Subject: Targeting by Interest

Today we?re going to take a look at some ways to target people on Facebook by interest. If you?re using custom audiences to market to friends and fans, you don?t have to worry about this, but for strangers, targeting by interest is really the only way to reach them.

If you?ve never used Facebook for ads before, you may be a little confused about the process. At first, the interface can take a little time to acclimate yourself to. But really, it?s fairly simple. 

You may have tried paid advertising in the past that relied on keywords to target users. Facebook doesn?t allow you to target by keywords, because there?s no way to accurately gauge someone?s interest in specific keywords. They?re not searching for information the way they do on search engines.

Instead, they rely on interests.

If you have a Facebook profile, you?ve probably entered some information about yourself at some point. Maybe you entered where you work, or where you went to school. You have probably ?liked? a few pages. Those are all considered interests.

Let?s say you ?like? the official Facebook page for the NFL. Facebook then knows you?re interested in American football. Or let?s say you add ?golf? to your list of hobbies and interests in your profile. This is how Facebook knows to target you with ads related to golf.

What you must first do is find interests that relate to your topic. The easiest way to do this is just using the dropdown box in the ads manager. Enter a basic search term such as ?golf?. This should show you a pretty large list of topics related to golf that you can target as interests, such as ?golf courses?, ?golf balls?, ?golf clubs?, ?TaylorMade Golf? and other such similar interests.

The trouble is that this list is by no means exhaustive. You?ll be targeting exactly the same interests as everyone else in the golf niche, because most people will use these by default and won?t really go a lot deeper into targeting. This means more competition, which translates into fewer clicks to your ads and higher prices for clicks.

Facebook doesn?t make it easy to find all the interests you can target. Their interface lists only the most basic, and targeting someone because they like ?golf balls? doesn?t necessarily mean they?re interested in golf other than a passing interest. You want to find people who are passionate about golf, right?

Fortunately, there are some more advanced ways to target by interest on Facebook. In our next lesson, we?re going to take a look at some ways you can find deeper interests to target, and how to make the most out of those interests.

Keep an eye out for the next lesson, because you?re going to learn how to find those interests most people aren?t targeting!






