Meta ads targeting is more confusing and controversial than ever. That is, at least, if you listen to all of the loud recommendations about strategies and control.
The reality is that targeting has never been simpler. It’s just confusing if you don’t take the time to understand your role in it, and when you should insert yourself.
And that’s the point of this post. Targeting inputs fall into three categories now:
- Audience Controls
- Audience Suggestions
- Audience Restrictions
It’s your job to understand all three levels: What they mean, why they matter, when control is necessary, and when methods other than an audience restriction should be preferred.
Let’s get to it…
Age Range
Advertisers can set an audience control using a minimum age between 18 and 25.
You can also provide an age range suggestion that doesn’t act as a tight constraint.
Or you can turn Advantage+ off and set a strict age minimum and maximum.
How to Approach:
Avoid restricting by age when possible. The one exception would be when selling age-restricted goods, where you cannot serve people under or over a certain age. Such a restriction can also be done at the account level.
An age range suggestion shouldn’t hurt delivery, but it also won’t necessarily impact it. Meta will ignore suggestions if it means helping you get more optimized actions, as defined by your performance goal.
A common mistake that advertisers make is that they envision their ideal customer when defining the ad set audience. Whether based on data or not, advertisers might restrict by ages 25 to 54 because they believe this age range most accurately reflects their customers.
While that may indeed be a reflection of customer data, such a restriction is rarely necessary. Meta has mounds of data to help find the people who are most likely to perform the action that you want, and this is likely to be reflected in budget distribution. Restricting your audience also restricts the algorithm, preventing Meta from spending even a small amount of your budget on a group that could lead to results.
In some cases, Meta will concentrate budget on certain age ranges because it has proven to drive more of the results that you want. But you might find that this is because an age range is the source of cheap and low-quality results.
Consider lead generation as an example. I’ve found that when running ads for leads, Meta will concentrate a high percentage of my budget on people aged 65 and up. The reason for this is that, for whatever reason, this age group results in cheap leads at a high rate. I have information that Meta doesn’t, which is that these aren’t high-quality leads.
Don’t overthink this. Prioritize limiting restrictions. Know that any guidance Meta needs is most likely related to weaknesses that will lead to cheap and low-quality results. Know how to detect such behavior.
When it happens, prioritize using value rules to adjust bids, rather than removing age ranges entirely.
Gender
Advertisers cannot set an audience control for gender in the default setup. You can provide an audience suggestion for gender that doesn’t act as a tight constraint.
Or you can turn Advantage+ off and set a strict restriction by gender.
How to Approach:
Avoid restricting by gender when possible. A gender audience suggestion shouldn’t hurt delivery, but it also won’t necessarily impact it. Meta will ignore suggestions if it means helping you get more optimized actions, as defined by your performance goal.
As is the case with age ranges, advertisers often fall into the trap of restricting by gender to more accurately reflect their ideal customer. Such a restriction is rarely necessary, and it can prevent you from spending even a small amount of budget on a segment that could lead to customers.
In some cases, Meta will concentrate budget on a gender because it has proven to drive more of the results that you want. As is the case with age range, this can be because a gender is the source of cheap and low-quality results.
For example, consider a situation of a service focused on helping women-owned businesses. When optimizing for a purchase, gender restriction shouldn’t be necessary. But if they run ads with a performance goal related to an engagement-level action, Meta is likely to show their ads to men if they’re likely to engage. This could mean spending a lot of your budget on people not likely to purchase.
If there’s such a problem to be solved, prioritize using value rules to adjust bids, rather than removing a gender entirely.
Location
Location is an audience control. You can include specific countries, states/regions, cities, postal codes, addresses, DMAs, Comscore Markets, or congressional districts. You can also add worldwide or global regions.
Since location is an audience control and not a suggestion, Meta will not reach people outside of those locations. However, there’s a major caveat. Meta defines those who would qualify to be reached under this setting as “people who spend time in locations, such as people living there or recently there.” You cannot isolate residents or travelers.
When a city, state, or region within a country is selected, advertisers have the option to “reach more people likely to respond.”
When selected, you can also reach people who wouldn’t qualify under living in or recently in that location, but they live in that country and have provided signals that indicate they are interested in that location.
How to Approach:
The main thing to understand here is that advertisers cannot isolate local residents or travelers. The definition of a person who qualifies when a location is selected will automatically include both.
That’s frustrating, but it’s not something we can successfully overcome. I know that some advertisers will target one selection of cities while excluding the surrounding areas. By doing so, you’d also exclude some of the people you want to reach (for example, those who live in the area you’re targeting, but commute to the excluded area for work).
