From the nice-to-have medium to the favourite of marketing bosses: Just three years ago, the Facebook In terms of advertising strategy, this was only a "nice" platform with a considerable number of users. However, since there were virtually no options for data collection regarding purchasing interests and consumer behavior, interest in ad placements remained rather moderate. This changed abruptly when Facebook negotiated deals with renowned data brokers such as Epsilon, Acxiom and Datalogix in 2013. Since then, Facebook Targeting has been setting standards in the field of target group delimitation.
The cooperation with renowned market research institutes secures Facebook access to trillions of data. According to the New York Times, Acxiom, for example, had the world's largest data pool in 2012. Database on private purchasing behavior: Even back then, information on 500 billion consumers was collected here, with an average of 1,500 individual pieces of data per person. The result: virtually overnight, Facebook knew much more than just who played Farmville and who played Candy Crusher. In addition to user behavior on Facebook itself, it was now possible to determine who was planning a move, taking medication for high blood pressure, or devouring crime and horror stories. This unique opportunity to fine-tune target group marketing down to the smallest detail made Facebook Targeting the advertising world's favorite digital medium virtually overnight.
The way to a precise target group definition
If you want to balance the distribution of your ads using Facebook Targeting, you must first define the purpose of the campaign: Which action does the provider want to trigger in the user? Is it about giving a blog more readers? Does he want to publicize a website or a new app, open up new interest clusters, collect e-mail addresses for sending offers and newsletters? The Facebook Ads Manager offers ten options, including publicity for events and direct sales promotion. Making the goal more precise channels the choice of parameters and makes it easier to use the limited design scope of the ad in a focused way.
Facebook Targeting - Approach step by step
To describe target group(s), Facebook offers the selection of user characteristics and behaviour in six main categories with hundreds of sub-categories.
- Demographic data such as location, age, gender, language, relationship status, education level, job, etc.
- Fields of interest in general and in particular, such as " Food and drink - restaurants - fast food + cafés" or "Technology - computers - processors + memory".
- Buying and consumption behaviour, for example "Finance - Investments - Online Banking/Direct Banking" or "Mobile Device User - by Brand - Asus - Fonepad + Transformer Pad".
- connections on the platform itself, i.e. Likes and friends
- Custom audiences (existing contacts) such as your own customer base, blog readers or app users
- Lookalike Audiences - groups of people with the same or similar characteristics as existing customers and contacts
Stimulating creativity: Facebook targeting in practice
1. B2B offers: Business Software
Are you looking for potential customers for a product or service that is offered exclusively within a certain framework, for example for a direct marketing software? In this case, the category "Behavior" leads to the right target group. However, the subcategory Business Marketing contains around 4.5 million users. You can narrow down your selection by adding further criteria, such as the location and/or professional status of the desired contact persons.
2. private customer selection: low price weeks in a romantic hotel
If you select "Event Responses" when pre-selecting the campaign target, the Facebook targeting function offers you an overwhelming number of parameters. The underlying information comes directly from the timelines of Facebook users. For example, an advertisement for your hotel's "Hearts & Champagne" action week would have a good chance of being seen more closely by those who are fresh in love. Facebook lists several parameters for this state, from "New relationship" to "Newly engaged (divided into 3 months, 6 months, 1 year) to "Newly married (ditto).
3. facebook targeting for advanced users: generate a lookalike audience
Do you already use Facebook as standard for communication with customers and/or followers? A next logical step could be to develop new target groups with similar buying behaviour and interests as your customer base. By the way, you don't even need a fan community on the platform itself to do this. Facebook provides you with a tracking pixel that conveys an image of the custom audience of your website. On the basis of the profile, similarities with Facebook users can be called up who are potential customers for you.
Clever targeting plays with the possibilities
Facebook targeting is a great tool, as long as it is handled as flexibly as the medium allows. The circumstances, behaviour and interests of your "ideal customer" are constantly changing. Facebook can help you to track them down and keep an eye on them.
