this audience, go to the audience settings page and click on Create a Custom Audience. You will be able to see your previous contacts and audiences. You can then choose them to send your Facebook ads.
You will get a pop-up that provides you with three different options to create custom audiences. These are:
- Customer lists
- Website traffic
- App activity
By clicking on the customer list you can copy and paste or even upload phone numbers and email addresses.
The second option is website traffic. Here Facebook uses the conversion pixel that you have stored on your site to create an audience list. The audience can be based on anyone who visits your site, those that haven’t visited your site in quite a while, or people who have visited particular pages.
Lastly, Facebook lets you use one of the connected Facebook apps and then choose an audience based on the activity within the app.
Saved Audiences and Look-Alike Audiences
Once you’ve created your audiences, you can save them. This is where knowing your ideal client really comes in handy. You can create and save audiences based on your ideal clients behaviors – exactly what it is that they think, hear, see, do, and buy!
You can also create a lookalike-audience. These are just as important as your saved audiences. This feature gives you the ability to take your buyers and create a new audience based on all of their personal information. This is generally more targeted than a saved audience. It’s based off of people who have already bought from you. This allows you to target people who are just like your buying clients.
Targeting is the best thing about Facebook ads. By targeting effectively, you’ll be able to grow your business, increase your revenue, and scale your impact!