Yes, you can target the same type of audience across different ad sets within the same Facebook ad campaign. When setting up a Facebook ad campaign, you create ad sets which allow you to target your ads to specific audiences. The key is that each ad set can target a different audience, even though they are part of the same overall campaign. This allows you to test different targeting approaches and creative within one campaign.
Why Use Multiple Ad Sets with Different Audiences
There are a few key reasons why you may want to use multiple ad sets with different target audiences in one Facebook campaign:
Test Different Audiences
Using multiple ad sets allows you to test different target audiences to see which one gets the best results for your campaign goals. For example, you may create three ad sets within a campaign targeting:
- Women ages 30-45
- Men ages 30-45
- Parents with children under 10
You can then analyze the results and determine which audience had the highest click-through rate, conversion rate, or other important metric. This allows you to focus your ad spend on the best-performing audience going forward.
Reach Broader Audience
Using multiple ad sets also allows you to reach a much larger potential audience than with just one ad set. For example, you may have an ad set targeting men and another targeting women to reach all adults. Or you may target different geographic locations across ad sets. This allows your campaign to get in front of more of your potential customers.
Test Different Messaging
Along with testing audiences, using multiple ad sets allows you to test different creative and messaging. You can create one ad for Men and another for Women to test which messaging resonates best with each audience. Or target Parents and Non-Parents to test parenting-focused messaging. This allows you to optimize your ads for each specific audience.
How to Target the Same Audience Across Multiple Ad Sets
When setting up your ad sets, there are two approaches to target the same audience:
Create Identical Targeting
For each ad set, manually configure the detailed targeting to be identical across each one. For example, for a campaign with a Men and Women ad set, configure both to target:
- Ages 30-45
- Interests: Cooking, Travel, Fitness
- Behaviors: Recently bought home appliances
The detailed targeting would be identical other than the gender selection. This takes more work upfront when setting up the campaign but gives you full control.
Use Saved Audiences
A simpler approach is to create saved audiences that represent your targets. For example create an audience such as “Affluent Foodies” with your ideal targeting configured.
Then for each ad set, select that same saved audience rather than re-configuring the targeting. This makes it faster to set up campaigns using consistent audiences across ad sets.
Best Practices
Here are some best practices when using the same audience across multiple ad sets:
- Keep the overall campaign objective consistent – Campaigns work best when optimized for one goal such as Conversions or Traffic.
- Test one variable at a time – When testing different ad sets, focus on testing just one difference such as gender or age. Don’t change too many variables at once.
- Use similar creative style – Keep the ad creative visually consistent even if testing slightly different messaging.
- Analyze results – Use the Facebook Ads Manager reporting to analyze the performance of each ad set and determine the best targeting approaches.
- Adjust budgets based on performance – Shift more budget to the better performing ad sets over time.
Potential Issues
There are a couple potential issues to be aware of:
Audience Overlap
If you are targeting broad audiences, there may be significant overlap across ad sets. For example, an ad set targeting Men and one targeting Parents may overlap for Men who are Parents. This can make the results less distinct. Using more specific, non-overlapping audiences can prevent this issue.
Increased Competition
Having multiple ad sets with the same audience can increase competition. For example, if you have 5 ad sets all competing for the same Affluent Foodie audience, the ads may cannibalize each other. Keep this in mind and adjust bids and budgets across ad sets appropriately.
Detailed Targeting Options
Here are some of the main ways you can target the same audience across multiple ad sets:
Demographics
Target specific:
- Age Ranges: Ex. 25-34
- Gender: Male or Female
- Locations: City, Region, Country
- Languages
- Education Levels
- Relationship Status: Single, Engaged, Married
Interests
Target people interested in:
- Hobbies: Cooking, Travel, Sports
- Entertainment: Music, Movies, Books
- Business and finance categories
- Food and drink categories
- Fitness categories
Behaviors
Target people who have:
- Purchased from your website
- Searched for keywords
- Attended an event
- Checked into a location
- Completed an action on your website
- Celebrated an anniversary recently
- Started a new job
Detailed Targeting
Choose from hundreds of detailed categories such as:
- Home ownership
- Frequent business travelers
- Away from family
- Anniversary in 30 days
- Email subscriber
- Household income
- Parents with toddlers
Custom Audiences
You can also target the same custom audience across multiple ad sets. Create audiences such as:
- Email list
- CRM database
- Website visitors
- Mobile app users
- Retargeting pixel
- Engaged contacts
Then select that custom audience for each ad set you want to target. This allows you to segment and test messaging for specific custom audiences.
Lookalike Audiences
Facebook Lookalike Audiences allow you to target new people who share common qualities with an existing customer audience. You can target the same Lookalike Audience across multiple ad sets.
For example, you could create a 1% Lookalike from your “Repeat Customers” audience. Then target that same 1% Lookalike in multiple ad sets to test different messages.
Similar Audiences
Facebook also suggests Similar Audiences to your existing target audiences. Select a target audience then choose “Suggest More Options” to see Similar Audiences.
You can target those similar audiences across multiple ad sets to reach more potential customers with common interests and demographics.
Audience Insights
Leverage Facebook’s Audience Insights tool to analyze the demographics, interests, behaviors and more for your target audiences.
See which interests and behaviors you could target to reach more of that same audience. Or find related audiences to reach.
Use these insights to inform new audiences to test across ad sets.
Testing and Optimization
When testing the same audience across multiple ad sets, follow these tips:
- Set a testing duration – Run the test for at least 1-2 weeks before evaluating performance.
- Use a consistent bidding strategy – Use either automatic bidding or the same manual bids for each ad set.
- Allocate budget evenly – Give each ad set an equal budget to start with.
- Avoid overlapping audiences – Target clear segments to get distinct results by gender, age, interests etc.
- Evaluate both brand and direct response metrics – Look at awareness lifts, site traffic changes, conversion rates etc.
- Make changes gradually – Shift a higher % of budget to the better performing ad set vs. drastic changes.
Continually test new variations of audiences, creatives and landing pages. Iterate to improve campaign performance over time.
Advantages of Using Multiple Ad Sets
Key advantages of using multiple ad sets with the same audience include:
- Test different creative variations
- Experiment with different offers or landing pages
- Target more granular sub-segments of an audience
- Reach more of a broader audience
- Isolate the impact of changing one variable
- Reduce frequency capping limitations
- Control ad scheduling and placements
- Separate reporting and budgeting
Having separate ad sets gives you more flexibility and optimization capabilities vs. just using one ad set.
Use Cases
Here are some examples of targeting the same audience across multiple ad sets:
Ecommerce Site – Men vs. Women
Ad Set 1: Target Men with ads featuring masculine products
Ad Set 2: Target Women with ads featuring feminine products
Fashion Brand – Age Brackets
Ad Set 1: Target 18-24 year olds with youthful styles
Ad Set 2: Target 25-34 year olds with trendy professional styles
Software Company – Customer Segments
Ad Set 1: Target IT department contacts
Ad Set 2: Target C-level executive contacts
Nonprofit – Donors
Ad Set 1: Target monthly donors with stewardship message
Ad Set 2: Target one-time donors to become repeat donors
Conclusion
Targeting the same audience across multiple ad sets can benefit Facebook ad performance in many situations. You can reach more potential customers, test what resonates best, and optimize towards the most effective targeting and creative. Configure detailed targeting carefully, analyze the results, and iterate. With this approach, the same campaign budget can go further and be more effective.