Which Audiences Should I Target on Facebook Ads?

[@DaraDenney]

What are your tried and true audiences to target on Facebook Ads?

[@danihunter2426]

This is one of the best videos on KZbin in regards to Facebook Ads target audience. This video has so many gems, I stopped counting!

[@DaraDenney]

Thank you, Deidra! Means a lot :)

[@DemitheDaredevil]

well you know more than any FB marketing expert I've met, thank you so much for sharing all of this.

[@jakeblumes1]

I agree with you, Dara. Let the algorithm figure it out. We're not smarter than it. Besides, as you said, you might see different ads rise to the top between the prospecting and retargeting groups.

[@kerrb]

Dara. You're a lifesaver!

[@EmeliaMelia]

I was thinking of restarting an idea I had and selling through Instagram (which uses Facebook ads) so this video is very timely and informative! You have a lot of good ideas, that I hadn’t even considered, like publications and news sources. I’m curious to try that one out! Since it would be new, I’m going to look further into other similar brands “lookalike audiences” and see what kind of time, and products they’re drawn to. Thanks for this!

[@DaraDenney]

So glad that you enjoyed! When you get your project off the ground, feel free to let me know and I’d be happy to do a look-over for you (if you want it!)

[@EmeliaMelia]

@@DaraDenney Really? Yeah, thanks! I think I will :)

[@abdullah_shaikh95]

Super super super awesome video Dara. I am 100% going to test those retargeting audience that you have just mentioned hopefully will get some sales too :)

[@LuKeBf]

I've been watching your videos and taking notes! Great content! Thanks Dara :)

[@KshitijShah89]

This was super useful Dara! Thank you for going through the different audiences in such detail. Tons of lessons I'm taking away as we get started with FB Ads in 2022

[@DaraDenney]

You're so welcome!

[@ryanyu5051]

Can't say enough to appreciate your super value videos.

[@DaraDenney]

Thank you, Ryan!

[@deanfima8157]

Wow I watched so many video’s on Facebook Ads, and I want to let you know that you hooked me. Good job thanks!

[@DaraDenney]

Thank you, Dean!

[@afshanmuhammadaltaf7103]

Thank you

[@adamhurlburt6929]

Great video! For the Lookalike targeting, do you advise starting with just 1%, how do you branch out from there? Do you test 1-2% then 2-3% etc? Or do you find it best to do it in chunks (like testing 1-3% LAA?

[@carloxf]

Hi Dara !, in which time frame do you use to calculate the frequency? weekly? For the example for remarketing that you use

[@chhoeungmaoacademy7981]

Great method and useful

[@DaraDenney]

Glad you think so!

[@benberman4656]

Hey Dara. First off your videos are super helpful. I was curious if the go-to strategy is still one custom audience per adset? For example, I have a customer list of 6000 people and then make a 1% lookalike audience is it ok to stack those? And if I get a new audience list do I just ad it to that adset and restart the learning phase or duplicate and turn off the old one? Any insight is much appreciated.

[@rahulanand5023]

I feel like creating a course out of your videos and sell it for $10000, I am sure it will sell because the value in your videos is immense!! Love your content. Way better than paid courses by so called FB ads Gurus!!

[@bhushanshaligram1995]

Hi Dara! Thanks for the great content. Need you help with the below problem. I have a landing page with a lead form on it. What should be my campaign objective for cold audiences and Lookalike audiences? Should it be the same as 'conversion' as it is for retargeting? Thanking you in advance! :)

[@DaraDenney]

You should use Conversions obejctive still. Hope this helps!

[@bhushanshaligram1995]

@@DaraDenney Thanks!

[@jjmellare5964]

Great vid! For testing lookalikes do you recommend using CBO or ABO? Thanks!

[@DaraDenney]

For all my audience testing I use ABO!

[@deepakkumarism]

Hey Dara, Are all these also applicable for App install campaigns?

[@realbrain8979]

Love this video, after watching 4 of yours videos i am now going to restructure my ad account :)

[@paulstranksy]

Hi Dara, thank you so much for all the insights and tips. I'm just starting, and it's a little daunting at first, but thanks to videos like yours, I feel like I can become an expert if I keep testing. One question: I'm not sure if I missed something, but I don't understand how I can build the stack-up audience. You do it only using Insights and Audience Suggestions? For example: I'm looking to target people interested in learning how to be an Affiliate Marketer, so the first stackup I can build is "Public Figures" related to this kind of knowledge, but how can I learn the food or clothe they buy?

