Facebook ads have become one of the most popular and effective ways for businesses to reach new customers and grow their sales. With over 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook offers an enormous potential audience. However, finding the right potential clients to target with Facebook ads can be challenging.
Define Your Target Audience
The first key step is to clearly define your target audience. Who exactly are your ideal potential clients? Consider demographics like age, gender, location, income level, interests, behaviors, and more. The more specific you can be, the better.
For example, if you run an online clothing store for young urban women, your target audience could be defined as:
- Women
- Aged 18-35
- Living in major cities in the US
- Household income $50k+
- Interested in fashion, beauty, fitness, travel
Defining your target audience in this much detail allows you to be highly selective about who you reach with your Facebook ads.
Leverage Facebook Audience Insights
Once you’ve defined your target audience, you can use Facebook Audience Insights to get detailed data on the size of that potential audience on Facebook. Audience Insights gives you stats on demographics, interests, behaviors, and more for any audience segment.
For example, you could see that there are 28 million women aged 18-35 in urban areas in the US who are interested in fashion and beauty. This helps you gauge the potential reach for your ads and optimize targeting.
Use Interests, Behaviors, and More for Precise Targeting
When setting up your Facebook ads, you can leverage the detailed audience data in Insights for precision targeting. Interests, behaviors, demographics, and more can all be used to narrowly target your ads to potential clients.
For example, you could target women 18-35 interested in fashion who have recently searched for or purchased clothing online. This narrows your reach to highly qualified potential leads.
Look for Relevant Facebook Groups and Pages
Facebook groups and pages related to your industry or interests provide another great way to find potential clients. Identify the most popular and relevant groups and pages that your target audience would likely follow.
For example, a clothing brand could target groups like “Fashion Lovers”, “Women’s Fashion and Beauty”, and fan pages for brands like Zara and H&M. You can then advertise directly to the followers of these groups/pages.
Engage With Group Admins for Partnerships
You can also reach out to the admins of relevant groups and pages and propose partnerships. Many will allow you to share an ad or special offer with their followers for a small fee. This gets your brand and ads directly in front of highly qualified potential clients.
Look for Audience Overlap Using Facebook Ads Manager
Facebook Ads Manager provides a detailed audience overlap tool that shows you audience segments that align closely with your target audience. This reveals additional interest/behavior segments to target your ads toward.
For example, the audience for an online clothing brand has significant overlap with audiences defined as:
- Interest in online shopping
- Fashion magazines subscribers
- Department store shoppers
- Interest in premium brands
Targeting these additional segments in your Facebook ads allows you to show your ads to more of your potential target audience.
Use Facebook’s Detailed Targeting Options
Facebook provides a wide range of detailed targeting filters to zero in on your potential clients. Here are some of the top options to consider:
Location Targeting
Target ads by country, state/province, city, zip code radius and more. For local businesses, location is often the most important targeting criteria.
Age and Gender
Target specific age ranges and/or genders. Great for targeting products/services that appeal primarily to certain demographics.
Language Targeting
You can target ads to people who speak a specific language. Important for any localized offerings.
Interest Targeting
Target based on Facebook user interests – can be broad interests like “fashion” or very narrow like “mens fashion” or “womens shoes”. Maximize relevance.
Behavior Targeting
Target people based on recent behaviors and actions like searches, page likes, purchases and more. Identify hot leads.
Run Engagement Ads to Reach More Potential Clients
One smart approach for finding more potential clients is to run Facebook engagement ads. These let you target people who have already engaged with your Facebook page or ads.
For example, you could create an audience of “People who have watched your video” or “People who clicked your ad” in the last 30 days. Then remarket specifically to these people who have already shown interest.
Use Custom Audiences
You can also create Custom Audiences in Facebook to target your website visitors, email subscribers, past customers and more. This allows you to laser target your ads.
Analyze Your Ad Results
Constantly analyze your Facebook ad performance and audience data to optimize your targeting over time. Look for the highest converting audience segments and interest/behaviors and focus your spending there.
You may find people who engage with your page or click your ads convert better from certain cities or age ranges. Use these insights to better target potential clients.
Expand Your Targeting Gradually
Start with a very narrow initial target audience, and monitor your ad results closely. If you are getting strong results, you can gradually expand your targeting to reach more potential clients. But maintain a focus on highly qualified segments.
For example, you may broaden your geographic targets from just one city to statewide. Or increase your age range in small increments like 28-40 -> 25-40 -> 25-45.
Consider Messenger Ads
Messenger ads allow you to reach your potential clients directly in Facebook Messenger. You can send them targeted messages and offers. The ads look like messages from a friend.
These ads tend to see higher engagement as they stand out in Messenger. You can use the same detailed targeting tools to reach your ideal audience.
Promote Brand Awareness With Display Ads
Facebook display ads that promote brand awareness and interest can also be effective at reaching potential new clients. Target these broadly to increase visibility.
For example, a restaurant could run beautiful food photos or appealing lifestyle shots targeting a local city. This builds familiarity and interest before hitting them with a direct ad.
Use Lookalike Audiences
One advanced tactic is using Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences to find new potential clients with similar attributes to your existing customers. You provide a Custom Audience and Facebook identifies new people who resemble them.
For example, if your clothing brand has found wedding planners to be a great customer base, you could have Facebook find other people similar to your current wedding planner customers to target.
Consider Facebook Lead Ads
Facebook Lead Ads make it easy to collect leads directly from Facebook ads. A sign up form pops up allowing users to submit contact details right on Facebook.
You can then follow up with via email or phone with people who have already expressed interest and convert them into clients.
Conclusion
In summary, here are some top tips for finding potential clients to target with Facebook ads:
- Define your target audience and leverage Facebook Audience Insights data
- Target relevant Facebook groups, pages and their followers
- Use advanced Facebook targeting options like interests, behaviors and detailed demographics
- Remarket to people who have engaged with your brand already
- Analyze results and double down on what works
- Start narrow and expand your targeting gradually
- Promote your brand with display ads to drive awareness
- Use Lookalike Audiences and Lead Ads to attract new potential clients
Mastering your Facebook targeting is crucial to connecting with qualified leads and converting them into paying customers. Test different audiences and continuously optimize who you reach with your ads.
With highly targeted, engaging ads and a robust target audience strategy, Facebook’s massive reach provides an amazing opportunity to find new potential clients and grow your business.