5 Simple Facebook Targeting Options For Increased Conversions

Facebook Targeting: 4 Simple Ways To Increase Conversions

One of the biggest reasons why most advertisers fail miserably on Facebook is because they lack a true understanding of Facebook targeting options.

Every single ad created using the Facebook advertising platform will require you to specify who you want to target. Nine times out of ten when a marketer comes to us and tells us they aren’t getting conversions it’s typically because of the Facebook targeting options they chose when creating their ad. Running close behind that would be the type of ad objective they chose, then the ad copy, image, and bidding options.

This Article Will Show You 4 Examples Of How You Can Increase Your Conversions By Using Different Facebook Targeting Options

1.) Custom Audiences:

One of our favorite Facebook targeting options is to create a custom audience from our list of subscribers. To create a custom audience, go into your Facebook ad manager, click on “Tools” at the top, then “Audiences”, you will then see an option called “Create An Audience”. Once you see that option, click on the downward arrow and then click on “Custom Audience” as the image below shows.

Here is where you can upload your list of subscribers that are in your autoresponder. So for example, we would go into our infusion soft account or Aweber, which we had in the past, and download all of our subscribers to a CSV file. Once we have done that we could then go over to this section in the Facebook ad manager audience section and upload that list.

Now we have created a custom audience of people who are probably very familiar with me and Bill. Now we can create a Facebook ad and place that ad in front of our new custom audience.

2. Lookalike Audiences:

Lookalike audiences are great, but only if you add an extra step that I will discuss in just a moment. Here are some examples different lookalike audiences you can create:

Lookalike audience of your fans
Lookalike audience of your custom audience
Lookalike audience of a previously saved targeting audience used in a recent ad
Lookalike audience from previous website traffic

Lookalike audiences can be found in the same place where custom audiences are, except this time you will choose lookalike from the drop down box.

Now if you have ever done lookalike audiences in the past you probably know that when you create a lookalike audience you end up with over a million people.

That’s way too much!

And….who’s to say that new audience is really that similar to your current audience.

Maybe Joe was part of your original audience pool and he loved donuts so Facebook went out and decided to add other people that like donuts to your new lookalike audience.

Now as a marketer who markets solutions and products to entrepreneurs who are looking to build their business online……well targeting people who like donuts really misses the mark when it comes to targeting a high converting audience. Unless of course you’re promoting donuts as a solution to our audience’s marketing needs.

So how do you get around this?

Combine your lookalike audience with an interest.

For example, create a Facebook ad and target your new lookalike audience. Then go down to the interests section and add in more specifics such as, they must also be an entrepreneur, or like Gary V., etc.

By doing this you are weeding out the “not so” targeted people that ended up in your lookalike audience pool.

Typically we like to get this audience pool down to around 8K – 100K people that we want to target when creating our ads.

3. Website Custom Audiences:

Website custom audiences can be found in the same section as the above two audiences. and also the option you would choose is custom audience like the first example. In the image below you will then see a box open up that will ask you what kind of custom audience would you like to create and you would choose “Website Traffic”.

Again, this is about creating an audience who is familiar with you and your brand.

This type of custom audience once created will start to build as people begin to visit your website. In order for this to work, you will need to go through the instructions on how to insert a pixel on your blog or websites so Facebook can start to build the audience by collecting the visitor’s information when the pixel fires on your site.

The power of this type of Facebook targeting is now you are targeting people with your ad who are familiar with you and who have previously visited one of your sites where you have your pixel installed.

4. Combining Interests:

So you might be thinking…

“Well Michelle I don’t have a list, or any Facebook fans, or a blog,or even a website! How am I going to implement these kinds of Facebook targeting options you just provided?”

If this is you don not worry. I’ve got you covered.

You’ll want to pay special attention to this next type of Facebook targeting.

There’s a fairly new feature that we often use within the third party ad creation platform.

In fact, this feature has saved us thousands of dollars and hours upon hours of time when it comes to creating Facebook ads.

This feature is called Ad Espresso (Be sure to check it out by clicking on the Ad Espresso link. You will be glad you did.)

In fact we never use the Facebook ad manager or the Power Editor because Ad Espresso puts your ads on steroids and we like that!

Now back to the combining interests.

Instead of targeting all the people who like Gary V. or Timothy Ferris, or Oprah Winfrey, you can now tell Facebook to target your ad to all the people who like ALL these examples.

This means your target audience must have an interest in all 3 and not just 1 or 2.

That’s powerful laser targeting action right there!

The image below is from our Ad Espresso back office. See how we have the option to target: All of these, Any of these, or None of the above? Cool, right?