The Complete Guide to Facebook Ad Targeting

Facebook Advertising Targeting Options
12 months ago the Facebook advertising platform was horrible… well… actually more like a joke. In comparison with platforms like Adwords, it lacked common features like conversion tracking and remarketing pixels. I had almost given up hope on Facebook… until they won me back.

Over the past few months, the Facebook Advertising team has slowly implemented the foundational changes needed for a powerhouse advertising system. Its the first time in almost 10 years that I’ve seen anything that comes remotely close to Adwords, in fact, in some instances, I think Facebook now has the advantage over Google.

One of the features that Facebook has over additional platforms like Adwords, is its ability to provide advanced user targeting for its ads. I’m often amazed at how most individuals and advertisers are not aware of the targeting options available to them through Facebook. Here is a quick overview of the targeting options currently available to you when advertising on Facebook. Enjoy.

  1. Remarketing – In advertising terms, Remarketing allows you to display ads to individuals that have visited your site or clicked on your ads gaining valuable branding with a targeted audience. This is done through a placement of remarketing pixel on the website, landing page or app. From a users perspective, they click your ad because they are interested and then as they browse the internet, see your ads all over the place, thus assuming that your company is everywhere.
  2. Custom Audiences – Facebook allows advertisers to create custom audiences. By uploading a list of emails, say of leads, Facebook will encrypt the emails and then run them against their database. Any email addresses that line up with profiles will be logged and Facebook will generate a similar audience based off all their data. This is a great way to allow big data to do the heavy lifting for you and find other individuals that match your target audience.
  3. User Targeting – User targeting is where Facebook has really improved over the past few months. They are continually allowing advertisers to fine tune their audience targeting and display their ads to exactly as needed. Here is the complete list of options available for User Targeting on Facebook.

Market Segments

  • Ethnic Affinity (Hispanic)
  • Generation (Boomers)
  • Household Composition
  • Moms
  • Parents
  • Politics
  • Life Events

User Targeting

  • Interests / Likes
  • Location (Country, State, City)
  • Gender
  • Language
  • Demographics

Behaviors

  • Automotive
  • Charitable Donations
  • Digital Activities
  • Financial
  • Mobile Device User
  • Purchase Behavior

Residential Profiles

  • Likely to Move
  • Recent Homebuyer
  • Recent Mortgage Borrower
  • Recently Moved
  • Travel

Education

  • Education Level
  • Field of Study
  • Schools
  • Undergrad Years

Work

  • Employers
  • Job Titles
  • Industries
  • Office Type

Home

  • Home Type
  • Home Ownership
  • Home Value

Financial

  • Income
  • Net Worth

Relationship

  • Interested In
  • Relationship Status

 

 

 

YouTubeLogo

How to Set Up YouTube Remarketing Video Ads

When it comes to digital marketing, remarketing campaigns will usually trump other campaigns in terms of ROI. For those that aren’t aware, remarketing is the process of adding a piece of script to certain pages of your site or landing pages. Once a visitor lands on this page, a cookie is dropped onto their computer or mobile device. As the visitor continues to search around the Internet, ad networks like Adwords will check for any remarketing scripts prior to displaying an ad. If a script is present on the visitors machine, they will see an advertisement of the page they just visited.

YouTube’s ad system is tightly integrated with Adwords, which means you can leverage your Google remarketing campaigns and link them with YouTube. The end result is that visitors to your website will now begin to see your videos and commercials play before they watch any videos on YouTube. This gives your customers the impression that you are everywhere on the Internet while paying a small fraction of the price of a full ad campaign on YouTube.

Here is how to set that up in a few easy steps.

1. Generate Google Remarketing Tag

(Read Full Remarketing Instructions at Google)

  • Log into Adwords.
  • Click on Shared Library (left hand column)
  • Select Audiences, then go to the Remarketing Tag button at the top.
  • Click the View tag details button then click Setup.
  • Click View remarketing tag and instructions to get the remarketing code.

Google Remarketing Tag

 

2. Place Google Remarketing Script on your Website or Landing Pages.

  • Add the remarketing tag code to all your website pages, before the closing </body> tag.
  • If you’re using WordPress, this can usually be added by going to the Editor tab, then selecting the Footer.php file and pasting it right before the </body> tag, then click Update File.

How to add google remarketing tag to wordpress

 

3. Create a Remarketing List

  • While in Adwords, click Audiences, then + Remarketing Lists
  • Enter the name of this list. Something like “All Visitors – 30 Days“
  • Select Visitors of a Page
  • Enter your homepage URL
  • Set your membership duration to 30 Days (30 days is my suggested time but you can enter a max time is 540 days if you want)
  • Hit Save

google remarketing list setup

 

4. Set Up Video Marketing Campaign in Adwords

  • In Adwords, Select All Video Campaigns on the bottom of the left side column
  • Select + Campaign
  • Enter Campaign Name
  • Set your Daily Budget. This is the maximum Google will charge you per day, so your daily charge will usually be less than this amount.
  • For delivery method, my preference is standard. Standard will display ads over time, accelerated will show as quickly as possible.
  • Select Location you want your video to play in. My recommendation is to focus it around the area where you do business.
  • Ad – Enter in the URL for the video you want to remarketing towards the visitors of your website.
  • You can edit Schedule, Ad Delivery and Device Targeting for Tablets and Phones. What you select here will depend on your business. You can always edit these later, so my recommendation is to revisit this after the campaign has run for a few days.

 

5. Select Bidding and Audience

  • Select Name
  • Enter Max Cost Per View. This is how much you’re willing to pay per video view that a persons views for more than 15 seconds. If the viewer presses the skip button while your ad is playing, you will not be charged.
  • Under Target People Watching Content, click Remarketing Lists and select your List
  • Select Save Targeting Group

google adwords select audience

google adwords remarketing audience

6. Build an Ad

  • Select + Video Ad
  • Ad Formats and Networks. My recommendation is to leave on Automatic. This will run your ads on YouTube, Google Display Network and YouTube Search. You can manually select the ones you want to by clicking Let me Choose.
  • Enter Headline, Description & Description 2. This is what appears on under or besides the video while its playing.
  • Select the thumbnail you want for the ad.
  • Enter Display URL (this is what the viewer sees). My recommendation is to just use your homepage URL.
  • Enter Destination URL (this is where the visitor actually goes. This can be a long URL that includes tracking variables.
  • Give your ad a Name
  • Under Advanced Ad Attributes, you can upload a 300×250 or 300×60 banner ad that will display in the sidebar next to your video while its playing. Its not required but I’d recommend doing this to gain double the exposure while your ad is playing.
  • Ensure your targeting is set for the remarketing list you created.
  • Click Save

create a new youtube ad

 

7. Set a Call to Action

The final step is one that many people are not aware of. It ads a call to action overlay to any specific videos.

  • Click the Videos tab when viewing your Campaign.
  • Next to your video, select Add Call-to-Action-Overlay
  • Enter Headline
  • Enter Description 1 & 2
  • Enter Display URL
  • Enter Destination URL
  • Upload 74×74 image. The ad appears on a black background, so I added a blackbackground to my image.
  • Click Save

google adwords youtube video remarketing call to action

google youtube remarketing calling to action

 

Well done, you’re finished and should be all set. Visitors to your website will now be amazed at how they see your commercial or video when they are watching YouTube or an embedded YouTube video on another site. Just make sure to keep tabs on your spend and watch the analytics for how many people are clicking away from your video before it finished. Just make sure to optimize your budget and spend more money on the videos that people are watching longer.