When Facebook launched its new ad-targeting solution Facebook Partner Categories a few weeks ago, we’re pretty sure we heard a loud, collective, “Wooooohoooo” from every small business owner using Facebook ads to market their business. And they have every right to be happy beyond measure because Partner Categories, for small fries, are the great equalizer.
In case you missed the announcement, Facebook Partner Categories allow brands on the social network to get ads in front of targeted users based on their activity across the Web, through desktop and/or mobile, plus their offline purchases and tendencies. Previously, targeting was based on users’ Facebook activity. Moreover, all of this is powered by data provided by market research heavyweights Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom and Blue Kai.
Partner Categories are a gold mine for advertisers because it provides significantly more detail about where to place ads and the users they should target. Advertisers who target more will have access to more information than those who target less, thus increasing the opportunity to achieve higher ROI.
Most small businesses never have access to the kind of budget-busting, yet invaluable market data that these Partner Categories provide. They can now create highly-relevant and efficient campaigns that reach the people that actually care about their product or service.
How it works
Partner categories divides users into one of 500 categories, like “Foodies”, “Fashionistas” or “Game Geeks”. They can be further segmented into categories such as, “Occupations” and “Lifestyle.” You can drill down even more to find out information like what kind of cars they drive and what kind of breakfast cereal they purchase. Location-specific data enables you to then target desired geographic areas. What this all means is that efforts can be concentrated on the people that can relate and are the most open to your message. Additionally, companies don’t have to pay for the pricey data and then pay to develop the campaign on top of that.
Of course, certain segments and certain categories will be more popular. But small businesses won’t have to worry about bidding wars; they will be able to use their money on a different, less expensive category that will still be relevant and effective for their outreach.
The Bottom Line
The net of it is that the Facebook Partner categories will allow small businesses to further define and target their customers using data typically reserved for the big guys with the deep pockets. And for that, we have to say thank you to Facebook — the gift that keeps on giving to little fish swimming in big ponds.
And for the record, as with other targeting services on Facebook, users can always opt out of seeing ads from certain advertisers, or from getting any ads at all.
Need help figuring out how best to leverage Facebook Partner Categories to reach your target customers? Contact the Zen Media Group and we’ll get you connected with our team of savvy online marketers to get you going.
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Information Sources
Facebook Launches Partner Categories
How to Target Facebook Ads Based on Purchase History, Lifestyles and More