So if you’re hoping to reach people in a local area, include it in locations. Know that you are likely to reach some people you didn’t want to reach. But address this with ad copy and creative to clearly appeal most to the people you want to reach.
Otherwise, most businesses will be focused on country targeting. In most cases, you can and should combine multiple countries in the same ad set, particularly when costs are similar between them (for example, targeting the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia).
The ideal scenario might be to separate countries into their own ad sets to create ads that are most relevant to residents of each country. But you should only do this if you have the budget that can be adequately spent on each country to bring in a volume of results that is meaningful.
To keep with the theme of this post, do not overthink location targeting. In most cases, keep it simple. Target the relevant locations and keep it broad when possible. Consolidate locations in most cases, leaving opportunities to separate them as exceptions to the rule.
Custom Audience Exclusions
Custom audience exclusions are an audience control. Meta will respect such an exclusion as a tight constraint.
How to Approach:
Custom audience exclusions make the most sense when promoting a product that can only be purchased once. You may not want to waste budget on reaching people who cannot buy. That said, there are a couple of factors to consider.
First, it’s virtually impossible to successfully exclude everyone. This isn’t because Meta ignores your exclusions. It’s because custom audiences are, by nature, flawed and incomplete. Expect that you will always reach some people you do not intend to reach.
Second, an argument can be made for including prior customers, even if they cannot buy again. They are the people most likely to share positive comments. Your ad may also be a reminder to make a related purchase, though it may not be of that product.
The bottom line is this: You can exclude custom audiences. Limit such exclusions to situations that make the most sense to avoid wasted ad spend. But know that custom audience exclusions are imperfect, and you will always reach some of these people anyway.
Detailed Targeting
Detailed targeting is one of the oldest types of audience selection for Meta advertisers. It allows you to select categories of interests and behaviors that match your intended audience, based on the data that Meta has from both in-app and off-app signals.
Any detailed targeting inputs will be suggestions by default. Meta will go beyond suggestions to help you get more results.
Even if you attempt to turn Advantage+ off, you can rarely restrict by detailed targeting inputs. For 11 of the most common performance goals, detailed targeting will always be used as a suggestion. You can remove suggestions for the remaining performance goals, when applicable.
How to Approach:
There are multiple layers to answering the question of how you should approach detailed targeting.
1. Can you restrict by detailed targeting inputs? In most cases, no. Detailed targeting is almost always used as a suggestion.
2. Do detailed targeting suggestions positively impact distribution and performance? We don’t know for sure. Outside of using A/B tests, which could vary widely based on the account and detailed targeting suggestions used, Meta offers no way to prove how much suggestions are used and how much they matter.
Suggestions might matter sometimes. Meta might mostly ignore them at others. We have no idea how suggestions are applied from case to case.
Even Meta’s documentation has softened on how suggestions are applied. Meta previously said that suggestions were “prioritized” before going more broadly if it meant getting more results. But that mention of prioritization disappeared.
I wouldn’t tie my strategy to an audience input that has completely unknown impact. Detailed targeting suggestions can’t hurt, and there’s an argument (even if unproven) that they may be helpful in cases when Meta has less data.
But the biggest mistake you can make is to treat detailed targeting suggestions as tight constraints. They’re not. Do not create separate ad sets based on different detailed targeting inputs. You’re only creating multiple ad sets that have the capability of reaching all of the same people.
Keep it simple. Use detailed targeting suggestions or don’t. But don’t build around them.
Lookalike Audiences
Meta introduced lookalike audiences in 2013 as a way to simplify the process of isolating people most similar to our current customers. Lookalike audiences use custom audiences as the source audience to learn from when developing a larger pool of people.
By default, lookalike audiences are only used as audience suggestions.
Even if you attempt to turn Advantage+ off, you can rarely restrict by lookalike audience inputs. For nine of the most common performance goals, lookalike audiences will always be used as suggestions. You can remove suggestions for the remaining performance goals, when applicable.
How to Approach:
See the approach to detailed targeting above since you can apply the same to lookalike audiences. Your lookalike audience inputs are almost always used as suggestions now, and it is rarely possible to restrict by that audience. So the question is whether the suggestion matters.
You can make an argument it makes sense that Meta could benefit from lookalike audiences in certain circumstances. If you’re running ads for a new account and Meta doesn’t have any data, a lookalike audience suggestion might be beneficial.
But that’s only a theory. Meta also learns quickly in real-time, and we may be putting too much value on that historical data. And since we have no idea how much Meta leans on audience suggestions (and this may not be consistent from case to case), it’s impossible to truly know the impact.
