What is a good audience size for Facebook ads?
Generally speaking, the best audience size for Facebook ads is between 1 to 2 million people. Audience sizes can range from 230 million (about the number of Facebook and Instagram users in the United States) or as few as one thousand people depending on how you specify and narrow your audience. If you don’t specify your targeting at all and you deliver your ads to anyone and everyone, you will be spending tons of money on people who don’t really matter to you because they’re never going to spend their money on your business. So, you might be wondering how to target groups on Facebook. Well, from what we have seen and tested, the Facebook algorithm works best with audience sizes of around 1 to 2 million people. Use that as a general guideline.
However, your audience size can also depend on what you’re optimizing your campaign for. If you’re doing a reach campaign, then it’s fine to have a bigger, broader audience, but if you’re going for purchase conversions, you might want to narrow it down more to people who are really interested in buying.
Ways you can target parents with Facebook ads
You don’t have to, but if you want to start by specifying by gender or age range, you can set those parameters. For example, if you just want to target young moms, you could narrow it down to target women from 18-30 years old. Then for further detailed targeting, you could try the following:
Marketing to Parents:
- Targeting parents with children of certain ages:
- Demographics> Parents>All Parents>(pick an age)
- Targeting parents based on topics, interests and/or brands:
- General parenting topics (ex. Preschool, diapers, baby bottles, baby formula, kids toys, strollers etc…)
And then if you want to get even more specific with the interests you’re targeting…. follow these steps:
- Click “Narrow by”
- Then fill the second box with more specific brands that resemble your target audience (ex. Nordstrom, Buy Buy Baby, Athletica, Ergobaby, Babybjorn etc….)
Narrowing your audience with a second box of interests will have sort of a venn diagram effect. Facebook will target the people who meet the first box requirements and then also the second box. This is a good way to shrink your audience size if it’s too big at first. And you can have more than just two boxes if you want to get really specific.
Running Facebook ads for baby products
Let’s say you sell infant cribs and you want to target pregnant moms on Facebook. You could first specify the demographic you want to target, which would be women who are “Parents (Newborns)”, and then specify based on interests or brands. For example, you could target women on Facebook who have interests in birthing magazines, Lamaze classes, or the book “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”. You could also target women who are buying or interested in maternity clothes or maternity brands. And since a crib is something you can reuse for future children, you’ll probably want to try to focus on first-time moms. You can do this by excluding other demographics like parents of children older than a newborn or searching for things that only first-time moms use.
Think like a parent
To get the best interests, brands, and topics for your targeting, you really need to get into the mind of the parent – especially the kind of parent you’re targeting. What is a parent’s motivation to buy this product or from this certain brand? You need to know what they value and find those corresponding topics available in Facebook’s detailed targeting.
What does your ideal customer love? Do they shop at Target because it’s convenient? Then what other baby products or brands are convenient? Do they shop at The Natural Baby Company because they care about their impact on the environment and the product’s impact on their baby? Then what other household brands could they be buying to reduce their carbon footprint? Do they shop at Old Navy because of the prices? Then what other brands have that kind of competitive prices? Do they shop at the latest baby boutique because they love the cutest and trendiest baby clothing? You need to learn who your ideal customer really is by learning what they do, what they buy, and why. If you do some serious deep thinking about this, then you’ll be able to get the right combination of interests in your Facebook targeting to find exactly who is a match for your brand and product.
Laurel is a member of the executive team at Stryde. She’s been doing digital marketing for businesses for 10 years. Two years ago, she started set up her own ecommerce business selling baby gowns and knows the struggles of a small business owner. She loves talking about digital marketing, content, SEO, and conversion rate optimization.
