Facebook Advertising Removes Thousands Of Detailed Targeting Options Affecting Small Businesses
Last year, Facebook (or Meta as it is known now) announced it would be removing some Facebook Ad detailed targeting options. This is because according to them “they are not widely used, they may be redundant with others or too granular, or because they relate to topics people may perceive as sensitive:”
However, after removing these targeting options, it seems they removed a lot more than initially thought.
Unfortunately, it seems Facebook is not likely to backtrack on its decision to remove detailed targeting options as its focus has shifted from Facebook advertising. Their focus is now on the Metaverse in which they are investing millions.
So now the question is – is Facebook Advertising still worth investing in for your business?
Of course, if you have found great success with the removed detailed targeting options there’s no doubt that these changes by Facebook will affect you. However, with this change in digital advertising as well as Apple’s iOS14 Privacy Update, it looks like digital advertising is changing. All we can do is adapt as quickly as possible rather than try and resist the change.
So don’t feel discouraged if your Facebook advertising is not converting as highly as in the past. Whilst it may be harder to find your desired audience, it’s not impossible, it’s just about taking a different approach. Here is a breakdown of the alternative approaches to your Facebook targeting campaigns.
Broad Targeting:
This includes segmenting your audience by gender, age and location. While this may not work for all businesses, don’t forget that traditional marketing approaches such as TV and Radio relied on broad targeting approaches to reach large audiences at once. You can do the same but more efficiently with the tools at your disposal.
Custom Audiences:
Here you can create audiences who have interacted with your business in the past. This is a great retargeting tool as you can target customers, website visitors, email subscribers, and people who have interacted with your social media or app.
Lookalike audiences:
Lookalike targeting is a great way to reach new audiences by targeting your competitor’s audience. Facebook generally allows you to use big competitors as lookalike audiences but won’t show smaller competitors so it’s important to know your competitors and try out which ones work and which ones don’t.
Additionally, facebook’s lookalike expansion feature can deliver your ads beyond your detailed targeting which can help you improve your conversions. Facebook’s system is intelligent so play around with the features and see what works best for you.
How to approach this:
Using data, (Google Analytics, SEMrush, etc) look at the gender age combinations that perform specific actions on your website (e.g Males 45-54 or Females 18-24). After analysing the data you can now begin to craft your next marketing campaign with different audience types. Using a customer journey map, curate a Facebook campaign with 3 phases.
First Phase – Awareness
In the first phase (awareness), select brand awareness as your objective type. Here you want to create a combination of videos and carousels for your ads that showcase the brand’s service or product offerings. As an example, if you are selling a gym equipment store you want to showcase the type of equipment and brands that you sell.
Second Phase – Consideration
In the second phase (consideration), you want to drive traffic to your website. Here you want your ads to be more in-depth. You want to show specific product/service characteristics – here is where you want to differentiate your competitor and show your value proposition. You need to show your target audience why to buy your product/service instead of competitors.
Final Phase – Acquisition
In the third phase (acquisition), you want to select conversions as your campaign objective. Here you want to retarget customers who have visited your website, as well as the same audience from the last 2 phases to expand your reach. Here is where you want to close the deal, this is most commonly done by offering some sort of promotion or creating exclusivity. Offer discounts for a limited time to entice your customers to buy now.
Furthermore, it may be time for your business to try alternative social media platforms for digital advertising. Depending on your target audience, trending platforms like TikTok might turn out to be more effective than Facebook. If you’re unsure what platform may best suit your audience, be sure to check out our blog on which social media platform is best.
Don’t let these Facebook Advertising updates be a roadblock for you or your business, our digital advertising experts at Gerald and Rose are one call away to assist you with your digital advertising needs.
Give us a call on 02 7906 8410 or email us at sales@geraldandrose.com.
Based in Darlinghurst, Sydney, Gerald and Rose specialise in helping small to medium businesses thrive through digital marketing, web services, graphic design and business services.