Facebook provides highly refined tools that allow advertisers to double dip on targeted consumers.

Social media and search engines have emerged as the ultimate platforms for targeted advertising. They track our every keyword and it’s quite common to see ads show up on our screen after researching a topic, event or product. The incredibly personalized social networking that we conduct on Facebook has given the platform the tools to track consumers every interest. It also provides Facebook advertising campaigns the ability to double dip on leads by retargeting people again and again.

Facebook Targeting Tools

Whether it’s Mark Zuckerberg’s friendly public persona or the relaxed type of interaction between “friends” on Facebook, many users don’t realize that this massive corporation employs highly focused tracking tools. Things such as cookies, JavaScript, iframes and pixels are hard at work profiling your every consumer interests. One person’s spying is apparently another’s “targeting.” Regarding advertising, that mined information can be brought to bear in perhaps the most cost-effective ad campaigns available today.

Event pages and adjoining advertisements provide highly refined direct marketing. A campaign can be set to “engagement,” which prompts potential consumers to take action such as committing to attending an event. And, events don’t have to occur in the real world. They can transpire right online. But, consider the Facebook targeting options that are supported by the mass culling of consumer information.

• Radius: You can interact with people within a few miles, statewide, nationwide or globally.
• Age and Gender: Campaigns can target people most likely to engage with the event. For instance, military video games might best target men under 35 while an Indigo Girls concert makes more sense for women over 30. If you know you’re demographic, Facebook can connect directly to them.
• Interests and Behaviors: Facebook puts it’s treasure trove of consumer activity to work for you with these targeting categories. Under each, you’ll find highly refined sub-categories that include things like “buyer profiles” and “purchase habits.” The possibilities for tailoring ads falls nothing short of amazing.

Regarding direct response marketing, event-oriented campaigns garner success because consumers are given a decision to make. Are you in or out? That approach tends to draw potential customers in ways that passive promotions do not. However, for Facebook ads to be effective, images, videos and content must prompt a user response. This social media mega-corporation can bring you to the consumer’s doorstep, but you must close the deal.

Double Dipping

Think about the various forms of advertising available. Do any really retarget customers or consumers in a cost-effective way? Radio splashes the airwaves with messages that are heard by randomly tuned-in listeners. Most stations mix genres and their demographics reflect that. Television takes a similar approach and each show or sporting event competes against another for a targeted audience. The worst part about those ad delivery systems may be that we tend to change the channel when boring ads are aired. But with social media, ads can become part of the natural landscape based on targeted interest and Facebook opens the door to revisit consumers.

There are several options for double dipping with Facebook ads. One of the simplest approaches is to save the targeted audience demographics in your advertising account. If you’re selling widgets to seniors, name it “senior widgets,” and retain all the categories and sub-categories under one heading. If you’re pushing modern dance lessons to high schoolers in Montana, give it a name. When you run the next ad, the people in that demographic and those who interacted the first time will be re-blanketed. Do the work once, reap the benefits twice or more.

The Ads Manager will allow you to edit and rerun the campaign again. When double dipping, you want to create new visual and content enhancements to prompt another direct response. Keep in mind that Facebook does place some limits on the engagement objectives. But there are some clever things you can do regarding content and campaign length, among others to ensure ongoing benefits.

Dynamic Product Advertising

For companies with extensive product lines, setting up a sale or launch event may be too time-consuming. Facebook, like other platforms, provides dynamic retargeting that delivers relevant product-oriented ads to profiles and news feeds.

Companies can add a Facebook pixel to their website and upload a list of all the products in the campaign. Again, this puts Facebook’s mined consumer data to work and the unique products will flow to the feeds of likely consumers. The accounts of potential consumers that click through to your website are captured and retargeted periodically. This type of double dipping can be highly effective for retail, travel and service industry providers, among others. Once Facebook captures a consumer’s interests and purchases, it can revisit that profile over and over.

The scattershot methods of direct mail, radio and even purchasing bulk email lists pale in comparison to Facebook’s ability to target and retarget consumers.