Best Way To Find Your Target Audience For Facebook Ads
Finding your target audience for Facebook ads involves a combination of research, analysis, and testing. Let’s just dive right into it…
Here are some steps to help you identify and reach your target audience on Facebook:
Define your ideal customer: Start by creating a detailed profile of your ideal customer based on demographics (age, gender, location, education, income), interests, behaviors, and other characteristics. This will help you understand who your target audience is and what motivates them.
I like to use pad and paper for this to really brainstorm. Think about where does your ideal customer shop? What websites are they browsing online? What books are they reading? What conferences are they attending? What are their desires and pain points? What are your brand competitors that your ideal customer may be using or following on social media? Write it all down.
Search Facebook Detailed Interest Targeting: There used to be a tool called Facebook Insights which allowed you to search and see what interests were available for targeting. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist anymore but you can still do this research within Facebook Ads Manager.
Create a draft ad (you won’t be using this so it doesn’t matter what objective you choose or cost you set) and go to the Ad Set level. Scroll down to the Audience section, and go to the Interest search bar. Start typing the various interests from your brainstorm session and see if they pop up. If they do, it means it is available for targeting. It will also start giving you suggestions based on what you put in, which is also handy and can help expand your list. Use this data to refine your target audience and identify new segments to reach.
Conduct market research: Conduct surveys, focus groups, and other forms of market research to gather insights on your target audience's needs, preferences, and pain points. Use this information to create more targeted and relevant ad campaigns. Facebook Groups within your niche are a great place to do this!
Use Lookalike Audiences: Lookalike Audiences allow you to reach new customers who are similar to your existing customers based on their interests, behaviors, and demographics. This can be an effective way to expand your reach and target new segments. Don’t have existing customers? No problem! You can still create a Lookalike Audience from people who have engaged with your posts on Facebook or Instagram, clicked any of your ads, watched any videos on your Facebook or Instagram, and more.
Test and refine your targeting: Test different targeting options and ad formats to see which ones perform best with your target audience. Refine your targeting based on the results and continue to test and iterate to improve your ad performance over time.
For example, perhaps you’re a health food brand. You might run an ad test that will target moms who are interested in fitness related brands, such as Peloton, Lululemon, Athleta, Equinox. Let’s say it doesn’t perform well. Your next test may be to moms who are interested in health food shopping, like Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe’s and Sprouts.
You will continue testing a variety of ad creatives and audiences until you find your winners. The good news is you don’t necessarily need a big budget to get results quickly from your tests. I’ve been able to gauge ad performance from as little as $5 a day in ad spend.
By using these steps, you can effectively identify and reach your target audience on Facebook and optimize your ad campaigns for maximum ROI.
Questions? Drop them below!
