Some of you probably run a lot of Facebook traffic already. I do, and I love it. Besides Google, you really can’t get greater, more high quality traffic anywhere. However, the targeting must all be done demographically, something you search and SEO marketers probably aren’t familiar with. So in this post, I want to give a run down of what targeting options are some of my favorite to use with the Facebook Ads system.
1. Age, Sex and Location
I hope I don’t have to blab on too much about these for you to understand the importance here. Basically, if you aren’t setting them up in your Facebook campaigns, you are setting yourself up for failure. These targeting options are the cores of any demographically targeted ad campaign, and as such, can make or break your wallet.
2. Likes and Interests
Targeting people that are interested in a certain topic, or are in a group for something relevant to your offer? Yes please! Most of the campaigns I build these days use Interest targeting to some amount. And it can help turn my .05% CTRs into .5+% CTRs. They help me nail down to the people I really want to target and lift my EPC’s up tremendously.
3. Education
I love targeting by different levels of education and colleges/universities. There are so many different angles to go at thanks to this option, that I haven’t even been able to exploit them all. One thing I do is target colleges 1-by-1, including the school logo, mascot, or some other familiar subject from that school in the ad image. Talk about huge CTRs! If you haven’t tried this targeting option yet, you need to hop on it!
These are just my favorite 3. Other targeting options you should look at are birthday and workplace targeting. There has been some great success stories coming out of all of these.
Get the "Top Secrets to Making Money with PPV" Guide by subscribing here. You'll also get exclusive access to free downloads every Friday and over 700+ images you can use for FB/PoF Dating Ads!!
Copyright © 2006-2011 JustinDupre.com
Great points about using college logos. That would probably catch my eye as well. Do you usually start a Facebook campaign by varying your demographic sets? If so, what do you think is the best breakdown for testing? Without giving away too much… do you set blocks of age (25-30, 30-35, etc), as well as education and geographic locations?
I'm just now learning about how to work with Facebook so any insight you can provide would be great. And, thanks for the post!
Matt, I would start with similar blocks of ages and if you're highest conversions come from the 25-30 year old targeted ads, pause the other ads and split your campaign into 6 separate individual ads.
Ad 1 = 25 year olds ONLY
Ad 2 = 26 year olds ONLY etc…
See if there is a particular age that converts better.
Great stuff! As usual…
Good points raised there. FB really is a monster of a tool that cant be ignored.
I tried to start a campaign arounf a year ago but back then didnt really know what I was doing and got rejected.
Are there any up to date comprehensive FB PPC Ad campaign guides on the market?
Regards
Pete
Although I cannot afford Facebook advertising, currently, it will be one of my first stops for advertising.
Think about it – Facebook is within the top 5 most popular websites in the United States, much less the whole world. Facebook has, what, 500,000,000 users? Even a 1% CTR is 5 million. Let's say you don't even get that – .5%. You're still looking at 2.5 million clicks. And Facebook has provided such a powerful demographics section, that it's impossible to miss out on a high CTR for your ad.
When targeting schools I get demos between 40-50k. You work with demos this small?
Good post, I have only dabbled with facebook a little in the past and went the newbie route with targetting and failed big time. Readin this post alone has sparked a couple of ideas I would like to try…
Not that I need more on my plate at the moment – damn you :P
Thanks for this great and interesting post. I have taken a lot out of this post and hope to try them out with the FB Ads.
When using FB Ad Manager do you split test everything right off the bat? It seems like too many ads (if there is such a thing) to start with. Do you start off with the whole country, age, or gender, and after you get Responder Demographics then cut it down by state, city, school, etc?
Justin,
Great Stuff! I used Facebook ads when as a test when trying to get traffic to a blog post. I had never done ads to that point and am really interested in a "spending $0 on marketing" kinda thing. The post I used is "5 Strategies 50 Cent Could Teach Startup Entreprepreneurs" http://michaelgholmes.com/2010/10/01/5-strategies…
It got nearly 17,000 impressions and 14 clicks (I only spent around $5). Come to find out a couple of days later someone (or 50 himself) posted it on his site with a link back to my site.
To be honest, it wasn't a lot of traffic that came back from the trackback…but the SEO results were awesome!
SO I guess the Facebook ads do have some merit.
Hi Justin,
Thanks for the wonderful tips. Facebook nowadays is among the top most visted sites in the whole world. Thanks for sharing
Hi Justin,
Excellent points on the targeting possibilities of Facebook. The ability to be so precise about who you're targeting is a real gift.
Especially good is your idea of using logos. This could be extended not just to colleges, but also to companies, teams or any other kind of group entity with which people identify and feel a strong bond.
Great stuff, thanks,
Jym