6. Precise Interests

You’ve decided what type of ad you’re going to create and where it’s going to go. It’s time to focus on whom we’re targeting!

Ready? Let’s go!

What You Are Going to Learn Today

Today’s lesson is Precise Interests. We’re going to focus on the following:

  • What are Precise Interests?
  • What are the interests with hashtags in front of them?
  • How to use Precise Interests

The Lesson

When creating an ad, you’re able to target users based on where they’re from, whether they’re male or female and age. But it’s helpful to target something of more substance: Things they like!

What Are Precise Interests?
Advertisers can target users based on the Pages they like, apps they use, and items pulled from user interests, activities, education, job titles and groups to which they belong. All of this information is found within their Timelines.

Go ahead and take a look at your About page (https://www.facebook.com/[YOURUSERNAME]/about). These sections are primed for targeting.

  • Work and Education: Schools you’ve gone to and employers
  • Music
  • Movies
  • TV Shows
  • Books
  • Games
  • Likes
  • Events
  • Groups

Likes include official Pages, but also Interest pages for things like Baseball, Basketball, Euchre and Cooking.

These are all Precise Interests that you can target in ads.

What Are the Interests With Hashtags (#) in Front of Them?
When targeting by interests, you can also add a hashtag in front to target more broadly. For example:

  • Cooking: Target people who list Cooking as an interest
  • #Cooking: Target people who list interests related to Cooking (Cooking Tips, Cooking and Eating, etc.)

How to Use Precise Interests
Within the Audience section of ad creation, you can enter your Precise Interests.

Facebook Power Editor Precise Interests Targeting

As you type, Facebook will pull up interests that match. If you want to target an exact group, use the Precise Interests only. If you’d like to expand the net a bit, feel free to use the interests with preceding hashtags. Facebook also recommends related interests that you can target.

As you add more Precise Interests, the audience of potential targets grows. Note that a user does not have to like all of the interests you list to be targeted — only one. Therefore, the more interests you list the more people you will reach.

If you’re looking to target a specific type of person, I try to be as exact as possible. One strategy I use is utilizing Graph Search to find the Pages and interests to target.

For example, I might run the following search:

Pages liked by people who like Jon Loomer Digital and Mari Smith.

Or this one:

Favorite interests of people who like Jon Loomer Digital and Mari Smith.

These searches will give me a great starting point for Precise Interests to target in my ads.

Recap

What did you learn today?

1. What Precise Interests are

2. The difference between Precise Interests and interests with a preceding hashtag

3. How to use Precise Interests in ad targeting

Your Assignment

Action Items:

  1. Use Graph Search to find 10 Pages and 10 favorite interests of people who like your Page
  2. Attempt to enter those Pages and interests in the Precise Interests area
  3. Observe the recommendations Facebook makes as well as how much the audience increases if you use a hashtag

Related Reading

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