Top 5 Facebook Ads Targeting Hacks In 2023 & beyond!

I'm going to reveal the 5 top Facebook Ads targeting hacks in 2023 that utilizes Facebook’s AI In a way that gives you the best targeting options when you put an audience into detailed targeting.

So if your ads are underperforming, or you're getting the traffic, but you aren't seeing the level of leads and sales that you want.

This could be an audience message mismatch that can lead to expensive CPMs, CPCs and CPAs.

Then use these top 5 targeting hacks to reduce costs and get the best bang for your buck. 

Hack #1: Using Targeted Keywords And Attention Grabbing Creative

Facebook’s machine learning works by focusing more on your copy and creative so that it picks up the keywords in your copy and matches it with the perfect audience for your product or service.

And with your creative, Facebook is discovering your best audience by learning whose scrolling past and stopping to view the ad.

So when you put in the right input for Facebook to pick up through using broad targeted keywords and match that with scroll-stopping creative…

Facebook’s algorithm can get to work to find the best audience for you.

And how you do this…

Is through the research you do with your audience because, you want to make sure that your message articulates the transformational state of the before and after picture.

How To Utilize Facebook's Ai With Broad Keywords

Ask Yourself:

• Where is your customer at?
• Where do they want to be?
• How can you articulate this with your text and creative?

Then you can add broad targeting keywords to shout out your audience, this is also known as dog whistle copy termed by dan Kennedy.

This will give the Facebook ai data that will help the algorithm pick up exactly who they need to start looking for.

So, instead of being specific, you want to use broad copy such as:

• How to swing your golf club for better aim.
• Yoga mats for yoga lovers.
• Dog grooming made easy.
• Horseback riders for beginners.

These examples are the kinds of broad words you want to use within your copy.

Hack #2: Use Broad Interest Targeting

The main reason I recommend using broad interest targeting is that Facebook has deleted so many of the interests in their detailed targeting.

They say they’ve done it to remove things that are related to sensitive topics.

And today most advertisers who now search in detailed targeting are NOT finding the interests that performed well in the past.

Even though it seems illogical why certain interests have been removed This is what we should expect as online advertisers.

Platforms like Facebook and others are always gonna make changes, and keeping up with these changes is what will get you success with these platforms.

Just like what you should do now that these interest options have been narrowed down, this is why you should give broad targeting a try.

What Is Broad Targeting

Broad targeting is just using a broad term such as marketing, tennis, gardening, woodworking, and so on.

And you would use this at the top of your funnel running too cold audiences.

Facebook machine learning will then take that broad term with the copy combined to start looking for people with that interest.

So if you write for example…

Growing tomatoes in your garden can be made easy with the term gardening.

Facebook will take these keywords and go look for an audience who are gardeners or garden lovers.
And the good thing is…

Facebook has so many data points about its users they know who to put your ad in front of.

Hack #3: Have Open Targeting With At Least One Ad Set

Using open targeting with at least one ad set requires that you put your faith into Facebook and let them target all of their platform.

With zero interests, zero lookalikes, or anything placed at the interest or custom audience level.

Essentially giving Facebook full control to target the best audience for your ads.

Now, I say full control, but you do have some control such as age, gender, and location.

But generally, you want to leave everything else completely open and leave Facebooks ai unrestricted to find the audience.

What You Should Know About The Facebook AI

You might be thinking, logically it seems like it would help Facebook to tell them who to target.
But the truth is…

As time’s gone on, the Facebook algorithm has become way smarter than it’s ever been.

And when post-IOS happened, they're obviously going to do what it takes to stay ahead of the advertising game because it's their main source of income.

Now another thing to mention about opening your targeting is that scalability is huge compared to interest scale.

Because Facebook will always be able to look for more people who are like your buyers.

And as you continue to keep your creative fresh and not let this fatigue they can continue to scale.

So make sure to at least try the open targeting and test if it works well for you.

Speaking of interest targeting…

Hack # 4: Use Specific Interests In The Right Way

It's important to use specific interests in the right way because as mentioned above.

A lot of advertisers who’ve noticed so many interests have disappeared, it seems as though you should focus away from different specific interests to target.

Well, this isn’t fully the case, and I’m not saying interests are not good!

Because what’s still good about using specific interests is that they are still scalable for cold audiences.

And if you don’t have any data on your audience, interests are where you want to begin, as it still works as long as you target them correctly!

However, when you use specific interest targeting, one thing you do not want to do is to separate them into different ad sets.

What You Should Do With Interest Targeting

This was the old way of using interests for targeting, instead, when you find your interests I recommend that you stack all your interests in a single ad set.

Because Facebook machine learning works more efficiently the more room you give its ai.

And targeting single interests with 50k – 500k or even a couple of million won’t cut it.

For Facebook to be most productive you should un-restrict it.

And if you stack these interests, you're increasing the number of people for Facebook to work with your ad which will have less fatigue.

Reducing the number of times you'd have to your creative.

And perhaps best of all…

Stacking these interests opens you up for more scale.

Hack # 5: Video Lookalike Audiences

This final hack is what I’ve been using to get one of the top audiences that have been giving me incredible CPM costs and high conversion rates.

Which is using video lookalike audiences.

Basically, You want to create a video that gives value based on what you're selling.

So if it's fishing rods, do an educational video that teaches how to fish or catch your first fish video.

If it’s a real estate course, do a video teaching value about real estate, whatever industry niche you're in, give some goodwill to your audience.

You can then take this video and run it as an ad for just a dollar a day.

How To Set Up Video Look Alike Audience Ad

To do this select engagement for video views, you can either target open, broad, or stacked interests.

However, just run your video and you’ll get amazing cost for impressions.

Because Facebook is giving the best bang for your buck with video, as they're trying to get more content creators to use video over text.

But when you run your ads…

And get at least 25% video views from a 1000 people, this is now golden for turning into a lookalike audience.

And, the best thing is…

it's all on the Facebook platform.

You can also use 50, 75, and 95% when you get enough data…

But because people watched this video, it clearly shows an interest in what you’re saying and teaching.

And everything about you and your brand has been exposed to these people, Facebook can use all these data points and turn them into new lookalike audiences for you to target.

Now, if you want to know more about targeting I recommend checking out my in-depth guide on Facebook ads targeting.