In case you haven’t noticed, there are a loooooot of people on Facebook. That means your Facebook ad has the potential to reach TONS of people – the wrong people.
Naturally, you don’t want to reach the wrong people with your ads – after all, you’re paying for these puppies. So spend some time on targeting your ad so that it’s shown to the right people.
Here’s what happens when you don’t “target smart.”
You put together an ad that targets all business owners in the English-speaking world. A gazillion people see your ad; because it’s gorgeous/clever/ inspiring (or all of the above), lots of people click.
But very few of those people end up buying. Your conversion rate is less than 1%. You’re lucky if you make back the money you invested in Facebook ads.
You get frustrated and never go back to paid advertising on Facebook ever again.
For me, this is truly a sad story. Firstly, I hate to see people throw away their marketing dollars. We’re all small businesses here; I’m going to guess that your pockets aren’t as deep as you’d like them to be.
But more importantly, this kind of experience can completely turn you off from Facebook ads. And no wonder! No one wants to fail. No one wants to put in tons of time trying to figure out the Power Editor only to get no results from your efforts.
So I’m going to help you avoid that Facebook ads sob story. If you follow my lead, I’ll make sure your Facebook ads get under the noses of the right people for your business.
Here’s my golden rule for targeting smart with Facebook ads: leave most people out of the party. [Click to tweet it.]
That’s right. I want you to actively NOT show your ads to some of your potential customers.
Another way to say this is “BE SPECIFIC.” Funny story, though: I’ve found that “be specific” actually isn’t specific enough when talking about Facebook ad targeting! So I like to focus on who you SHOULDN’T target, even if they might seem like they fit into your target audience.
Recently I asked a client how old her customers usually are. “They range from mid-twenties all the way up to their sixties.” That’s awesome that she can serve such a wide age range. But if I ran ads that included so many ages, I would be effectively throwing her money away.
You have to think about probability. Is it possible that a 24 year-old will buy her high-priced program that’s really ideal for women who are looking to make a career change? Yes, it’s possible. Is it all that likely?
NOPE.
It didn’t take long for us to whittle down this client’s target audience to women ages 35 to 50. Are we leaving out a lot of potential customers? Maybe, but it’s not like we’re stopping anyone from buying my client’s product. We’re just not going to put an ad that costs money per impression in front of people who aren’t really likely to become customers.
I want you to think about your product, your customers and who’s most likely to convert from a visitor to your website to a customer. With that in mind, here’s how to wade through the waters of targeting your Facebook Ads:
Location
You can target people by country (casting a wide net) all the way down to zip code (great
for brick and mortar businesses). Exactly where you should show your ads depends where the majority of your customers live. If you’re reading this blog, my guess is that your customers live somewhere in the English-speaking world. In short? Don’t spend your money trying to reach people in France just because you’ve had a handful of customers from there. Your target audience speaks English as their first language, am I right?
Age
See my above rant about not targeting ages ranges that are too broad. That said, age is a great way to do some very simple testing. I target small business owners, but that group includes a fairly large range of different ages. The important question is what age groups are going to not only be attracted to my ad, but also click on it, and then be interested in what I have to offer. To
nail down some answers, I can run a test by creating 2 versions of the same ad, one targeting only people in their 30s and the other targeting people in their 40s, for example.
Gender
Chances are your business isn’t as gender neutral as you think. You can use Gender as a variable for testing out this out. With that info, you can stop targeting the opposite gender just because you’re afraid of leaving out half the population. Remember – that’s how you run Facebook ads that really work.
Language
Honestly, I skip this field. I’ve got it covered with Location.
Interests
Facebook recently changed how to target people with Interests. Now it’s a lot easier to target the wrong people and spend money advertising them. Well done, Facebook.
The solution? Choose specific pages or people that your ideal customer might have “liked” on Facebook. If someone is talking about Amy Porterfield in their status updates, there’s a good chance they’d be interested in learning about Facebook ads, which is where my business comes in. Since that’s my target market, I want to reach the people SHE reaches.
Broad Categories
Broad Categories can sometimes be useful in targeting the right audience. Think about it – someone who works for a social media agency might like LKR Social Media’s Facebook page. That doesn’t make them my ideal customer. I focus in on the right people to target by using the Broad Category Small business page owners.
PRO TIP:
Just because you see a category that makes sense doesn’t mean your ideal customer fits into it on Facebook. As you can see we’re dealing with a lot of different variables, but stick with me and I’ll make sure you test them all out until you find the secret sauce of Facebook ads for your audience!
