Ad targeting can mean different things such as targeting the audience or targeting the screen area where the ads will be placed. Ad targeting also has to do with the personal behaviors of a potential lead. The ads will be displayed according to the past actions, interests, geographical location, and different other properties of a potential client’s profile. 

The best hints and information for ad targeting are given by the users themselves. They provide the necessary data and a data analytics consulting firm can help you target your ads based on the data available for each user. 

There are certain subjects to be aware of and to understand for better ad targeting. 

1. Ad targeting and privacy

Facebook has undergone several privacy updates in the past which made it challenging to create targeted ads and ad targeting. There have been concerns among internet users and app users worldwide about their privacies. Several companies and online platforms have taken it seriously and have changed their privacy policies and the way the user data is processed. 

iOS devices have had the most impact as iOS updates have enabled users to choose what they want to share with different apps. To be exact, the users are now able to choose whether to share data between apps or not. It seems that almost all of the users who were given the choice opted to not share data among platforms and apps. 

This means the available size and quality of data for ad targeting is very low compared to what it was in the past. The condition where the users opted not to share information across platforms has affected Facebook in collecting customer data. So naturally, there are less data inside Facebook for you to make an informed decision. Don’t worry, there are ways to overcome this challenge and a data analytics consulting firm can help you get over it. 

2. Creating audience lists

The Facebook ads manager has features for you to create lists of the different audiences that you want to target. Within the Ads Manager, you can select the Audiences and then create a new audience and save. Give the list a good name that you can remember easily with all details you want to see. 

When you create a campaign, you can see the option in the ad set level. When you create the audience list, try to be as broad as possible. If your targeting is very strict and includes several parameters, the intersection of all parameters might be very narrow. That means you may not serve your ads to all potential prospects. 

Facebook recommends broad targeting. Broad targeting means to have only a few parameters such as age, gender, and location. It is not a requirement by Facebook to have only broad targeting, but it is recommended. Based on your campaign goal and the target audience, Facebook will be able to serve your ads to more potential people who could respond to your ads, given that you give enough flexibility to Facebook by having the parameters low. 

The colored interface of the Facebook ads manager gives you a visual clue of how your target audience looks. You can add and remove parameters and change their level to adjust your target audience. The color indicator will change as you change the parameters giving you the opportunity to fine-tune your target audience. 

Facebook also has its own algorithms to find similar audiences to your target audience when possible. To allow Facebook to serve ads to a similar audience, you have to have the settings right. You can choose the detailed targeting expansion, and this will enable Facebook to expand the audience when possible. You can turn it on and off during campaign creation at the ad set level and experiment with it for a few ads. 

3. Building custom audience profiles

There are best practices recommended by Facebook. Building a custom audience is one of those recommendations. Although the retargeting settings are not changed, the changes to privacy-related settings have made it difficult to target the audience as before. 

Audience from web apps is one other source where you get more customer profiles. This is still useful, but you will not get most iOS users that have opted not to share their information across platforms. You will have to manually collect information from one application and then create a similar audience on Facebook and make your custom audiences.

A data analytics consulting firm can help you set up the Facebook SDK and Facebook pixel to gather information where conversion events occur. You can then use this information to retarget your audience. It could be someone who clicked on a button or viewed a product page. It gives you more insight to find your target audience and deliver your ads better. 

If you are someone who uses a customer relations management system, you might have profiles of your best customers. You can upload that data to the Facebook ads and Facebook will match your customers with Facebook users and serve your ads to a custom audience. 

Again, this feature also has its own limits due to the privacy options people want to opt for. iOS users will still be a challenge in targeting through Facebook or any other web app because these users may simply don’t want to provide enough data for you to target them for any particular advertising. 

Facebook can match and select the actual user profiles if enough information is provided. If you have more information through your customer relations management system, then try to upload as much information as possible onto Facebook so that it can make better matches. For example, the job title, phone number, website, email address, and any other information that could help Facebook to match profiles would increase the efficiency of the process. 

Although the privacy settings on different platforms have changed, any app can collect information within the app. Facebook collects information inside its own app and that is not restricted by any other device settings or operating systems. You can use Facebook’s own data to target people that have done a few activities online. 

People might have engaged with your Facebook page, messaged you, or followed your page. Any events that people have attended, purchased a ticket, or have had any other form of engagement will have that data to use. There will also be data from your Facebook shop where people have saved, purchased, or viewed any of your products. 

Other data could include people who have watched your videos in full or part. A few people might even have taken an extra step to fill in a form for you. The interaction of people with instant experience can also give you enough data to deal with. 

Facebook allows you to have geotargeting for lookalike audiences set up. You can use your existing data to create lookalike audiences. This is a useful method because you can have your original audience database and create several lookalike audiences tweaking the parameters a little each time. 

4. Campaign performance

The performance of your campaign is what matters after all because when you are done with the targeting if the campaign does not perform as you expected, it would not be of any use to you. 

A few ways of improving your campaign performance include verifying your domain. You have to confirm the ownership or connection of the Facebook ad with your app or business through a url. Configuring conversion events in your business manager account becomes handy with domain verification. 

Prioritized conversion configuration is another way of improving your campaigns. On the events manager, you can configure and prioritize your conversion events. You can prioritize and configure up to 8 events inside your Facebook ads. You can use the events manager by selecting the pixel that you are working with and then configure the aggregated event measurement. The buttons and dropdown lists are self-explanatory, and you can use them to complete your configuration. 

Another way is to have a constant comparison of ads and their performance to select the best ads and methods. If you are relying on advertisements a lot on Facebook, then you should consider comparing your ads. You can also use the tools to test your ads. Inside the ads manager, you can use the A/B test button to do this. Select your ads from the campaign’s ad then select the target audience. Then define the parameters on which you want to make the decisions and also the period for which you want to run the test. Once you get the test result, you can use that information to improve your campaigns.

Conclusion

Since a lot of privacy settings, ad settings, and targeting have changed on Facebook since 2021, it is best to rethink the way you used to post ads on Facebook. It is also important that in 2022 and beyond, the ad targeting has to be done with caution and with limited data about the audience. 

It is not all doom and gloom. If you use the right tools, methods, and tactics, you can make the most out of the ads. If you need help, you can look for some data analysis consulting firm that can do the job for you.