The Key to Facebook Advertising is Understanding Your Customers

In the United States, 68% of adults use Facebook, which is more than 168 million people. These statistics indicate that, in all likelihood, enough of your customers and potential customers are on Facebook to make advertising on the platform worthwhile.

But small businesses can waste a lot of marketing money if they aren’t careful.

Unlike large consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) brands, small businesses can’t spend millions of dollars to reach hundreds of millions of people. You aren’t selling cleaning supplies or snack foods, and your customer base is considered niche. Hidden in those millions of Facebook users are the thousands of users who could become your customers.

Facebook Advertising Audiences help small businesses reach users who could become customers.

When a small business advertises on Facebook, they specify various targeting factors Facebook will use, such as:

Hobbies
Job Titles
Interests
Geography
Life Stages, such as an upcoming birthday or recent move
Level of Education

The more a small business understands about their customers, the better your audience targeting can be. By narrowing your criteria and excluding certain factors, you can build the perfect audience to receive your messaging. When done right, this audience will welcome your ads and be highly interested. Imagine listening to a radio station and enjoying all the ads– it never happens! But we can come much closer on Facebook.

It’s great if you already know your customers. If you don’t…

I once served a client who had a fundamental misunderstanding about what hobbies his customers enjoyed, and he wasted a lot of advertising budget reaching individuals who would never buy from him. After we completed research with current customers, I revamped his Facebook Audiences to accurately reflect the interests of real potential customers, and our results improved immediately.

From a small business marketing perspective, Facebook offers an amazing advertising opportunity. Just make sure to know your customers and carefully craft your advertising audiences.