How Facebook Ads Give You The Power To Reach Your Target Audience

Facebook Advertising Is Stronger Than Ever

Facebook’s relevance is far from dwindling. The data shows that Facebook is more important for marketers than ever. Despite their recent controversies, the platform reported $16.6 billion worth of advertising revenue in their 2019 Q2 earnings report.

Facebook IQ Reports That 63% of Facebook Users Shop on Facebook

It’s not just Facebook’s internal reporting that indicates customers are turning to social to make purchase decisions. Avionos’ 2018 Consumer Expectations Report surveyed over 1,400 purchasers and found that 55% made purchases through social media.

The audience is there for the taking and comes complete with benefits that traditional advertising methods lack. Unlike television commercials, print ads, billboards and even PR campaigns, it’s much easier to track your return on ad spend and ensure your ads are reaching your desired audience when advertising on Facebook.

Reaching Your Audience On Facebook

We live in a multi-device world where users have a variety of ways to access your website. Facebook allows you to reach users across devices. If a user casually views your Facebook ad on their phone while at work, Facebook can re-deliver your ad to the same individual once they log on to Facebook via their desktop when they get home. Facebook gives you the ability to reach users on their preferred devices at their preferred times.

So you can reach users, but what about reaching the right users? If you’re selling cosmetics you likely don’t want your ad to appear to a 60 year old man who has no interest in purchasing beauty products. Facebook provides you with three unique ways to reach your target audience: Core Audiences, Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences.

Core Audiences

Core audiences use Facebook data to target users based on their location, demographics, connections and interests. This allows advertisers to hone in on those who are the most interested in their products. For example if you’re a trendy children’s clothing boutique, you can target ads to millennial mothers in the United States with an interest in fashion. On the other hand if you’re a Canadian athletic brand that specializes in shoes for men, you might target men in Canada with an interest in shoes who have engaged with sports pages on Facebook.

Custom Audiences

Custom audiences provide brands with the option of uploading customer files to use for retargeting on Facebook. If you’re prepping for a new product launch, you can use custom audiences to let your most loyal customers know that your new products have dropped.

To reach users at every point of the marketing funnel, custom audiences can also be created based off of the activity of users on your website. This is the ideal way to target users who have added items to their cart, but have not followed through with a purchase. If you have an especially engaged and growing organic social audience, you can use these ads to target those who have engaged with your social media pages.

Lookalike Audiences

Lookalike audiences are used to develop audiences similar to your existing customers, Facebook page engagers and website visitors. You can use any uploaded custom audience to create a new lookalike audience. Facebook will use the data from your custom audience to find similar users who may be interested in your products.

This is a great consumer prospecting method to turn users who are not familiar with your brand into loyal customers.

Generating Sales With Facebook Advertising

While it’s important to get eyes on your product, ultimately the goal of your ads are sales. If a customer sees an article about your product in a magazine that inspires them to make a purchase, it’s nearly impossible to back track their purchase to the magazine as the driver of acquisition.

When users click on a Facebook ad to your website, you can see whether or not that customer converted within your selected attribution period. You can also see exactly how much it cost you to acquire that customer,  how much that customer spent and your return on ad spend.

It is true that Facebook attribution and social media attribution in general is becoming harder as web browsers are utilizing more pixel restrictions to protect their user privacy. However, if you find your Facebook attribution is coming up short, Facebook provides a few tests you can use to ensure your Facebook ads are delivering a level of performance that’s worth your ad spend.

Photo Credit: Facebook Blueprint

Conversion Lift Test

Conversion Lift Tests split your targeted audience into two groups: the group that will see your ads and a control group that will not. The test calculates the difference between the two groups and determines whether or not your ads are actually generating your desired results.

Brand Lift Test

While Conversion Lift Tests focus primarily on how your ads impact sales, brand lift studies determine how much your Facebook ads impact brand awareness. Your target audience is still split into both your test and control group, but both groups will receive a short survey with questions such as, “Do you recall seeing an ad for (brand) in the last two days?”

This test will provide valuable data regarding how effective your ads are in generating a lift in brand awareness.

Getting Started

So you realize Facebook ads are powerful sales drivers, but where do you start? Contact a Digital Revenue Media team member today to develop your campaign strategies and goals. We’d love to help you begin your journey with Facebook advertising!