[@DaraDenney]

You can use insights, but I would also suggest interviewing your customers.

[@shopirlo6832]

I just wanna say .. thank you from Egypt

[@SniperAce2]

Hi Dara. How to find and research interests other than Facebook Audience Insights and Similarweb?

[@DaraDenney]

That’s about it, pretty much! I focus a lot more on broad audiences these days so the interest targeting is something I don’t always utilize.

[@PeacefulTones2025]

This your video will be very helpful when I begin Facebook Ads. Thanks for sharing.

[@DaraDenney]

Ginika Francisca thank you so much for your comment!! Let me know how it goes 😉

[@ph3l1xx]

So when you are talking about adding audiences from where they receive their news. It looks like you have stacked a bunch of interests in a single asset. Are you adding all news publications you think they may be interested in altogether as one? Wouldn't this create a supermassive audience size? Maybe I am a bit confused. Are you also including another interest to help narrow? ex. News Publications Interests -> (Narrowed Down with) Cats? Also, is there a good source to help figure out who my audience maybe? Is Audience Insights the best thing to use for this?

[@DaraDenney]

Yep, I don’t like doing single interest targeting: I lump all publications into one. (A lot of people will fight me on this!) In my experience in 2020, Facebook works better with bigger audiences. 4-20 million minimum. Even with few businesses I find these audiences to be more successful. I don’t tend to narrow audiences... sometimes I do... but not a huge strategy of mine.

[@pablomosquera7697]

So I have to pile up several interests around what I think my client already consumes and expend money on... Is brilliant when you think it, but now: How do I know from where are my sales coming if I do this? My budget is like $100 daily.

[@krs1738]

hello. Thanks soo much for the info. Quick question you are using multiple interests in one adset correct? Not individual interests in each adset.

[@DaraDenney]

Yeah don't do that. Big waste of time.

[@tonyli1756]

do you seperate mid funnel warm audience and lower funnel hot audience? or just same - both are retargeting

[@DaraDenney]

Now I just do one... a single retargeting campaign.

[@LiLi-il6px]

Thanks! Do you put prospecting with top funnel and mid funnel? Coz for me top funnel is for brand Awareness, and very affinity interest targeting or look alike are mid funnel? And not very relevant interest targeting is top funnel?

[@AwesomeMusicDude]

Thanks!

[@weouthereadventures7708]

hi there, how much do you allocate towards testing of your prospecting budget?

[@DaraDenney]

At least 10%, but sometimes more!

[@naturallyclever3735]

so would you say it is fine to have 3-4 interests in 1 ad ? Thanks

[@DaraDenney]

Hi there, yes having 3-4 or even more interests in a single ad set is perfectly fine!

[@naturallyclever3735]

@@DaraDenney thanks, and also how can i make sure each ad spends the same amount whilst using ABO? Thanks

[@DaraDenney]

@@naturallyclever3735 in that case you need to separate each ad into its own ad set. That’s the only way.

[@naturallyclever3735]

@@DaraDenney Sure, thanks. Do you think i should use CBO when testing?

[@AmerMohdRashid]

Hi Dara, so let's say that I still don't have a website to go with, and I am only advertising for people to reach my Facebook and instagram page, will this be less effective than having a website. I pretty sure I will have another question right after this one :) Many thanks for the gold mine you are making

[@DaraDenney]

Hi A’mer! It depends on what your actual goal or objective is. If you’re trying to get more engagement on Facebook and Instagram, then you’re definitely able to do that without having a website. However, if you’re trying to drive purchases, you’ll definitely need a website. With that said, Facebook is supposed to launch a new feature in the next few months that makes it possible for e-commerce businesses to sell directly on Facebook or Instagram, without a website. Stay tuned for how all that pans out!

