The most important part of your ad creation on Facebook is defining the audience. You can select
to Create New Audience or Use Saved Audience. Assuming you do not have a saved audience,
proceed with the Create New Audience option. The first option is to use a Custom Audience. You
can create a custom audience by clicking create new.
You can connect with people who have already shown an interest in your business or product. If
you set up your pixel already, you will be able to source data from your Website or App Activity.
You can also create an audience by uploading a list that you already have. Facebook will provide
the format to upload once you click on the option. Both Customer List and Offline Activity options
work this way.
You can also use Facebook sources. The Video option is for creating an audience of people who
watched one of your videos. The Instagram Account option creates an audience of people who
visited or interacted with your Instagram business account. The Lead Form option creates an
audience of people who opened or completed a lead form from one of your past lead generation
campaigns.
The Events option creates an audience of people who interacted with one of your events before.
You can also create an audience of people who interacted with your Instant Experience, Shopping
Experience or On-Facebook listings from your catalog on Facebook. Facebook Page option helps
build an audience of people who follow or interacted with your page. Since I have a new page
from which I will be running an ad, I will not use the custom audience option.
Choose a location next. The default location setting is your current location. You can remove it
and use a more specific location targeting. You can select People living and most recently were in
the specified area, People most recently within the chosen area, People living in this location or
People travelling in this location. Then you can select multiple locations in the map by dropping
pins or type them in individually. I chose Dhaka Division as my target. After that, you can also
pick the radius of targeting, such as within 25 miles of the selected location. You can also add
multiple locations in bulk using the option below the map. It enables you to target as specific as
individual addresses.
You can select the age and gender of your target audience after specifying the location. Detailed
Targeting option introduces more options. You can target using the Demographics, Interests and
Behaviors of your target audience. Just click on the browse option in the menu and add relevant
targeting parameters.
There are three different things you can do with the Detailed Targeting section. You can add
multiple parameters individually with no dependence on each other. For example, if you choose
people who have studied BBA from demographics and Soccer fans from behaviors – your ad will
target both sets of people. The ad will also target Soccer fans who have not studied BBA.
If you want to narrow your target, meaning you want to target soccer fans who studied BBA as per
the example, use the Narrow option. You can also exclude certain people from the first chosen
parameter. For example, use the Exclude option to target people who studied BBA but exclude
people interested in Personal Finance.
Under the Demographics section, you can choose your audience according to Education. And in
the Education option, you can select education level, fields of study, schools, and undergrad years.
The Financial option lets you target according to income.
The life event option comes next in the section. You can select people who have their anniversaries
within 30 days and within 31-60 days. You can also pick people who are away from their family
or away from their hometown. You can also specify people according to Birthday Month or
Upcoming Birthday. Using the Friends of option, you can select Friends of Men/Women with a
birthday in 0-7 days and 7-30 days. You can also choose the friends of recently moved, newly
engaged, and newly wedded.
There are also options to target people in long-distance relationships, new relationships, and new
jobs. Newly engaged, Newlyweds and recently moved people are also options under the Life
events targeting.
With the Parents option, you can target all parents, new parents, parents with adult children, parents
with early school-age children, parents with preschoolers, parents with preteens, parents with
teenagers, and parents with toddlers. Using Relationship targeting, you can specify the relationship
status of your target audience. The Work option helps target employers, industries, and job titles.
After the Demographics, you will find the Interests section. With the Business and Industry option,
you can select people interested in a particular subject, such as advertising and personal finance.
Under the Entertainment option, you can target people interested in Games, Live events, Movies,
Music, Reading and TV. Each has a detailed option under them. The next option is Family and
Relationships. People interested in Dating, Family, Fatherhood, Friendship, Marriage,
Motherhood, Parenting, and Weddings are under this option.
Then there is the Fitness and Wellness option to find people interested in Bodybuilding,
Meditation, Physical Exercise, Physical fitness, Running, Weight training, and Yoga. With the
Food and Drink option, you can add interests such as Alcoholic beverages, Beverages, Cooking,
Cuisine, Food, and Restaurants.
Under the Hobbies and activities option, you can find interests like Arts and Music, Home and
Garden, Pets, Politics and social issues, Travel, and vehicles. Further detailed options are there
inside each option in this section. With the Shopping and fashion option, you can select people
interested in Beauty, Clothing, Fashion Accessories, Shopping, and Toys. Each option has more
detailed targeting parameters under them.
The Sports and outdoors option has two interests listed – Outdoor recreation and Sports. Each
option has specified interests such as Fishing, Hunting, Baseball and Soccer under them. The last
one under interest targeting option is Technology. There are two options – Computers and
Consumer Electronics. Each has detailed options under them such as Computer monitors,
Software, Cameras, and Televisions.
The final one is the Behavior targeting section. With the Anniversary option, you can target people
with an anniversary within 61 to 90 days. The Consumer Classification option is available for a
few select countries. This option enables you to target People who prefer high-value goods or
People who prefer mid and high-value goods. It is only available for Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, Turkey,
and UAE.
With the Digital Activities, you can target using the following options - Operating system used,
Canvas gaming, Console gamers, Facebook Payment users, Facebook access with older devices
and OS, Facebook page admins, Internet browser used, Operating system used, People who have
visited Facebook Gaming, People who have watched a rewarded video in the past 30 days, Small
business owners, and Technology early adopters. Some of the targeting parameters have detailed
options under them.
You can target people who lived in a specific country before and now live abroad with the Expats
option. The Mobile Device User option provides you with targeting parameters such as - All
mobile devices by Brand, All mobile devices by Operating System, People who access Facebook
primarily with mobile devices/feature phones/smartphones/tablets, Network connection
2G/3G/4G/WiFi, and People with new smartphones. You can also target people who are likely to
have used a mobile device for a specific amount of time.
Under the More Categories option, you will find the option to target People interested in upcoming
events and Marketing API developers on Facebook. The Politics option is only for the US and
helps target conservatives, liberals, or moderates. You can target people who have clicked on the
Call-to-Action button “Shop Now” in the past week with the Purchase Behavior option.
The Soccer option enables you to target Friends of soccer fans, Soccer fans with high content
engagement and Soccer fans with moderate content engagement. The Travel option helps you find
the Commuters, Frequent travelers, Frequent international travelers, Returned from travel one
week ago and Returned from travels two weeks ago.
The Language option is a Specialized option. This setting is for reaching people whose language
is uncommon in the location you select. To reach all people in your chosen location, leave this
option blank.
The Connections option is the last one in the targeting settings. You can target People who
currently like your page, People similar to those who currently like your page and Exclude people
who currently like your page. You can also choose People who used your app, People similar to
those who used your app and Exclude people who used your app. In the Events part, it is also
possible to target People who responded to your event and Exclude people who responded to your
event.
These covers currently available targeting options in Facebook. Let me know if I missed anything
or should add more details for any of the options.