How to target on Facebook and Instagram Ads – Complete Guide 2021
The way to optimize Facebook Ads to generate the highest return on your advertising budget, is to dedicate your efforts in knowing how to segment on Facebook and Instagram Ads and do it in the most accurate way possible.
The advertising market is becoming increasingly active on Facebook and Instagram despite their rising costs. Therefore, in addition to designing your ads in simple and dynamic formats, it is now more important than ever to stand out from the crowd in order to achieve the greatest possible reach.
To achieve this, you must segment your audience in order to accurately target ads and personalize the customer experience.
Here’s a simple explanation of how to target on Facebook and Instagram Ads, its importance and great tips.
What is segmentation in Facebook and Instagram Ads?
Segmentation in Facebook Ads is the division of your audience into groups with common characteristics such as: social, demographic, age, gender, preferences, behavior and others. The more detailed and deeper your target audience segmentation is, the better results you will get. For example, if you sell “children’s sports shoes for women in Madrid” and you don’t segment properly, the ad will be seen by all users and by people who have no interest. As a result, your advertising budget will be dispersed and you will not achieve the expected sales because the target audience should have been directed towards “women between 4 and 10 years old living in Madrid“.
Keep in mind that Facebook has more than 2.5 billion users (as of July 2021) and if you don’t segment, you waste time and money.
Why is segmentation necessary?
Segmenting is necessary to achieve the following benefits:
- It definitely increases ad conversion.
- It allows you to customize your advertising campaigns for each segment and create sales funnels on Facebook.
- You achieve that the advertising message is relevant and makes the viewer fall in love with it.
- You learn to know which is the segment that shows more interest in the product/service you offer.
- You can direct the advertising budget towards interested people, avoiding overpaying and thus, achieving a more profitable investment.
- It is easier to drive repeat purchases and develop a strong sense of brand loyalty.
Types of segmentation in Facebook Ads
There are many types of targeting in Facebook Ads with lots and lots of options. Below, we show the most important ones to create successful audience targeting for Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns.
Segmenting in Facebook Ads by geographic data
This way of targeting on Facebook uses location to reach users who are in a specific place. You can target by country, region, state, city, provinces, zip codes and more. Just keep in mind that geo-targeting is not available in all countries. This type of targeting is especially important when you have a local business.
Segmentation by demographics – Age and gender
Certainly, there are situations where age and gender are obvious and really important data. However, most of the time, it is very difficult to assume this data from your audience. Therefore, it is suggested to leave these options open and allow the results at the end of the campaign to tell you the age and gender of the people who will actually convert.
Segmentation by demographics – Other
The more detailed the better. Limit the demographics of your ad as there are many other options besides gender and age. Some of the demographic options you will find in Facebook Ads are the following.
Nivel de ingresos
Segment your ad by audience income level taking into account the quality and price of your product. Facebook offers up to 30 different financial behaviors. For example, if you sell handicrafts, you can create an instagram ad offering cheaper products to people with lower incomes and expensive products to people with higher incomes.
Job
This type of segmentation allows you to narrow your audience by job categories, by specific jobs within the industry, by office type, startups, small business owners and many other options.
Type of home
You can segment on Facebook to target people depending on whether they are homeowners or renters of a home. Also, you can choose the type of home and if they just bought it. Do you sell appliances? This type of Facebook targeting is for you!
Educational level
It is important to know your audience in order to decide the tone and the way to express yourself in the advertising campaign. It is also useful for targeting when your product is suitable for people with a certain level of education.
People with children
You can select the parental status of the audience and the age of the children.
Life events
One of the life event options that Facebook offers is anniversaries and with this option you will find people who want to buy a gift. Vacations, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, are examples of important events to consider.
How to target on Facebook Ads by interests
You can target a specific audience, based on their particular interests. There are thousands of different interests you can choose from to target Facebook Ads. Simply type any possible interest in the search box and several suggestions will appear.