[@AmerMohdRashid]

@@DaraDenneythis is great news Because I was struggling on website would be okay for selling, as it turned out, the best way is to have a sophisticated website that has CMS capabilities In this case I might just do it with a simple website to drive traffic for and later on do the facebook and Insatgram eCom... What do you think? Or should I actually invest in having a real operational website nonetheless?

[@DaraDenney]

​@@AmerMohdRashid To be honest, it depends on your products and how much education your customers need to convert. In most cases a Shopify website will do just fine. As for selling directly on Facebook and Instagram... we won't know until we can test out the platform. Products in their version 1 from Facebook tend to not be as successful... but I imagine over time it could be a successful way to make sales.

[@Adeptplayers]

Do you think that anytime i create a new store from scratch that i should test these audience types that you have mentioned in this video when running my first ads to the new store? Even with a new pixel that has no data or anything? I see a lot of videos saying to test single interest ad sets, which i have done and have not had any success really. I have spent around 4k and only tested single interest adsets, never anything that is like what you have mentioned in this video. So im wondering what i should do?

[@DaraDenney]

I do not like testing single interest ad sets. I would give my methods a try... since the other methods have not worked out for you, this might be a good thing for your brands. And yes, I do test out these audiences on each new brand I work with.

[@barryamadou2086]

Hello Dara, I've just discovered your channel and in a few hours I've copiously watched all the instructive videos. Thank you so much for all the great sharing. Could you please show us soon an example of the list you use with LTV. Thank you very much.

[@DaraDenney]

Hi Barry, thank you so much for watching my content. I'll defintely put that on a the list!

[@Jzguan]

Does this still applies on 2022?

[@aurelijadainauskaite8770]

Thank you for one more great video! 📹🤗 Please could you answer my question - I am creating a campaign for the client. One video ad that I will be testing already were running with cold audience few month ago and campaign with one ad set and one ad performed quite okay but for some reason the client stopped it few months ago. As the ad creative already have a social approval maybe it would be good idea to create few ad sets, test other ad creatives within this campaign, and not to lose this ad creative that already has social approval in other words restart and update campaign? or better to start campaign from scratch? Thank you so much!🤗

[@DaraDenney]

If something was already working: don't change it. I would continue to test new creatives alongside this social proof ad. No need to start a new campaign from scratch.

[@aurelijadainauskaite8770]

@@DaraDenney thank you!

[@theophilusabraham3262]

Hello Dara, Fantastic videos! I was wondering if you could cover A/B testing by interest and how to structure these tests in your next video? I'm interested to know if it's better to test by category ( like publication vs aspirational brand) or by a specific interest in each category, for example, CNN (excluding all other publications) vs FOX (excluding all other publications) etc. Any tips you can offer are appreciated. You now have a lifelong fan, by the way! If you ever offer any additional training or courses, I would love to sign up.

[@DaraDenney]

I only test interests by category or customer avatar. I never do the method that you're explaining with the exclusions... I know a lot of gurus do this, but I'm actually really against it. Humans aren't single interest groups. That will actually make it harder for you to scale. Hope this helps!

[@justame7638]

So you stack Interests(more than 1 interest) in 1 adset?

[@DaraDenney]

Yep!

[@justame7638]

@@DaraDenney I used to do that when i first started 1 year ago, but then I was told to use onyl 1 interest per adset so you can keep track of which interest is better. I dont seem to see a video on your channel explaining interests. Id like to see your method.

[@SniperAce2]

Hi Dara. Are 10 interest audiences not too broad for targeting that algorithm might find it hard to find customers? Also, can we include interests within an adset with different categories?

[@DaraDenney]

Great questions. Facebook tends to work better these days with bigger audiences, so I would try to keep your audiences between 4-20 million. And yes you can include interests with different categories.

[@doctoriveslow]

@@DaraDenney hi - thanks so much for your videos, they really are wonderful! I have a small jewelry business and have been working on finding a profitable ad funnel (haven’t figured it out yet, unfortunately). For a small budget of approximately $1,000 per month, would you still suggest keeping audiences in the 4-20m range? Or is that too large an audience for a small budget? Thanks for any input you can provide!

[@SandeepYadav-nm6oc]

I need to target the restaurant owners in the US, how would I target them??

[@mohamedhamed4233]

Sorry for being rude to you.