Would a lookalike audience suggestion hurt performance? Probably not. I totally understand why you might use one, particularly with new accounts. But remember that these inputs are almost always suggestions, so don’t approach them as tight constraints.
Do not create multiple ad sets with different lookalike audience and detailed targeting inputs. Because these are only suggestions, all of the ad sets can reach the same people.
But feel free to use these suggestions as a little magic pixie dust.
Custom Audiences (Remarketing)
Custom audiences reflect groups of people connected to your business. Advertisers can create custom audiences based on website activity, customer lists, on-platform activity, and more.
By default, custom audiences are only used as audience suggestions.
If you turn Advantage+ off, you can restrict by custom audiences and remove the suggestion.
This is also known as remarketing.
How to Approach:
As I’ve said repeatedly throughout this post, audience suggestions shouldn’t hurt you. If you want to add a custom audience as a suggestion, knock yourself out. But I have doubts whether it will matter.
Meta already prioritizes remarketing audiences by default. This was made clear with the rollout of Advantage+ Audience in the fall of 2023. If you don’t provide an audience suggestion, Meta will prioritize pixel activity, conversion data, and prior engagement with your ads.
Remarketing happens by default, and you can prove it with audience segments and sales campaigns. Once you’ve defined your engaged audience and existing customers audience segments, you can break down results to see how conversions and ad spend are distributed between remarketing and prospecting groups.
Might custom audience suggestions be more beneficial for new accounts where Meta lacks data to prioritize remarketing groups automatically? It’s certainly possible. Feel free to use custom audiences as suggestions in those cases.
Should you restrict by custom audiences? That’s debatable.
Years ago, about 90% of my advertising leaned on remarketing strategies. I created custom audiences for everything imaginable in an effort to target the most relevant groups possible.
But these days, I understand that most of what I did then is no longer relevant or necessary. Meta doesn’t need me to isolate these people. Remarketing already happens by default. And by not restricting by custom audiences, Meta can dynamically balance budget and performance between remarketing and prospecting audiences.
Are there exceptions when remarketing can be beneficial? Yes, but they are rare. And I use them sometimes. Particularly for high-ticket products, it can make sense to remarket to the people who completed a low-ticket purchase or registration. But even then, these ads are used in addition to the other sales efforts that should be happening to convert these people.
The main thing to understand is that general remarketing should no longer be necessary. There’s rarely a reason to isolate all of your website visitors or entire email list and only target those people. Meta will already be prioritizing them, all while also reaching new people.
The only other exception may be if Meta is leaning too heavily into remarketing and you want to focus more on bringing completely new people into your funnel. Remarketing results are easier, so Meta will take advantage of that. If you need to control remarketing spend, you might create separate ad sets with strict budgets, one for remarketing and one for prospecting (excluding the remarketing audience).
A General Approach
Now let’s put together a general approach to targeting, simplifying the suggestions above and focusing on overarching themes.
1. Take mostly a hands-off approach.
This seems to be the most difficult concept for advertisers. You don’t need to control everything. In many cases now, you can’t. Stop fighting it.
2. Use suggestions — or don’t.
As long as you know they’re suggestions, feel free to use them. I have serious doubts whether they make a difference. Meta removed language indicating they’re prioritized. But as long as you don’t let them control what you do, suggestions can’t hurt. They might even be beneficial in some cases.
3. Avoid restricting by age or gender.
You should restrict by age when selling age-restricted products. But otherwise, you shouldn’t need to restrict by age or gender to match your ideal customer.
That doesn’t mean that Meta is perfect when it comes to distribution by age and gender. Meta can exploit weaknesses based on performance goal in an effort to get you more results. This can lead to low-quality leads or engagement because it’s information that you have and Meta doesn’t.
When this is proven to be a problem, use value rules to adjust bids by age or gender, rather than restricting by demographic group. Your priority should be to avoid restrictions and use other methods, when possible.
4. Remarketing happens by default.
You don’t need to isolate general remarketing groups because Meta already prioritizes them. You can prove this to yourself with sales campaigns and audience segments.
While remarketing is rarely necessary now, there are rare exceptions. Just make sure to approach remarketing as such an exception, rather than the rule.
5. Simple targeting means simple campaign construction.
When you’re following steps 1 to 4, you quickly eliminate many of the reasons you’d previously create separate ad sets. You’ll find that, in most cases, you can get by with only a single ad set. Prioritize that, and only add complexity when it’s completely necessary.
Your Turn
Is there anything else about targeting that you’d add?
Let me know in the comments below!
