Using Facebook's Secret AND/OR Targeting To Ruthlessly Hunt Your Target Demo (2)
Using Facebook's Secret AND/OR Targeting To Ruthlessly Hunt Your Target Demo
Ever wonder why when you add more than 1 interest to your FB audience targeting, your potential reach usually INCREASES?
"But Facebook! Logic dictates that if I ADD the 'Gun Rights' interest to my core audience of 'Liberal Hippies' --
my potential reach would have to DECREASE down to just a few very very confused individuals... right?"
Nope. Your reach just expanded to both potential interests instead.
Maybe you could make the right half of your ad image RED, and the left half BLUE. Get it? 
(this joke is targeted at US audiences)
This happens because FB uses OR statements by default in their ad manager and power editor.
But did you know that Facebook secretly has AND statements built into their advertising API?
Yep, and it's available for you to use.... Sort of...
But only if you're not using FB to create your ads.
WTF? Silly Facebook.
You'll have to sign up for one of Facebook's advertising / developer partners to access this feature.
And if you really want it -- be sure to ask them if their platform utilizes the feature, because many of them don't!
I believe Qwaya has a free trial -- but I have to warn you, I barfed a little in my mouth each time I logged into their platform to manage my tests.
Once you get access to the feature, here are some tips for using it to LASER target an audience. ("Did you say LAZERS? OMFG I LOVE LAZERS!")
The first step to being effective with this feature is to understand why you're using it in the first place!
One of the cons to using a single interest OR using 'OR' targeting, which really is just targeting multiple single interests (huh?),
is that your ad will be shown to a metric-shit-ton of users who simply aren't that interested in any of your selected interest(s), and a few that actually are.
Be a good example for the kids
If you want a quick-n-easy illustration of this [not-really-a-]phenomenon, open up your personal FB page and look at your own "Likes".
I'll bet you all the funds in my e-gold account that you have at least one or more 'likes' that you don't really like THAT much...
I mean come on, "running with scissors" isn't THAT interesting to you. Right?
We all like stuff that isn't terribly interesting to us in addition to the stuff that is.
And advertisers get to pay for that fact with wasted time and extra dollars spent.
A charming story...
Johnny likes Sally, and Sally likes cats - so Sally decides to 'like' "Cat Mom's Guide To Giving Stray Cats A Good Home" - and Johnny sees this on his news feed...
(or more likely, while stalking Sally like he does each morning.... afternoon.... and night).
So the logical next step for Johnny?
He decides to also 'like' this ridiculously fictional guide that doesn't exist (thankfully!)... even though he could really give a shit less about cats..
And because the hyper targeted ad you're so proud of is targeted at this guide, your ad is now showing to Johnny.
If that sad parallel of reality is too real for you, consider this instead -->
People's interests ebb and flow over time, and 'liking' something doesn't necessarily mean they're super-interested in it NOW...
while it matters to YOU, the advertiser who's throwing your wallet at Facebook screaming "SHOW ME THE CAT LADIES!"
Because one of my 'likes' is "beating dead Horses"...
Let's get back to our riveting [porn] story to drive this tip home.
If Sally REALLY loves cats -- she's probably ALSO 'likes' Cat Mom's other guides -- or competitor's guides -- or popular cat shelters / organizations -- or any other number of cat interests.
Similarly, I'm sure you have multiple like-minded books on your book list in the topical areas you enjoy the most, and are most passionate about..
I love personal development, so I read Tim Ferriss AND Brian Tracy AND Gary Keller.
I don't love trashy romance... but there is that one romance novel I read and "liked" that one time for "research" purposes
So a targeting statement to reach Sally and her passionate cat friends on Facebook might look something like this:
Audience = Females 18-35 who like "Cat Mom's Guide #1" AND "Cat Mom's Guide #2" OR "Cat Shelter #1" OR "Some Association for Cat Moms"
This would take the core audience, and niche it down to just those fanatical few people who definitely have a passionate interest in cats.
Facebook doesn't have a "love" button -- but lovers can be found by using AND to combine similar interests.
Of course, in the world of AM you typically want an audience that's large enough to get statistical significance on your efforts, and then hopefully have room to scale winners to decent profits.
So this method is great for splicing HUGE interest groups into smaller manageable chunks, or advertising a niche high LTV product to a fanatical few, to get social engagement with the loud/vocal early adopter/hipster crowds (using PPE or video), or building a super segmented / focused email list.
So for most of you STMers, you'll want to create a LOT of ad sets with different combinations to test and then see how removing certain interests effects your ROI.
This is clearly the opposite, but not necessarily better or worse approach to getting a campaign profitable using broad/general interests.
But it IS far superior for QUICKLY testing and getting data from a passionate demo you might have a hunch or proven converter for.
Finding the right interests to target is, of course, a huge part of this as well.
But that's just the tip for another time.
Hope this was helpful for some of you.
**Disclaimer: The example interests mentioned in this post may or may not be fictional**
Didn't know it was available to API devs, the more I use the "Power Editor", the less power it seems to have... e.g. I've had to create my own excel tool to do batch import because PE sucks at doing it manually in a reasonable amount of time... now with excel it takes 2 minutes to create 20 Ads versus maybe 15 doing it in the PE, but still no "AND" operator
I looked at Adespresso but didn't like at all the way they want to "split" things up !
I'll look at Qwaya but I think you're not the only one mentioning it was really not user-friendly.
Cheers,
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