How to Use Facebook Audience Insights for More Effective Targeting
Even with a changing user base, Facebook still holds its ground as the third most visited website globally and remains the reigning champ of social media platforms.
With such a massive audience, Facebook's analytics tools are designed to help you avoid wasting your ad budget and ensure your messages hit the mark. They reveal the segments of your audience that are most engaged, so you can optimise your campaigns through strategic audience testing.
Read on to get the lowdown on how to use Facebook’s audience insights tool, so your brand can make the most out of Meta’s biggest platform.
Why is understanding your Facebook audience so important?
Understanding your target audience isn’t just about saving money. It shapes your entire social media presence and helps you create content that packs a punch, leading to more engagement and a better return on your investment (ROI).
Want to know how your audience interacts with Facebook? Start by digging into the latest demographic data. Find out who's using Facebook, how often, what they're using it for, and if they fit within your target audience.
As of July 2024, 53.8% of users are female, and 24.2% are aged 25-34, with most under 44. That said, the platform is still a hit with older folks. A recent Sprout Social Pulse Survey found that Facebook is the most popular network for Gen X and Baby Boomers.
Facebook audience insights give you crucial data on your current audience, so you can laser-focus on your ideal customers. Armed with this information, you can make informed, customer-centric decisions that result in campaigns, ads and creator partnerships that truly resonate.
Ready to put these insights into action and connect with your audience on a deeper level? Download our free worksheet—a step-by-step guide to refining your strategy.
How to access Facebook audience insights
There are two paths to uncover audience insights from your business profile on Facebook.
First, you can see organic audience data like:
People who like your Page, broken down by gender and location
Total number of Followers
Reach and engagement metrics
To delve into your business profile data, head to the ‘Insights’ tab in Meta Business Suite for a bird's-eye view of how you're doing across your accounts, then click on ‘Audience.’
Here, you'll find information about your Facebook and Instagram followers, including demographics and the top cities and countries they're in.
You can navigate the audience tab in two ways:
Current audience: These are people already connected to your business, like your Facebook Page or Instagram profile followers, or those who've engaged with your content or ads.
Potential audience: This group hasn’t connected with your business yet, but they might be interested in what you offer. These insights help you identify and target new customer segments based on similarities with your current audience or specific criteria you define.
Second, if you're running an ad campaign, you get access to all the organic data plus more in-depth audience details, such as:
Age
Content preferences (top posts and videos)
Device usage
Head to Meta Ads Manager and find this information under the Ads Reporting and Audience tabs in the main navigation menu.
You can also see how your Facebook ad campaign performed with your different audience types, which we'll cover next.
What are the different types of Facebook audiences?
When you run a Facebook ad campaign, you have four audience targeting options to ensure you're reaching the right people. Each audience type offers a unique way to connect with potential customers. Knowing how to use them can dramatically improve your campaign results.
New audiences
New audiences is the default setting, meaning these are folks who haven't interacted with your brand before. You can refine this audience by choosing categories like:
Location (e.g. city, county)
Demographics (e.g. education, financial and life events)
Interests (e.g. family and relationships, fitness and leisure)
Behaviours (e.g. mobile device user)
Custom audiences
Custom audiences let you connect with people who've already shown interest in your business. This is based on information you've collected about your customers (like email, phone number, and address) and given to Meta. They might have engaged with your content, visited your website, used your app, made a recent purchase, or be on your customer list.
Lookalike audiences
Lookalike audiences are people who share interests with your custom audiences but haven't interacted with your business yet. Create a Lookalike Audience and select a source to automatically generate a new audience segment that mirrors your best customers.
When you create your lookalike audience, you can use a percentage range to choose how closely you want the new audience to match your source audience.
These audiences save you time. Instead of starting from scratch, you can replicate the success of your top-performing content and campaigns.
Saved audiences
Whenever you create a new custom audience, save it for later, but remember to reselect your target location each time.
How to use Facebook audience insights
Facebook generates the highest ROI of any social network, so it's vital to customise and save your best-performing audiences to consistently get the most out of your ad spend. To get started with the Facebook audience insights tool, follow these steps.
Upload a custom audience source
Select ‘Create a Custom Audience’ from the Audiences tab of your Ads Manager. Then, choose a custom audience source, including your own data from your website, app activity, a CRM customer list, and more.
You can also use Meta sources, like video engagement, your Instagram followers, lead forms, event participants, and Shopping users.
Customise your audience with filters
After selecting your source, add more rules to include or exclude people to further refine your audience.
You have multiple criteria to choose from. The Facebook audience meter will tell you if your audience is too specific or too broad. Keep tweaking until your reach is just right (ideally between 2-10 million people). You can also further customise your audience by age, location, language, and gender.
Aim to finalise your audience at least a week before launching a campaign. It can take Meta up to three days to match your audience to profiles on their platforms.
Zero in on interest-based audiences
If you have a sizeable audience (at least 2 million or more), use additional interest-based targeting to pinpoint a specific audience using the same categories mentioned earlier. Then, add the name and description of your audience list and how long you'll keep it. Now you're ready to hit ‘Create New List’.
Review your audience metrics
Once your ad campaign is live, check how your audience list is performing. Are you hitting your campaign goals? If not, make the necessary adjustments to your list. Experiment with narrowing or broadening your audience and redefining your inclusions and exclusions.
Save and replicate your best-performing audiences
If your audience performs well, save it for future use. To reach and engage new people with similar demographics and behaviour patterns, create a lookalike audience.
To do this, tap ‘Create a Lookalike Audience’ from the Audiences tab. You'll be asked to select an existing audience or data source, choose the audience location and size, and decide how similar you want your audience to be to the original (1% lookalike means the audience is as close a match to the original as possible). Once you've created this audience, you can rerun your ad campaign or continue tailoring the list.
Wrapping Up
By using Facebook audience insights strategically, you can ensure that your social media efforts are targeted, and effective, and deliver the best possible ROI for your business. Happy targeting!
Sources and related content