3 Steps To Better Targeting

3 Steps to Better Targeting

Step #1: Targeting a cold audience:

When you’re working with a cold audience (people who aren’t on your email list and who don’t know who you are) you want to really think about what problem you’re solving for your clients/customers before you start targeting a million pages, interests or demographics. Where do THEY look for resources on Facebook?  For example: If you sell specialty dog food, you’d want to target Facebook pages like Pet Smart and Chewy.com, NOT people who are "interested in Golden Retrievers." Why? Because the pages that focus on "I Heart My Golden Retriever" are going to include people who want to post funny dog videos of their pets and connect with people who love the breed, but they aren’t necessarily looking for your specific dog food. well, in fairness, they *might*, but you will have better luck targeting the fans of Pet Smart and other stores that SELL specialty dog food because you sell specialty dog food and so you want to show your ad to the people who want to BUY the dog food. Make sense? So, think about your offer/product/service and then think about what pages your clients/customers might follow to get that problem solved. 

Here's another example: Some of my students don’t know what the Facebook pixel is and don’t know how to install it. That’s their "problem." Guess what? I have the solution, right? I know what the Facebook Pixel is and how it can help them capture new audiences of cold traffic. So, I might develope a Facebook Pixel Lead Magnet which will solve that problem! So, I’m going to run an ad to the fans of people like Kim Garst or Mari Smith because both Kim and Mari teach Facebook advertising and many of their fans will want to know about how to install and use the Facebook pixel. Smart, right? 

Step #2: Narrowing Your Audience:

Be sure to also NARROW your audience. If you’re targeting a larger market, you might find that if you target one Facebook page it brings your audience up to a gazillion and you don’t want that. You want to have an audience size of between 500K to 1.5 million (at the most). At least from experience, that has been what works best for myself and my clients. So, hit the little ‘narrow audience’ button (see image below) and add in another page that your clients/customers might follow. So, for example: Let’s say you know your clients hang out on the fan page for Marie Forleo (I use her as an example a lot don't I?) When you target that page your audience size might be 3 million (I’m guessing here…so don’t hold me to it). So, you want to narrow that audience a bit, right? When you press the narrow audience button another box will pop up where you can add another page or interest. This is where you might want to ad Tony Robbins as an example. So, this will mean that your ad will run to people who follow the fan page of Marie Forleo AND Tony Robbins (not one or the other, but BOTH). Sound good? Good!

Now, with that said, I also want you to be aware of the "Exclude" button. You can (and should) use this to exclude anyone you don't want to see the ad. So, for example, if you're list building you don't want to run your ad to people who are already on your list so you'll upload your email list into facebook and EXCLUDE them from this audience. 

Step #3: Retargeting:

The Facebook pixel is used to track visitors to web pages (like your website or landing pages and thank you pages). As you begin to run ads you might see that people are clicking on the ad, but aren’t opting in. That doesn’t mean they weren’t interested. It just means that life happened – the dog barked, the kids were running around screaming (this would be my house!), the door bell rang, or maybe they stepped away from the computer and the chance to opt in disappeared. Poof! So, if you don’t get them to opt in right away, remind them by running a retargeting ad (generally this is the same ad objective, like a conversion ad), but you’ll send the ad to people who got to the landing page, but never opted in. It just puts that ad in front of them once again to remind them to opt in. I liken it to that stupid fidget spinner my son saw on the Target website. That dang fidget spinner followed me all over the internet for days until I caved and bought it. Yep, that’s the power of retargeting. That spinner was staring at me for daaaaayyyys!

Here are more ways you can use retargeting. You can run ads to people who have: 

·        Visited your website in a certain period of time

·        Engaged with your Facebook Page

·        Engaged with your posts or ads

·        Watched your video ad or FB lives

·        Messaged your Facebook page

Retargeting is powerful. Don’t forget this step in your Facebook ads campaign.