Facebook's Cesspool of Audience Insights

Off-target ads seem to be disappearing with all the tools that are now available, Facebook being at the head of the race. With so many users and a sense of openness online, Facebook has become like a cesspool of consumer insights. While they are doing it, and doing it well, there are many who have not caught on or still don’t have the capability of targeting their ads. Here’s an example.

I am proud to say that I contribute a small portion to the 30 billion hours of YouTube that are watched each month. Although annoyed by the “sometimes-optional ads”, I have become more and more annoyed at how the ads do not seem targeted to me. If they want to make me wait, then please, seduce me with something I’m interested in, instead of denture adhesive paste.

Audience Insights

Facebook’s new tool ‘Audience Insights’ allows you to drill down to pure specificity and identify those who are most likely to act on your ad. Let’s take a look at how it works! Under ads manager you’ll see a variety of options. The ‘Audience Insights’ will allow you to seek out demographic and psychographic information of the audience of your choice!

Beyond basic geographic, gender, and age limits, there are incredible amounts of categories that can define your target audience. For example, the ‘Interests’ tab allows you to find people have expressed interest in or like certain things such as nursing, traveling, children, etc. This can be a great tool to target ads to people who have already disclosed their interests to the social public!

Facebook Interests

You’ll be sure to have some fun seeking out new insights as you browse through the interests. I’d even venture to say that you’ll end up altering your targeting strategy just a bit based on what you find by using this tool. Test this tool a bit, search for anything you’re looking for and I’m sure something similar will be found.

In the ‘Advanced Options’ you’ll find different, more demographic, targeting categories. Things like relationship status, education, financial info, etc. These will truly help your Facebook ads get to the right people in the right way. Be sure to remember that when you choose these options, you are choosing them as collective categorization. For example, you can search for married women who have an income of over $75,000 and have children between the ages of 4 and 12, who use an iPhone 5s. Ahhh the power of targeting!

Now, as you get lost in the left column of endless possibilities, let’s not forget that this is only the ‘Demographic’ tab. The ‘Page Likes’ tab is where you’ll truly get into the minds of the audience you have in the crosshairs. This will show you what the top page likes are among the group you’ve targeted. Usually, among Facebook users, such things as Wal-Mart, Eminem, and Starbucks come up, but depending on how specific you are, your results will be very different.

Now that you’ve been introduced to the left column of illumination, and the tabs of insights, you should be more than ready to hit the audience you want, in the way you want it. While there will definitely still be some difficulties you’ll have, there are promising solutions! And like I mentioned before, be prepared to alter you original targeting plan. After all, your consumers are moving targets.

Hit Your Target