What are Facebook Ads target audiences?

Facebook, now under the umbrella of Meta, offers businesses unparalleled access to diverse groups of potential customers. Understanding the different audience types available through Meta Ad Manager (formerly known as Facebook Ads Manager) is critical for crafting targeted campaigns that resonate with the right people.

Here's a deep dive into the various Facebook audience categories and how to leverage them for your advertising efforts.

Types of Facebook Audiences

Custom Audience

A Custom Audience is a treasure trove of individuals who have already engaged with your business in some capacity. This could be through interactions on your website, mobile app, or social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. By targeting this warm audience, you're reaching out to users who are already familiar with your brand, thus increasing the likelihood of conversion.

Custom audiences can be built from sources such as:

• Facebook or Instagram video views
• Past purchase behavior
• Engagement with your Facebook Page or Instagram professional account
• Website visitors tracked by Facebook Pixel
• Users of your mobile app
• Engagement with your lead generation forms or Instant Experience

However, to utilize custom audiences effectively, you must already possess a substantial amount of data. If your audience size is too small, you may encounter the "Audience too small" error, indicating that the sample is not statistically significant for Meta to utilize.

Lookalike Audience

Lookalike Audiences are created based on the characteristics of your Custom Audience. This group comprises individuals who have not yet interacted with your brand but share similar attributes with your existing customers. By creating a Lookalike Audience, you tap into a new segment of potential customers who are likely to be interested in your offerings.

When forming a Lookalike Audience, you can specify the source audience, geographic location, and the desired audience size, which correlates with how closely the Lookalike Audience matches your source audience.

Saved Audience

Saved Audiences are the audiences you can pre-define and save within Meta Ad Manager for future use. This feature saves time and ensures consistency across campaigns by allowing you to reuse audience criteria without having to set them up from scratch each time.

With Saved Audiences, you can specify a wide range of criteria, including:

• Geographic location
• Gender
• Age range
• Language preferences
• User interests and behaviors
• Connections to your pages or apps

It's important to note that Meta's advertising platform undergoes frequent updates, which can affect the relevance of your Saved Audiences. Regular reviews and updates to these audiences are necessary to maintain targeting accuracy and campaign effectiveness.

Conclusion

Meta Ad Manager's audience targeting options are instrumental for advertisers looking to reach specific demographics, interests, and behaviors. Whether through Custom, Lookalike, or Saved Audiences, the ability to pinpoint your advertising efforts can lead to higher engagement and conversion rates. Staying informed and adaptable to platform changes will ensure your campaigns continue to perform at their best.