Connections
Here you can choose to target: 
1. your fans
2. your fans and their friends
3. just friends of your fans
4. or none of the above.
This may feel like a tricky multiple choice question, but I promise, there’s no test here. You can choose to target whomever you like – just think about what makes the most sense for your business.
Are you trying to sell something? Target your fans only. They’re a lot further along in the Know-Like-Trust process and a lot more likely to buy than a complete stranger to your business.
Trying to grow your list? Target just the friends of your fans. If you don’t have enough fans for this setting, don’t worry about it. Just leave everything blank in the Connections section.
There you have it! That’s your breakdown of the most important pieces of Facebook ad targeting
You may have heard about a few other ways you can target people on Facebook ads, for example:
- a list of emails or phone numbers
- “lookalike” audiences
- remarketing (or showing ads specifically to people who have visited one or more specific pages on your website)
If you’re interested in learning more about these advanced targeting techniques, check out Absolute FB Ads, and come join us inside the private Support Group! (It’s like the customer service you wish Facebook actually gave you.)
Hi Claire,
A really well written article, I’m glad I found your site! I recently launched my Facebook campaign and being a complete newbie the campaign quickly failed on its first day resulting with very little engagement. I believe I made two crucial mistakes that was using a bad image and targeting a really broad audience. I would really like to learn more about how to choose a good image for the business, more specifically what are the most successful images used? As well as targeting the right audience in detail. Cheers, Jenny
Hey Jenny, thanks for stopping by! I’d be really curious to see what you define as a “bad” image, because you’d be surprised at how a so-so image can still get good results when the ad is targeting the right people.
To get a good gauge on whether your image needs a real overhaul, try out the very same ad with a really small target audience. Choose one business owner who your ideal customer also resonates with, and target his or her fans under “interests.” I just did this and the results were AMAZING. (Details on that coming soon.) And then let us know if your results improved!
I’d like to know more about targeting FB ads at specific email addresses (and secondarily telephone numbers). I know how to target ads by FB ID number, but collecting those specific IDs is time consuming. Email addresses would be faster because I can export them from my email program.
Hey Bill, check out this post and the video tutorial on how to target a list of email addresses:
And let me know if you have any other questions about that strategy!
Hi Claire – I liked this one a lot. Great site and good luck. Something I have never figured out with interests is if it is a AND or an OR? For example if I put interests as Baseball, Running. Do you think it will show my ad to people with interest in either or will it show it to only those that are interested in Baseball AND Running?
Hey Dan! Thanks for stopping by. :)
What you’ve described is the HOLY GRAIL of interest targeting. So far it’s not available, but I dream of the day they roll it out. I hope it’s soon! But I have to say, I’d be surprised if that’s a feature that actually comes out. By not providing us with that super-specific way of filtering out people, Facebook makes more money. You know? Ugh.
But fingers crossed!
I have 2 questions…1. If I manage multiple Facebook accounts how do I link each one to their own Pinterest Page. I only seem to be able to link to my Pinterest Page. 2. I’d love to setup lookalike ads but I need some guidance.
Hi Betsy,
I’m afraid I have no idea how to tie a Facebook page to its Pinterest page, but I bet a quick search in Google with give you the answer pretty quickly.
As for lookalike audiences, more on that coming soon!
Ok :) One more… do you have a good tutorial on getting started with the power editor? Thanks!
Hi Claire – found this article through your post in She Podcasts.
I’d love your targeting feedback on my recent ads to my optin bonus – perhaps an example will help other readers. :) Results have been pitiful so far (think $15 leads). Background: I help female entrepreneurs balance health and hustle and my optin is a free 3-minute morning meal plan. The first line in my ad is “Too busy running a business for breakfast?”
So far, I’ve tested it with women ages 25-45 who like LKR Social Media (and split-tested to Kate Northrup and YFS Magazine). After reading this, I think I’ll narrow the age range and add a broad category of small business page owners.
Is there anything that pops out to you that would lead to better targeting? Am I right to target female entrepreneurs or should I add an interest in wellness somehow? Is there a minimum number of people I should target?
Thanks!! I know this is long. :)
Adria
Hi Adria, unfortunately there are a lot of different factors that come into play when it comes to getting cheaper leads, and your targeting is only one of them. I can’t give any really valuable feedback without digging deep into your campaign, but when I see clients getting really expensive leads I look at the conversion rate of their landing page before anything else. Then I’ll look at the Average Cost per Mile to see if it’s really high – that’s determined by how many other people are targeting the same people. If your landing page is converting well (like 40% or higher), keep trying different interests and see whether you can improve your cost per lead.