Behavioral targeting
Yes, as scary as it sounds, you can target your Facebook ads by taking into account the habits and behaviors of your customers. Facebook can do this as it has the record of more than 75% of consumers who, according to statistics, research a product online before buying it. This is a way to target people who are likely to be ready to buy.
For example, you can choose to target people by: type of vehicle they use, people who donate to charities, console gamers, people who listen to satellite radio, people who use shopping coupons or shop at department and luxury stores, participants in seasonal events, frequent travelers, and a long etc.
If you don’t know what the buyer profile of your ideal customer is, you can help yourself with Facebook’s free Audience Insights tool.
Segment on Facebook by custom audience
With Facebook Custom Audiences, you can segment the customers you have outside of the Facebook platform. You create a list using data collected from your customers from emails, phone numbers, Facebook user IDs among others. Then, you upload your list in Facebook Ads Manager using the Custom Audiences targeting type. After the sync is approved, you can start serving targeted ads.
How to target similar audiences on Facebook
Facebook lookalike audience is a type of custom audience that helps you reach new users with similar characteristics to your customers. In other words, reach an audience that is likely to show interest in your products.
With the lookalike audience, you tell Facebook that you want an audience made up of people with similar characteristics to your email list, website visitors, people who have reached one of your conversion pixels, etc.
Segmenting Remarketing on Facebook
Facebook allows you to perform remarketing actions, that is, it allows you to segment your audience by people who have already visited your website based on the pages visited and the actions performed.
It is one of the most interesting options for a Facebook sales funnel and generates high conversion rates.
The remarketing audience will be made up of people who only need a reminder to bring them back, which is possible thanks to Facebook Pixel. Some remarketing criteria are: users who abandoned the cart, people who could buy accessories and complements of the purchased product, people who browsed the sales pages, people who registered on a form and people who read the blog among others.
Tips for targeting ads on Facebook and Instagram
In SEB Creativos we always insist on the same; “if you are going to publish ads on Facebook do it with an established strategy“, otherwise it is very likely that you are just throwing money on ads that do not work. That is to say, first identify your ideal client or Buyer persona, and then direct the ads to each stage of awareness of each one, whether it is cold, warm or warm traffic.
Warm traffic or BoFu (Bottom of funnels).
When targeting your posts to warm traffic, that is, the audience made up of people who are familiar with your brand, run ads that ask for the email address in exchange for something you already know they are interested in.
Cold traffic or ToFu (Top of the funnels)
If you use interest or lookalike audience targeting on Facebook, your ad will probably be shown to the cold audience, those who have never heard of you or your brand before. We suggest that in addition to asking them to sign up for an email list, ads should be designed to build trust and awareness of your brand.
Get detailed information about your audience
Research, study and find out what their interests are in order to create a Facebook targeting that is so efficient that your ads reach potential customers. Be as specific as possible.
Analyze your competition
Gather as much information as possible (design, content, CTAs, ad management) and then analyze advantages and disadvantages.
Set a budget
Do not neglect finances, analyze how much money you will need for the development of your advertising campaigns to achieve the proposed goals.
How to use Facebook’s targeting tool?
With Facebook’s segmentation tool you can test different segments and see how many people fit into each one.
- Log in to your Facebook account.
- Click on the “Advertising” link at the bottom of the page.
- Click the “Create an Ad” button in the upper right corner. Skip the “Design your ad” section as you are going to target and not create an actual ad.
- Go to section 2, “Targeting”.
- Select the attributes that characterize your audience. Remember to be as specific as possible.
- Look at the estimated reach number on the right side of the page and you will know the size of your potential audience.
- Try different combinations until you find the segmentation that most closely matches your potential customer.
Conclusion
With segmentation you can increase conversion rates and that is why it is so important to know how to segment in Facebook and Instagram Ads. There are many combinations to perfectly characterize your target market; you must be as specific as possible. Keep in mind that there are millions of people on Facebook.
Segmenting is an arduous task, but an effective one. An excellent advertising campaign will fail if it is presented to the wrong audience. For more information on how to segment on Facebook, you can consult with our Marketing consultants to advise you and get the results you want.
