Facebook: Making Advertising More Precise

By Katie Hermiller

Facebook advertisements have existed since the start of Facebook, and they are not going anywhere anytime soon. How they are created is an aspect that all advertisers need to learn and understand, especially for social media purposes. Today, we will discuss the importance of utilizing Facebook advertisements and how we can create an effective one.

Facebook advertisements

Facebook has the ability to recognize what people are interested in through what they have searched for within the past thirty days or so. Facebook utilizes this feature in order to place these paid advertisements right in the middle of your scrolling or on the right side of the platform.

Often times, you’ll also see advertisements for products you recently viewed on another website. This is a strategy known as retargeting. It can be extremely effective when it comes to keeping your product, or service, top of mind. 

Why does knowing this matter?

As Hannah Ketelhut stated in a previous blog, Facebook Advertising: Quick Tips, that “Facebook makes advertising quick and easy.” This is true because:

1. When advertisers create an ad for Facebook they want it to be simplistic and something that the user, or reader, would be interested in knowing about or what they would want to buy.
2. Facebook advertisers have a more personal approach to their audience because they are creating advertisements based on search results and websites or apparel that they had previously viewed.

Facebook advertisements are basic tools for companies to appeal to someone scrolling through their Facebook wall. By looking at what their target audience looks up on Amazon, or the types of games they play on Facebook, a company can create an advertisement that they would be interested in.

Sometimes people will scroll past the advertisements, but other times they will click on the advertisement to view what’s on the website or being sold. It’s common for a person to see something they were just viewing on Amazon while scrolling through their Facebook and then buy it even though they initially were not going to.

How Facebook Makes Advertising Easier

Facebook allows advertisers to be more precise when it comes to who they want to target with their advertisements. Facebook allows them to pre-decide who the advertisement will appear in front of. This is based on what people have already shown interest in by searching for, posting about, or playing.

In some cases, advertisements can also be made based on websites the viewer has visited recently. By allowing advertisers to view the Facebook member’s recent browser information for what they’ve viewed, an advertisers job becomes far easier.

Facebook advertisements, however, are never the same every time you refresh the page. Advertisers tend to compete for space on a Facebook member’s page, but they almost always have a chance to show an advertisement on a Facebook account.

Facebook is also one of the more effective platforms to advertise on because of the wide variety of advertisements that can be created on it. The audience is more personal than tv commercials or YouTube advertisements that create short advertisements for a public community instead of a select few people.

Facebook’s overall user-friendly platform and precise targeting capabilities are what makes it a platform we cannot ignore. Although sometimes Facebook is not always the place to reach your specific audience, it is one that should always be considered in the brainstorming process as a possible avenue to explore.