Bringing the right customers to your website | Microtargeting with Facebook Ads

Facebook is by far the most popular social network on a global scale, in spite of the recent data privacy scandals it has recently been involved in. As Facebook users, we have to understand that this service would not be available free of charge if the owners would not have other ways to get revenue.

The way they get revenue is by using the data we voluntarily submit on our profiles and making it available to advertisers, who will, in turn, send us, through various channels, messages that best suit our needs and preferences.

While some are quick to judge that as an invasion of privacy or manipulation, this entire system is not personalised. Nobody has a file with your name on it that they check periodically. This is not the secret services or some espionage movie. 

In fact, since the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the new GDPR regulations, Facebook updated their privacy settings so that users can now choose whether or not their activity history should be stored or not, like an advanced incognito browsing session.

The trouble with that scenario is not that you would stop receiving ads and sponsored stories, but that the ones you receive might not be as relevant as before since you have chosen to reveal less about your likes and dislikes. Your Facebook experience may well be influenced by this choice.

Ok, we got the Facebook background, but what is microtargeting, right?

Shortly, this is a marketing strategy that is supposed to analyze your customers and consumers, see their demographics, identify their interest and use the information in your favour to better position your business or message!

1. Click create ad in your Facebook account. Keep in mind that you need to associate your ad to an official Facebook page you are managing. It will not work with a common profile.
2. Choose traffic. This will allow you to create ads directed to your website.
3. You will see the Audience field, where you can set your target group.

In the audience field you have options for:

• Location – select a country, a region or a city to target. All users who have that location in their lives in… part of the profile filled in, will be eligible to receive your ads
• Age – calculated using the declared date of birth of users
• Languages
• Demographics – here, you have a vast range of options related to education, life events and other (recently married, soon to have a birthday, recently moved to another city etc.). Imagine you have a website selling baby products. Facebook Ads will allow you to send your ad only to „new parents (0-12 months)”, based on what the couples have been posting online. Imagine how useful that would be for your business.
• Interests – now it gets very interesting, as you can mix the above criteria with the interests manifested on Facebook by users. This part is based on clicks and likes they have made. You can target people interested in fishing, outdoor activities, food and many many more.

It might seem a piece of cake to do it, but you actually have hundreds of choices here! Just take a look at this nice infographic created by advertisemint.

We highly recommend you to go through your analytics first, see your most successful content or products, check your demographics and try to find the best elements from a facebook micro-audience that would fit your business and your website content. This would optimize your ad a lot!