The 4 Demographic Metrics that Make or Break Your Facebook Marketing

Facebook has become one of the best digital advertising platforms over the last decade. According to a recent report from eMarketer, Facebook is expected to generate over $33 billion from advertising in 2017.

So why is your Facebook advertising campaign faltering. According to most experts, boosting the number of social media followers you have is one of the most important metrics of your campaigns. In general, this is true, but it’s also important to make sure you are engaging with the right audience.

This means that you must get your demographic targeting right.

Demographic targeting is crucial for any advertising campaign. It’s even more important with Facebook, because the CPMs are so high. Facebook charges high advertising costs, because its advertisers can narrowly target their audience. If you don’t take advantage of these targeting options, then you are throwing money out the window.

I assume that you are already targeting users by interests, age and gender. These are obvious demographic targeting options that you need to include in every campaign. However, they are not enough by themselves.

Here are some other very important demographic targeting options that you must consider.

Income

Income is one of the most overlooked targeting options, which is very surprising. Personally, I rate it as the single most important.

Why? If you sell premier products and someone can’t afford your services, then they don’t provide any value to your business. On the other hand, if you sell more economically priced products, you may generate a lot of business selling to lower income households.

When you analyze your buyer profile, it is important to estimate their income.

According to an infographic from WordStream, the average Facebook user makes $30,000 a year, so it should be a good site to reach middle class households.

Buyer Behavior

Buyer behavior is one of the three broad advertising targeting options available on Facebook. Kandice Linwright reports that it tends to be one of the most expensive, because it has such a strong impact on conversions.

There are multiple ways that you can target users by their behavior:

• Automotive purchases
• Charitable donations
• Activities online
• Financial decisions
• Residential profiles

Within each of these categories, there are multiple targeting options. For example, the “Financial” category allows you to target users according to their investing decisions and level of frugality.

If you sell luxury products, you would probably want to target users that make impulse purchases and aren’t as concerned about saving their pennies. On the other hand, brands selling economically priced necessities would probably have better luck targeting frugal Facebook users.

Life Events

I don’t know why more people don’t try targeting people according to recent life events, because it has a tremendous influence on their buying decisions. Margot da Cunha writes that it is actually her favorite targeting feature.

“Life Events has to be my favorite targeting option within Facebook because it’s the perfect medium for this. From personal experience, I’ve found that my friends like to share major life events on Facebook, whether it being getting engaged, graduating from grad school, or having a child.”

Life event targeting is frequently used by wedding planners and companies selling baby products. However, it can also be a powerful targeting option for many other companies. Real estate agents can target people that just got engaged, because they may be more likely to purchase a new home if they expect new additions to their family in the near future.

Residential Profiles

Residential profiles are another overlooked targeting option that can have a tremendous effect on your campaigns. Here are some questions that you should ask:

• Are your target customers homeowners or renters?
• Are your target customers living in rural or urban areas?
• What type of home do they live in?

These targeting options tell you a lot about their lifestyle and personality. It can be a roundabout way to target users based on their financial status without paying high CPMs.

Look Beyond Obvious Targeting Options

Virtually every Facebook advertiser targets users by their age, interests and gender. These targeting options are necessary, but you need to go into a lot more detail to get your campaigns off the ground.

Try to expand your horizons by testing other targeting options. You will probably have much better conversions when you have a more granular understanding of your audience.