The first step to a successful business is answering a question or filling a need. As a business owner, you’ve checked this off your list. More than likely, you know, at least vaguely, which people need your product or service. The next step becomes a little more tricky–targeting that audience. Your business thrives off of new customers and growing your existing base, correct? Of course, it does. But how can you target this group of potential customers on Facebook? The answer lies within geofencing Facebook ads.
Geofencing allows you to target a specific audience based on where they’re located. This style of targeting is much more specific than typical location settings, though. You may be used to selecting demographics and location, but geofencing actually allows you to draw a virtual box around the areas you believe are “hot”.
Geofencing on Facebook
Why Facebook Geofencing?
Facebook geofencing is a social media advertising feature that allows a business to serve ads to a specific geographical area. It can be difficult to capture your target audience’s attention on Facebook due to ad fatigue and increasing costs of online and social media advertising. The more competitors, the more your keyword will cost to show for.
However, with the increasing popularity of smart devices, geofencing has also become more popular over the past 5 years. While geofencing cost does fluctuate, utilizing location data is still a sold, cost effective way for smaller businesses to drive results and increase profits while not breaking the bank.
If you aren’t leveraging the power of geofencing advertising and personalizing ads, it may be time to start taking advantage of the technology available.
Facebook geofencing advertising is one of the best ways that marketers can target their audience while ensuring that large amounts of people still see the ad.
Need to take a step back? Check out our blog: Geofencing definition!
What Businesses Can Benefit from Facebook Geofencing?
If the following scenarios apply to your business, then Facebook geofencing could be a useful tool for your internet marketing strategy. You wish to:
- show your offers or product listing near your retail locations.
- run custom offers to different neighborhoods, schools, or venues, in general.
- tailor your message based on user location.
- target shoppers at a competitor’s location.
- show a tailored message to those who are attending a particular event.
For businesses looking to advertise across multiple social media platforms, also look into Snapchat geofencing.
How to Set Up Geofencing on Facebook
To set up geofencing advertising and location targeting on Facebook and Instagram, start the normal campaign creation process.
Next, in Audiences, you can select the location to target or location to exclude.
To drill down to a very specific local area, select the geography that you’d like to target.
In the following example, you can select “Drop Pin” on the exact location that meets your targeting parameters.
Then select the radius to target around the desired location. This screenshot shows a 1-mile radius near Highland Park in Dallas.
Since polygon targeting is not available on Facebook, additional targeting exclusions can be set to block in your geofencing even closer than a mile around the location pin drop.
How to Exclude Locations With Facebook Geofencing
Once you set the location that you’d like to target, to drill down to closer than a one-mile radius with geofencing, then you want to start building exclusions around the radius that you’ve set to target.
In the example you can see the original targeting with the location pin drop. You can also see the location exclusions built around the target location. This makes the geofencing and geotargeting even tighter than the one-mile radius.
This is how you build a geofence on Facebook advertising.
Targeting by Geographical Behavior on Facebook
If you’ve been running ads for a decent stretch of time, you’ll notice there is some ambiguity behind what it actually means to “target” a location. Facebook determines locations in a variety of ways: smartphone data, manual check-ins on the platform, and the places that a user lists as his or her current or home city.
So, it’s not always clear which location you’re targeting with local awareness ads.
It can be difficult for marketers to differentiate those who:
- actually live in a location,
- visit or have recently visited a location, or
- just have the location set as a place of reference on their profile.
The difference between these audiences matter. If you’re a real estate agent, you don’t necessarily want to target someone who is “from the location” or is just on vacation. However, with geotargeting, Facebook saves you the trouble by allowing you to specify which kind of “location targeting” you wish to employ.
Is Facebook Geotargeting Right for Your Business?
If you’ve got a physical, brick and mortar location, geotargeting ads could be a good way to get traffic into your store. Speaking to an experienced geotargeting marketing expert can help you determine the optimal radius to target for your location. The perimeter should be set by how far your audience will travel for your goods or services.
We have full strategy guidelines for the following:
There are lots of customization tools available on Facebook to help you reach your marketing goals, and geofencing is only one! Understanding the scope of your business helps you make good marketing decisions.
Facebook Geofencing Advertising Agency
If you’re ready to start your social media marketing journey, give us a call at 318-678-5020!
