Facebook offers numerous ad formats and targeting options, allowing you to reach specific audience segments on a platform where Americans dedicate an average of 40 minutes daily. Let’s explore some surprisingly potent Facebook ad targeting strategies you might not know about.

5 Remarkably Effective Facebook Ad Targeting Strategies

Discover these innovative Facebook targeting methods:

1. Leverage Recent Purchase History of Facebook Users

Initially, advertising analysts dismissed Facebook as a platform primarily for socializing, lacking substantial commercial intent or consumer insights. However, this perception shifted in early 2013 when Facebook established collaborations with data brokers like Epsilon, Acxiom, and Datalogix. These firms have access to vast quantities of data transactions annually. Acxiom, for instance, asserts that their database alone holds information on 500 million active consumers globally, averaging 1,500 data points per individual. Suddenly, Facebook possessed insights beyond your app usage. Whether you’re planning a wedding, managing hypertension, or enjoy mystery novels, Facebook likely knows. This development empowered advertisers to reach beyond their customer relationship management systems, leveraging insights from various shopper loyalty programs linked to individual user profiles. Facebook advertisers utilize this data to target audience segments based on a multitude of purchasing behaviors. One example I utilize is targeting individuals who purchase Business Marketing Services, aligning with my company’s focus on business software and services.

Purchasing behavior subcategories encompass Buyer Profiles, Clothing, Food & Drink, Health & Beauty, and more. Within each subcategory, you can refine your targeting; for instance, selecting Buyer Profiles lets you target DIY enthusiasts, fashion enthusiasts, food lovers, etc. Facebook reveals the targetable user profile count in each subcategory, based on their aggregated, multi-source offline transaction data, essentially the number of Facebook users in that category matched to offline purchasing information. The possibilities are vast. Explore and discover what works for you.

2. Think Outside the Box with Life Events Targeting

Certain businesses or campaigns thrive by targeting individuals undergoing significant life events. Funeral homes, for instance, aim to connect with individuals planning funerals, facing terminal illnesses, or grieving a loved one. Moving services want to reach you after buying a new home. Wedding photographers target engaged couples. Facebook offers a comprehensive range of life event targeting options, reflecting our tendency to share these milestones on our timelines. Interestingly, weather-based targeting is now available on Facebook too!

The Life Events parameter is distinct in allowing you to target individuals at specific time intervals after the event. For instance, a jewelry company might target individuals celebrating their one-year anniversary, focusing on those who were newlyweds a year ago. Selectable date ranges include 3 months, 6 months, and one year.

3. Cultivate Leads & Foster Loyalty with Facebook Custom Audiences

Facebook Custom Audiences, an advanced feature, enable you to connect with existing contacts on Facebook (beginners can refer to our Facebook ads tutorial!). Engaging your current customers and app users on their preferred social network not only reinforces your brand but also presents opportunities to enhance lifetime customer value, order frequency, and loyalty.

This approach works both ways – you can optimize your campaigns by excluding your existing customer list to avoid unnecessary clicks. For example, if you’re promoting a free trial for new users, there’s no need to show it to loyal customers. Custom Audiences are generated by uploading your customer phone list or purchaser/subscriber email list in CSV or TXT format to Facebook. Alternatively, create a Custom Audience based on website visitors (including specific pages visited) or actions taken within your game or app.

You can target or exclude the entire list or specific segments using additional targeting parameters to pinpoint your ideal Facebook audience. The potential here is immense! You could target existing customers in a specific job function, earning a certain income, residing in a particular ZIP code, with a higher-value product offer if your insights suggest they’re more likely to be affluent customers. Alternatively, target individuals who visited your company blog with offers for product demos. They already recognize your brand and showed initial interest but didn’t convert. Facebook Ads targeting that Custom Audience can bridge that gap. The number of targetable and combinable demographic data points is vast, encompassing net worth, living arrangements, marital status, parental status, interests, location, and more. RELATED: What Does Facebook Advertising Cost?

4. Expand to a Lookalike Audience

Lookalike Audiences are a natural progression after establishing a robust Custom Audiences strategy. Even without your email or phone list, you can mirror your Facebook fan base. Lookalikes enable you to reach beyond your existing audience while targeting individuals with highly specific profiles by creating audiences resembling your targets. If you lack a substantial list or Facebook following, you can still create a Lookalike Audience using a tracking pixel to generate a Website Custom Audience for mirroring.

After choosing the audience to replicate and expand, you can adjust the audience size for broader reach or greater specificity and similarity to your original audience. At the most similar level, Facebook identifies the top 1% of users with comparable traits in your target country. Conversely, when optimizing for reach, Facebook displays your ads to the 10% of users in your target country most resembling your target audience.

5. Achieve Granular Targeting with Layered Options

The true power of Facebook ads lies in layering targeting options, progressively refining your audience. A humorous yet extreme example of hypertargeting was featured in AdWeek last year when a marketing professional targeted his roommate with such specific ads that the roommate suspected cyberstalking. Indeed, you can combine behaviors, demographics, and geolocation data to narrow your audience down to a single person. However, a more practical application is tailoring ad creative and offers to smaller audiences created using data combinations.

For instance, a moving company promoting a senior citizen discount could target recent homebuyers aged 60 or older within their service area. Similarly, a retailer selling baby-soothing products could target new parents who purchased colic medication. Imagine directly addressing parents experiencing sleepless nights with targeted messaging! As a new parent, this resonates deeply. Your messaging can directly address that problem and offer your solution. By understanding the intent, needs, and likelihood of response for any audience segment, you can layer Facebook Ads targeting options to reach them effectively.

The Most Effective Facebook Ad Targeting Strategy is Diverse & Comprehensive

When devising your Facebook advertising targeting strategy, don’t limit yourself to a single tip; explore each and assess its suitability for your target market segments. Create personas for your ideal customers – who are they, where do they live, what do they do professionally and personally? What traits and characteristics do they possess, and how do these align with the targeting parameters mentioned above? Identifying your target audience will guide you to the most effective Facebook ad targeting tools and options to connect with them.