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How to Target Facebook Users Based on Purchase Behavior

Jon Loomer

During the past couple of weeks, I’ve helped you understand the power of demographic and behavioral targeting with Facebook ads. Amazingly, advertisers are able to target Facebook users based on their actions away from Facebook.

Make sure you brush up on these blog posts:

Today, we’re going to talk about possibly the most amazing behavior targeting at all: Reach users with Facebook ads based on the things they buy away from Facebook.

[Tweet “You can target users based on what they buy away from Facebook? Darn right. Here’s how…”]

The Basics

This powerful targeting is found within behavior targeting. Whether you’re creating an ad within Power Editor or the ad create tool, click “Browse” within Behaviors.

That will give you the following categories:

Click on the Purchase Behavior category.

You will then be given the following sub-categories:

Looks pretty crazy, right? Let’s dig in!

Business Purchases

If you’re a B2B company, you need to check this out. Click on Business Purchases for the following options:

If your ideal customer buys any of these products, make sure you test this out! I know that my target audience buys business marketing products, so I should work this into my targeting!

Facebook gets all of this information from data mining partner Epsilon. In each case, it is “aggregated, multi-sourced offline transaction-based data.”

Buyer Profiles

A person’s buying history can help Facebook and data mining partners generate buyer profiles to help categorize the types of buyer a person is. Click on Buyer Profiles for the following options:

This information comes from data partners Epsilon and Datalogix. Facebook explains how these profiles were assembled as follows:

U.S consumer data on where consumers shop, how they shop, what products and brands they purchase, the publications they read, and their demographic and psychographic attributes.

Clothing

If you sell clothing, make sure to target Facebook users based on the types of clothing they have proven to buy!

Click on Clothing for the following options:

Each of these are broken down further…

Children’s

Men’s

Seasonal

Women’s

Most of this information comes from actual purchase history through Datalogix and Epsilon.

Food and Drink

Click on the Food and Drink category and you can further drill down targeting based on the foods people buy:

Not detailed enough? Well, click any of the above to break it down further…

Alcoholic Beverages

Bakery

Beverages

Cereal

Children’s Food

Condiments and Dressings

Cooking Supplies

Dairy and Eggs

Frozen Food

Grocery Shopper Type

Health Food

Meat and Seafood

Soup

Sweets and Snacks

Facebook gets all of this information from Datalogix via “loyalty card and transaction-level household purchase data with multi-channel coverage across all product categories.”

Health and Beauty

You can target Facebook users who purchase specific types of health and beauty products by clicking the “Health and Beauty” sub-category. That opens up the following:

Datalogix and Epsilon provide this information, much of it via loyalty card transactions.

Home and Garden

Target Facebook users who invest in the area outside of their homes by clicking the Home and Garden sub-category. That brings up the following:

This information is provided by Datalogix via “transaction level date (sic) across 1,200 U.S. retailers across catalog, physical store, and online purchases.”

Household Products

Target Facebook users who spend money on products for cleaning and organizing the home by clicking the Household Products sub-category. Click it for these options:

This information is provided by Datalogix via loyalty card transactions.

Kids Products

You can target Facebook users with young kids by targeting those who spend money on products for them. Click the Kids Products sub-category for these options:

This is provided by Acxiom and Epsilon via actual purchase history.

Pet Products

Reach people with pets by targeting those who buy things for them! Click on the Pet Products sub-category for these options:

This information is provided by Datalogix via purchase history and many of the methods discussed earlier.

Purchase Habits

Is your product only available offline? Or online? It’s important to target those who typically buy that way.

Click the Purchase Habits sub-category for these options:

This information is provided by Epsilon.

Purchase Types

What other specific things is your ideal audience buying? Click on Purchase Types to target users who make the following purchases:

This information comes from Datalogix, Epsilon and Acxiom via purchase histories.

Sports and Outdoors

Target Facebook users you know spend a lot of time outdoors based on the things they buy! Click the Sports and Outdoors sub-category for these options:

This information comes from Datalogix purchase histories.

Store Types

Do your customers shop at specific types of stores? Target them by clicking on Store Types!

Acxiom provides this information via purchase histories.

Subscription Services

And finally, you can reach Facebook users who are known to sign up for specific types of subscription services by clicking the Subscription Services sub-category:

Datalogix provides this information “based on recent consumer purchases and created to identify consumers likely to respond to offers in this category.”

Where Does Facebook Get This Data?

As discussed in prior posts and above, all of this information comes from Partner Categories. Facebook partners with data mining companies that collect data based on purchases, applications and surveys completed and send it to Facebook for ad targeting purposes.

It will undoubtedly sound creepy to some that you can target based on some of this information. But if you get past the creepiness, this data can be used to generate incredibly relevant — and useful — advertising.

As always, advertisers have no access to the names associated with this data. For more on how this data is used, make sure you read this message from Facebook.

How Can Advertisers Use This Data?

The possibilities are endless, but here are a few examples of how advertisers can use this information…

Fitness Gym: Target Healthy and Fit, Vitamins, Vitamins and Supplements, Fitness, Running

Online Upscale Women’s Clothing Retail: Target Fashionistas, High-Ticket Apparel and Accessories, High-End Retail, Above Average Spending, Online Buyers

Offline Dog Toy Product: Target Offline Buyers, Dog Products, Dog Owners, Dog Food and Products

Online Marketing Product: Target Business Marketing, Training and Publications, Online Buyers, Small and Home Office Products

Your Turn

Have you started using this information in your targeting? What have you done, or what ideas do you have?

Let me know in the comments below!

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