Do you think a sponsored story about the health benefits of Whirlpool appliances for families with kids, citing healthcare professionals, would resonate with that audience? Yes, it would.

#3: Build Your Audience

Now that you understand the basic concepts of audience targeting and the tools, it’s time to take a look at some real-world examples.

These examples show how you can target customers using techniques for a variety of industries. Remember that these are just examples. The goal is to create your own interpretations to fit your business.

Realtor

Suppose you’re a realtor and you want to target homebuyers. There isn’t a segment on Facebook for active homebuyers, so how do you do this? Think about your customers and what motivates them to buy a house. Consider focusing on people who are outgrowing their apartment because they‘re expectant parents.

Your audience would be Expectant Parents and New Parents, Apartment Renters, Married or Engaged. This audience in Dallas, Texas is comprised of about 3,500 to 4,000 active monthly Facebook users.

As a realtor, you’ll also want to look at Recently Moved, Away From Family or Hometown and New Job segments as well. These options allow you to target people who are starting a new job and moving to the area.

Auto Shop

Facebook has some powerful automotive segments, most of which are provided by third-party data partners. Say you’re a small automotive shop for European cars and want to generate new business. Build an audience of affluent older men with European sports cars.

This segment in Dallas, Texas is about 7,100 people, and targeting this group is extremely affordable. At a spend of $5/day, you can reach 370 to 990 of these people.

If you own a dealership, there are even more options available, as you can target consumers Near Market or In Market actively shopping for a new vehicle.

You can even get as specific as the make of vehicle. If you have services relevant to new car owners like auto insurance, you can also select New Vehicle Owners.

Home Services

For this example, suppose you have an HVAC, plumbing or home maintenance company and want to attract more business. You can easily create a segment of Single Family Homeowners with home values from $200,000 to over $1 million, and have lived in their residences for over six years. This is the perfect time to hit these folks up for upgrades or repairs.

The average sale for a business like yours will likely be fairly large. Generating leads for a business on Facebook is particularly tricky. Let’s face it, when people’s air conditioners break down, they’re more likely to Google “ac repair” in their area rather than go to Facebook. Because of these challenges, it’s important that you have a compelling offer or call to action.

Travel Agent

Travel is a great vertical for social media, as research has shown that social plays a major role in influencing a person’s travel choices. Like the auto vertical, you have a great deal of control over targeting people in the various stages of their travel lifecycle.

In this scenario, you want to connect a life event to an audience segment with a specific offer to travel. Create an audience of people who have a relationship status of Engaged, are Frequent Personal Travelers International and who also have an interest in Beaches to market a romantic beach honeymoon.

That’s an easy travel scenario, but imagine the options you have with these type of controls. If you combine age, interests and household information, you’ll have a powerful formula for targeting all types of travel and entertainment destinations.

If you need to market a local attraction, museum or event, you can easily tie in Currently Traveling in your area combined with relevant interests.

B2B

Rounding out these scenarios is the elusive audience of small business owners. This segment purchases all types of B2B services and products.

There are a few areas you can use to segment small businesses. Choose Job Title and Owner as the value, or search for Office Type as Small Business or Home Office, and you’ll get a decent number of small businesses to target.

 Use behavior targeting to add 10–49 Employees and Technology Early Adopters. This will build an excellent audience of small business owners with 10 to 49 employees who are early adopters of new technology.