4.3 Targeting

Targeting.

That's a word that's going to be a big part of your life from here on out, as you grow as a marketer. The ability to target people using Facebook's powerful ad platform has changed the way businesses grow worldwide. Never before has it been so easy to reach your exact target audience unless you physically went up to them.

Today, the landscape has changed to the point where you can target people specifically based on their age, location, interests, income, relationship status and even whether they recently went on holiday. No, I am not messing with you.

This episode is meant to give you an overview of all the various targeting options that are available to you under the Facebook platform. We won't be diving into each different element because that would take a while. ..quite a while.

But we will walk you through the targeting options on the platform so that you have an idea of what Facebook is capable of.

Let’s start with demographic-based targeting.

Starting with location. You can target based on country, region, city and even Zip codes. You want to target ads on a specific street? Sure. Do what you got to do. It’s a free world. Oh and with location you can target people based on if they are currently living there, recently lived there or are travelling to that location.

Moving on to age. You can select a specific age range to direct your ads to. You can even target them based on language, or gender.

Then there's Relationship Status. whether they’re single, married, engaged, divorced and so on.

You can also target based on Education. The level of education, the field they studied or even the exact high school or university they went to.

And then you have work. You can target people based on their designation, their industry, the name of their employer, etc.

You also have financials - which is targeting based on income or net worth.

There’s even a whole range of targeting for parents specifically. New parents, those with toddlers, or preschoolers.. or types of moms - big city moms, corporate moms, fitness moms, new moms, green moms, yes they even have a green moms category.  

Then there's life events - Stuff like anniversary within 30 days, away from family, new relationship, new job, etc.

And finally Politics - Targeting people based on whether they are more liberal or more conservative, their political beliefs and other such criteria.

So. How are we doing so far?

It might seem like a lot, but that's just category 1! 

And now you understand how ads magically show up on your timeline when you just happen to think about a product. Well, Facebook knows everything.

Alright, moving ahead– Interest based targeting.‍

This is a very vast field based on, well, user interests. Facebook draws this information from the posts users engage with, pages they like, things they search up and so on.

First, Business and Industry - Different business industries like design, construction, management, marketing, etc. 

Next, Entertainment - These could be target ads based on games, events, movies, music etc.

Then we have Family and Relationships- Targeting people interested in family, friendship, dating etc.

Next, there's Fitness and wellness - which could be dieting, yoga, nutrition and wellness in general.

Then there's Food and Drink - Alcohol preferences, cooking, cuisines, restaurants and so.

There's Hobbies and Activities - Art. travel, vehicles, pets, etc. You get the drift. Also, Shopping and Fashion - Make-up, sneakers, streetwear, etc. 

Let's not forget Sports - Literally just everything sports.

And, finally, Technology - top brands, trends, blogs, etc.

Now, that was a lot of information all at once, so here’s 10 seconds of a horse running across a field in slow motion to classical music to bring your heart rate back.‍

Behaviour -‍

Let’s move on to targeting by behaviour.

Automotives- What kinds of vehicles people own or have owned.

There's even targeting based on the type of charity they donate to.

Next, ‘digital activities’ as Facebook calls it, like gamers, admins of Facebook pages and early technology adapters.

Then you have Expats, people Living in a different country, etc.

Purchase behaviour - People who have made an online payment recently. 

And Travel behaviour. How frequently they fly, whether for business or leisure, etc.

Connections -

Up next we have targeting by connections. This is based on how users are connected to your page, app or events

Page - people who like your page or friends of those who like your page.

App - People who use your app or friends of those who use your app.

Event - People attending your event or friends of those attending your event.
‍

Custom audiences - And finally, Facebook allows you to target based on specific custom audiences. These are a little bit more technical but nothing you can’t figure out.

Some of the options are:

Remarketing ads. Targeting ads specifically to people who have visited a website or landing page.

Custom e-mail list - Basically uploading a CSV sheet with e-mail addresses to Facebook and asking them to only target people who are on that list.

Custom Phone Number - pretty much the same thing except with phone numbers.

And finally, we have a lookalike audiences. We’ve left the best for last here. This is a new targeting option Facebook rolled out in the last few years where you basically ask Facebook to find you more people similar to any of your custom audiences, so more people like those who have visited your website, or people similar to your existing customers 

Needless to say, this has been a real game changer in the targeting world.

And that brings us to the end of this episode on the world of Facebook and Instagram targeting. You’ve done well so here’s that slow motion horse again.