[@liah123456]

How many interest should we use in each adset? I was told to only use one interest per adset (10 different interest/10 different adset)

[@DaraDenney]

I would suggest segmenting them by categories (like publications or competitors or customer avatars) and for me there is no number limit to that. The way I think about it is different from the gurus out there that say to only use one interest, that I'm fully aware of. From my perspective, humans aren't interests. They certainly aren't one interest. By adding more than one interest we are actually zeroing in closer to our target customer.

[@enkibumbu]

Sound on video is very low.

[@oliverw.1187]

The updated version of this video: BROAAADDDD 😅

[@DaraDenney]

You're not wrong 😉

[@Adeptplayers]

What do you think is better for targeting all the different traffic ( cold, warm, hot). Single interest ad sets or interest stacking?

[@DaraDenney]

Interest stacking, 100%. The way I think about it is this: humans are not single interest groups...so when you add more interest groups you're actually giving Facebook a much better idea of who to target. Even without using "narrow".

[@ericprisman7283]

When you test audiences - do you worry about being "Learning Limited" (when your budget isn't high enough to hit 25-50 conversions per week on a test audience)? In other words, should I test 10 audiences that won't become 'active' or should I test 2 audiences with bigger budget that will hit the 50 optimization events per week.

[@DaraDenney]

Tough question: I do worry about that for my bigger accounts. However, I think with accounts spending less than $3K a month you're kind of in a tough position. I find that it often boils down to being a case by case thing. I would test doing a few audiences with a big enough budget to get out of Learning Limited to see if that helps.

[@ericprisman7283]

@@DaraDenney Thanks for the insights! Appreciated as always.

[@themanthemyth7950]

So when doing retargeting on FB, I should still try to create a really large audience. For an example ALL website visitors the last 180 days... I was always under the impression that I should narrow it down even further, like, ONLY to people who have signed up the last 30 days and people who only went to a specific page. If this is try, no wonder I was struggling :) :) :)... Going to try the 25% audience from the last 180 days which is over 200k people and see how that goes.

[@hopebegininthedark4632]

❤❤❤❤❤

[@TarekYehia-h8m]

❤👏

[@bhushanshaligram1995]

Hi Dara! While creating retargeting audiences, should we narrow down our audience by Age or Gender or location? Also, which placements should I use for retargeting?

[@DaraDenney]

I always use automatic placements. Also, no, I do not breakdown the audience by age or gender UNLESS I am using different creative for those segments.

[@bhushanshaligram1995]

@@DaraDenney - Thank you so much for taking out time to reply to my doubts. Really appreciate it.

[@fyrebar2516]

Would you still say this is how you would do it? I have a 3000 a month budget and its a new product :)

[@fyrebar2516]

Also side note, which of these audiences would you start with if you dont have many conversions yet? Would you start with a lookalike audience 1% of facebook visitors in the last 180 days?

[@yutsiyutischi8889]

Its not really easy to digest when you just listen without seeing what you really mean :/ I'd like to see you screen while explaining

[@DaraDenney]

Good suggestion, Yutsi, I'll keep that in mind :)

[@Ladybugdaisy27]

Hello I want to promote a vlog channel would you recommend the objective to be brand awareness or traffic? Thank you so much for your videos, you are lovely 💗🌷

[@DaraDenney]

I would test both!

[@MrMadinah]

LFSH

[@yutsiyutischi8889]

Are you German?

[@DaraDenney]

My mother is! :)

[@yutsiyutischi8889]

@@DaraDenney You are beautiful ♥️

[@tomparkes2709]

Hi Dara, thanks for the great content :) I have a question about the two retargeting campaigns please: When retargeting social engagers, website visitors, and viewed content/ATC, are you excluding people from these ad sets that have already completed purchases, i.e. only retargeting people that haven't yet made a purchase? If so, do you make the exclusion using the same time period as the ad set, e.g. viewed content/ATC in the past 7 days >> exclude purchases in the past 7 days Thanks very much Cheers, Tom

[@DaraDenney]

Yes I exclude purchasers. The time period depends on the product, if it's a one-time buy, and if I have another campaign targeting people I already bought. Sometimes I exclude 180, 60, 30 or something else, but that is more dependent on the product.