There are two major categories of audiences that we talk about all the time on Facebook: cold audiences are people who don't know you, and warm audiences are people who do. Some people also talk about hot audiences – who are super engaged and likely more ready to do business with you. Cold audiences can also be called prospecting audiences because you're trying to find new people, whereas I also tend to call warm audiences remarketing audiences or retargeting audiences. Today we're going to dive into the cold audience prospecting with Facebook Ads – then we'll hit warm audiences and some other audience-related information over the next couple weeks!
When it comes to cold audiences on Facebook, there are 2 different approaches:
- Leveraging Facebook's core audience targeting (this is today's topic)
- Leveraging the warm audiences you already have (we'll review this AFTER talking about warm audiences next week)
When you get into the Ad Set level you will be able to identify your budget, placements, targeting – there are actually a lot of customizable areas, but we're focused today on audiences and targeting.
Let's touch on all of the demographic customization options Facebook has
- We're going to skip over the Custom Audiences box since that is next week.
- For Locations you can customize the way that you target someone in a location to include:
- people who LIVE in that location
- people who are TRAVELING through that location
- people RECENTLY in that location
- OR all of the above.
Think about who you want to target and which option makes the most sense for your business goals!
- Gender is pretty self-explanatory
- You will only need to identify a Language IF you are targeting a minority language based on the location you selected above.
Now my favorite part! Detailed Targeting options!!
Facebook has so many options for the things that you can target. I always recommend that you start by clicking on the browse button to see how many targetable segments there are. The first thing you'll notice, are 3 expandable categories:
- Demographics – traits/qualities people have. Often these are things that people have told Facebook. Facebook can identify other demographics based on your online activities.
- Interests – not my favorite. The way Facebook determines interests is based on how people are interacting with content on line. I use Donald Trump as my example – you either love him, or you don't. If we target an interest in “Donald Trump” some people will be interested in his success, and some will be interested in his failure. So we have to be careful, especially when we're targeting contra
- Behaviors – targeting based on things people have done in the past or actions they have taken.
I prefer to stay in Demographics and Behaviors as much as possible, but I do sometimes tap into Interests.
One more quick note: one big misconception I hear/see all the time is that people tend to believe that you can target other people's pages or groups.
- You can not target groups
- You can not target people who like other people's pages! Facebook recognizes that you've worked hard to get your page fans – and you may have even run ads to get those fans, so they prevent you from targeting the fans of any Pages you don't own… I always use the example of: Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn (listen to Pat Flynn in Episode #33). If you look at the number of people who like that page, and the number of people in the audience – the numbers are not the same. Because the Interest you're able to target in your ad is REALLY an audience of people Facebook has determined are interested in Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn based on their past 28-days worth of behavior.
Building your Core Audience
- Identify your major targetable categories
- Take one and enter it into the targeting box. Now, expand on that idea to add more targeting segments in an attempt to capture all of that audience. For example: if my first targetable category is “parents” then I also may want to add the segment of people who are interested in “day care” because parents would be interested in daycare.
- Next, click the “narrow audience” link and get to work on your second targetable category. If this one is “entrepreneurs” you may want to consider adding “entrepreneur magazine” and “smart passive income with pat flynn” among others.
- Repeat until you have all your categories represented.
Now, you've established a set of filters – or rules – to tell Facebook who to include in your audience and you've segmented the targeting options so that you have the best chance of getting your ads in front of the right people.
I do NOT recommend that you check the “expanded interest” box – because you'll never know what the audience actually was that performed best. I would encourage you to test different audience segments if you want to ensure that you have the best audience – this way, you'll know for sure which audience performs best for you. You don't just want something to work – you want to know why it works.
Next week we'll talk about warm audiences, including how you can exclude warm audiences from your cold audience prospecting so that you can ensure that you're spending your money wisely and only showing your ads to the right people!