Let’s get right to the meat of things: If you’re a business in 2016 and you are not advertising online, you are doing yourself a disservice, limiting your growth, and keeping money out of your pocket.
It’s too easy not to advertise these days.
Unlike our advertisers from more than 10 years ago, we’re able to specifically put our offer in front of our exact target audience.
Today’s online media platforms have aggregated so much user data that it’s almost like cheating as an advertiser when we get to pinpoint our exact target audience.
In essence, we have all the tools at our disposal right now to put the right offer in front of the right audience at the right time.
Now, here’s where it gets a bit tricky – a ton of businesses have recognized this ease to advertise and are diving right in.
They’re targeting who they think is their audience, showing them an offer, video, photo or content and waiting on the results to start pouring in the door…
But, it’s not that simple.
A lot of businesses and brands are still having massive trouble advertising.
“I’m getting clicks, but they’re not converting.”
“My clicks are coming from the Facebook audience network – what does this mean?”
“My campaigns aren’t getting the clicks necessary to truly assess the metrics.”
“What’s the best way to split test ads?”
“How do I target people who are decision-makers or more influential in their organization?”
If you have a landing page that’s not converting and you’re looking for ways to optimize it, check out this blog.
If you’re currently advertising on Facebook and need some insights on what to (and what not to) do, check this out.
If you’re frustrated with your results and just can’t seem to crack the code, message me here & let’s chat.
But, in this blog, we’re going to discuss some next-level Facebook ad targeting.
Many times, the problem I see with businesses who advertise is not necessarily their ad creative or landing pages, but their targeting.
I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in Facebook ads in the past few years for various clients & campaigns and I’ve had many targeting issues myself – having the tips I’m about to share with you below would’ve saved me a ton of time and money.
For advertisers who want to target people ‘decision-makers’ in other organizations, it’s easy to have your ad land in front of the wrong eyes. You can have everything else right, but if you’re talking to the wrong audience, you’re not going to go anywhere.
So, here are some next-level targeting strategies I’ve used that have gotten me better conversions and lower ad spends:
1) Target Page Admins
When advertising to your niche, you may be able to build a non-geographically targeted audience of about 1 million to 3 million. This is a good size.
When you’re done with selecting the interests, age ranges, income levels, etc. that you’re looking for, select “Facebook Page Admins” under the ‘Behaviors’.
This will tell Facebook to target only people that are a FB page admin. People who are a page admin are much more likely to be the “decision-makers” for their brands or businesses and have a little more pull than someone who just has a profile. This small strategy has really increased some of my conversion rates.
2) Remove ‘Audience Network’
When you’re uploading a regular ad campaign, Facebook will automatically select “Instagram” and “Audience Network” as two platforms for them to advertise on.
I always remove these two if the client does not have a prominent IG account (and if the ad creative is not tailored to IG).
The ‘Audience Network’ has gotten me a lot of clicks in past campaigns, but they rarely convert, so it’s best to use your money solely on the Facebook platform from my experience.
3) Target A Warmer Audience
A big obstacle many ‘new’ brands & businesses face today is that many are advertising to a cold audience. They don’t have a big, recognizable brand name yet, but they are advertising directly to a cold audience. This either results in low clicks or low conversions on the landing page.
What’s needed here is to warm up the audience and introduce yourself to them before you start to advertise.
A way I’ve been accomplishing this is by creating a video that I advertise directly to.
The video does not have a call to action at the end – it is merely good,valuable content. In the eyes of the consumer, an advertiser has just paid to show them a really good piece of content. Nothing is asked of the user.
But where this works is that for everyone who watches the video for more than 10 seconds, I’m able to create an audience from them. I’m pixeling this audience. After this, I re-target the audience with an ad campaign where I speak to them more directly, since I know they’ve already seen my video.
I’ve been able to build audiences of 5,000 people for about $50 ($0.01 per video view).
If you’re interested in doing something like this, let me know – it’s a bit intricate, but it works well.
4) Vet People Before They Click Your Ad
Split-test regular ads (news feed, mobile feed, right-hand side) and sponsored posts.
Sponsored posts give you a little more freedom to add more copy and more descriptive text.
I’ve found that they help in vetting out a prospect before they click on your ad. The people who click on your ad will have hopefully read through your longer copy and see that it resonates with them. If you’re paying per click, this helps you more efficiently use your budget.
5) Target Income Levels
Narrow your audience by selecting income ranges.
I’ve had audiences shrink from 1,000,000 to half simply by targeting people with more than $50,000 income. While the audience has shrunk, my conversions have increased since I’m vetting people out during this process.
Was this helpful? What ad targeting strategies have you used successfully? Let me know in the comments below!
