Right on target: target audience for advertising in social networks

It doesn't matter what you sell - titanium wheels for sports cars or ordinary floats, expensive training or natural products - your business has a target audience, the target audience. That is, those people who are most loyal to your offers, who are interested in your products - just offer.

In most cases, when choosing a target audience, marketers are limited to the banal “gender, age, place of residence” and make a total mistake. Even if we add the level of income and place of work to the portrait of the target audience, little will change. In order for your product or service to be really in demand, it must be offered to the right people. And for this, you should “dig deeper” and study those interests of your target audience that are not visible on the surface.

Features of setting up audiences

Both VKontakte and Facebook offer a lot of opportunities for segmenting the target audience when setting up ad impressions. Thanks to them, you can make the most accurate selection and reduce the price per impression. Let's look at examples.

Example #1. Wheel disks. It seems logical to indicate gender, age and area of interest. We will get the average man aged 20-45 who is interested in a car. And our advertising will be shown to all subscribers of sports car publics, who do not even think about buying anything, but appreciate the beauty of expensive cars from a distance, from a photo. Therefore, add "goods and services" to the category of interests - this way you will reduce the group of potentially interested people to those who are already shopping on social networks. And be sure to set additional criteria - if a person is not only interested in cars, but also drives, then most likely he will be in one of the "driving" groups in your region. So you will get the most narrow target audience and will not waste your advertising budget.

Example #2. Infobusiness. Selling expensive training courses on advertising and marketing. As a rule, the desire to learn and improve in the profession arises in successful office workers at the age of 25-35, regardless of gender. They see education as a profitable investment. Since the courses are expensive, you need to choose people with an appropriate income - for example, those who are actively interested in expensive gadgets and buy them. It would seem that everything is simple. But still, this is still too wide a target audience for your proposals. Add audience positions and their professional interests. Have your courses advertised to entrepreneurs or SEO professionals, as well as marketers with small business and advertising interests. Everything is clear and understandable. A narrow audience will cost you less and bring more clicks. Just do not forget that advertising should not be static - no one has canceled split testing.

Example #3. Flower delivery. Let's say your company is engaged in the international delivery of flowers and arrangements throughout the CIS. It is logical that the customers will be young men who are in a relationship. But not every one of them wants to order delivery, because a bouquet can be presented to a loved one in person. But if you add “relationships at a distance” to the settings, then the portrait of the target audience will take on a specific shape, and your advertising will become more accurate. It is also worth adding indicators of economic activity in social networks, that is, to indicate that your target audience is solvent.

And remember that all your settings regarding the interests and behavior of the target audience are just hypotheses. Before launching full-scale campaigns, they need to be tested on small budgets.