Is detailed targeting with Meta advertising dead? We could be heading in that direction…
The argument to abandon detailed targeting grows stronger by the day. Meta has removed far more interests and behaviors than they’ve added over the years. And studies have shown that interests are not only incomplete but they’re often inaccurate.
If you use detailed targeting while optimizing for conversionsA conversion is counted whenever a website visitor performs an action that fires a standard event, custom event, or custom conversion. Examples of conversions include purchases, leads, content views, add to cart, and registrations. More, Advantage Detailed TargetingWhen turned on, Meta can expand your audience to reach people beyond the Detailed Targeting (interests and behaviors) that you selected, but only if that expansion is expected to lead to better results. Location, age, gender, and exclusions are hard constraints, and the expanded audience will continue to follow those rules. More is automatically turned on. That means that the audienceThis is the group of people who can potentially see your ads. You help influence this by adjusting age, gender, location, detailed targeting (interests and behaviors), custom audiences, and more. More is expanded and isn’t as refined as you might think it is.
There’s also a growing push to go completely broad, removing all targeting but location.
So, is detailed targeting dead? As long as it still exists, that’s going to be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Split testSplit testing (or A/B testing) allows you to test changes in Facebook variables like ad creative, audience, or placement to determine which approach performs best. More it against going completely broad. If using detailed targeting consistently gives you better results than going broad, keep using that approach. If not, this could be a wake-up call. You may be overthinking your targeting and should just go broad.
Personally, I’ve mostly abandoned detailed targeting. I still use remarketing, but my cold targeting approach is almost always completely broad now.
How about you?