Thanks Claire! Actually that advice really helps. :)
Hi Claire. I’ve created a custom audience of website visitors for the last 2 weeks. My customers are parents of babies and preschoolers. They mostly come from all over Australia and New Zealand. They are tourists visiting my location. I have to be very specific with my targeting. FB continually tells me my audience is too small. It drives me nuts because I know who I want to target but FB wants me to target more people just to make the ad run. My custom audience is over 20 people as per the rules. However, FB won’t let me use it because the audience is too small. It’s like the minimum custom audience totally contradicts the minimum target ad? How do I target people who are going to be visiting my location at a future date? The custom audience seemed like the perfect answer to reach some of them without paying a lot of money. I’m left feeling that custom audiences are only good if you have a lot of website traffic and not for companies like mine that have a niche product for very specific people coming to a specific location at a date in the future? Any suggestions?
Hi Lucy, you might be able to find what you’re looking for under Behaviors. Check out this question and answer: https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=10202026282400266
Hope that helps!
Hi Claire,
Just found your blog and you are GREAT! Thanks for putting out such useful information in such an easy digestible format. Not an easy feat, and much appreciated. I had a quick question and wasn’t sure if you could answer it, but thought I’d throw it out just in case…
I had an idea to maximize my exposure by targeting several similar FB pages to my own, and
then in the location demographic, look for largish chunks of their followers in
smaller, non-metropolitan cities, and see if there is location overlap between
the followers of the several pages.
For e.g., I found that several pages had a significant percentage of their followers from Joliet, IL and Pasco, FL, as well as another smallish city in Louisiana.
I assessed that if I only target followers of these pages in these areas, I could get a not too broad audience, yet increased exposure for less money.
Does that make any sense?
Thanks (in advance) and keep up the great work!
-Daniel
Hey Daniel,
Thanks so much for your incredibly kind words! I’ll be honest, I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around the exact technique you’re using, but I THINK I get the gist. The most important thing is that you’re finding a cheap target market that’s also working for you, so I say keep it up!
:) Thanks. Appreciate the prompt reply!
Hi Claire, I am member of a facebook group, but not all members of group are covered in target audience when i select “Friends of people who are connected to” in my facebook ad. How can i ensure the target audience covers all members of the group? And also can i do some setting to cover members of multiple groups in my target audiences?
Unfortunately Hima you can’t target people in specific Facebook groups. It might be a feature they add later, though, since I know lots of people would love to do the same thing.
I’m a ghostwriter with more than 100 books to my credit. I would like to start coaching those who want to write their own books, but need a bit of help. Suggestions?
Hi Claire,
I have more than 1500 likes for my Facebook page from different countries and i am running a Facebook lead ads in two country only USA and Canada.
If i exclude people who like my page, then its exclude all of my fan or only who currently live in USA and Canada?
Hey Manoj! If you exclude your fans from your targeting, it excludes ALL your fans. If you’re only running your ads in the US and Canada, then you’re all set!
Hi Claire! great article. although it is a few years old, i still found some of the information very helpful.
i especially agree with the location targeting. i used to be targeting people from several locations and i would stack several locations together. but when i did that, the responses i got back were from all kinds of people! most of them not even from the targeted locations!
like you said, it truly is a sad story :'(
anyway i managed to fix this after reading your article and several other articles. i read that you do need to be very specific with your targeting. and i also learned you need need to set “people living in” the location rather than “everyone in” the location. that way you only taregt people from that location and not travelers or expats. this article mentions it too https://goo.gl/MVbYrh . thankfully i was able to piece all the good bits and pieces i compiled from all the articles i read and put it into good use.
now my response rate is from more quality and much closer to my target audience, ROI has increased significantly too!
thank you for that Claire!
i hope you write a new more updated article on facebook targeting. im sure itll benefit many people!
This guide is a game-changer for beginners diving into Facebook Ads! The insights on audience targeting are invaluable. Understanding demographics, interests, and behaviors makes ad campaigns so much more effective. It’s a must-read for anyone looking to reach the right audience and maximize their ad ROI. For more valuable resources and services similar to our discussion, explore https://bawejamedia.com/
Great guide! The step-by-step breakdown of Facebook ad targeting is super helpful for beginners. I especially appreciate the emphasis on understanding audience demographics and interests to create more effective ads. Learning about custom and lookalike audiences was eye-opening. Thanks for making targeting less intimidating! Looking forward to applying these tips. For more valuable resources and services similar to our discussion, explore https://bawejamedia.com/