How to combat the latest changes to Facebook’s targeting options

by Steph Rady, Head of Marketing and PR

This month, Facebook rocked the boat for businesses everywhere by removing its third-party targeting options following the Cambridge Analytica scandal earlier this year.

This means that any campaigns running after May 25^th in the UK will no longer be able to use third-party supplied data, the most affected being Facebook’s behavioural targeting. More specifically, it means estate agents will no longer be able to use long-revered targeting options such as Homeowner, Likely to be a 1st/2^nd/3^rd+ time buyer, Likely to have a mortgage etc. to reach new prospective vendors and landlords in their area.

We understand that lots of our members will still want to continue running their own Facebook ads in-house, so we’ve outlined a few things you can try to keep your campaigns a success:

Retarget consumers that have engaged with your brand

Facebook has a feature which allows you to market to and retarget consumers who have previously engaged with your brand on Facebook, visited certain pages on your website, or visited your ValPal tool.

You can retarget certain audiences and send them onto a nurture journey with the ultimate goal of converting them into business. The audience will be slightly ‘warmer’ than the ‘cold’ homeowners you may be used to targeting, and although not all of them will be relevant, you can still get some good results by doing this providing you have the right messaging/journey in place.

Custom audience

Custom audiences allow you to upload your own data. Simply export your vendors, landlords, buyers or tenants from your CRM and upload them into Facebook. You can even retarget your ValPal leads and reengage with them to try and win their business. This is perfect as the list will be very ‘hot’ and you can be super-targeted with your marketing to maximise conversions.

Lookalike audience

Lookalike audiences are a relatively new and extremely clever addition to Facebook’s armoury. It allows you to select a page or a custom audience and tell Facebook to find people who are similar to the people in your lists. Now, this isn’t going to be 100% accurate every time and the results will be better if your lists are of a high quality. However, this should help you reach new vendors and landlords who wouldn’t have otherwise heard of your brand! Try using the ValPal tool to capture their details and add them to your nurture campaigns.

Facebook ads will continue to thrive as people are forced to get smarter with their marketing.

Here at Angels Media and The ValPal Network, we have been running successful Facebook ad campaigns for our clients for many years, using the third party targeting options to reach out to completely new business for our clients.

To maintain the success of this service, we are buying the third-party Homeowner data from Facebook partner Acxiom so our clients can rest assured their campaigns will remain worthwhile and continue to bring in new ValPal leads every month.

To find out more about our Facebook ads service, click here to schedule a call with Steph