The best 5 Facebook Audiences for DTC brands

Facebook Ads, as a platform, is constantly changing its approach to delivering and optimising ads. As a result, we must constantly adapt and test to find the audiences that will bring the best results - based on our specific objectives. At the moment, these are the audiences we have found to be the top performers.

Large Interest Audiences

With Facebook’s algorithm exponentially improving its automated targeting capabilities over the past few months, we have seen strong performance from allowing the platform to optimise more freely. As a result, we have seen strong performance from very loosely narrowing down targeting. In the past, we would manually filter and narrow down targeting in great detail - aiming for an audience size of maximum 2 million people. Now, we are seeing success from audiences with 10+ million people, with a very broad interest targeting that still greatly allows for platform optimisation.For instance filtering solely for one interest or behaviour, such as “Engaged Shoppers”, or a “Luxury” interest.

Broad Audiences

In line with the above, multiple accounts have seen success from the use of a “Broad” audience for conversions. A “Broad” audience means that you don’t target any specific interests, behaviour, or demographic, but target: everyone. This will allow the platform to find the people it thinks will bring the best results, without any restrictions - and usually at a lower cost.

Lookalike audiences

A great way to reach relevant users for your business, is to create Lookalike audiences of users who have previously completed your target conversion. For example a Lookalike of previous purchasers. Similarly to the broad audience trend mentioned in point 1 and 2, the last 6 months have seen a trend of broad lookalikes performing increasingly well. In the past, a 1% Lookalike audience would’ve been the preferred audience for driving conversions, whereas now, 2%, 3% or 4%+ lookalikes are performing well - as the reach is broader and provides the platform with more room to optimise.

Video Views Retargeting

An audience we have historically seen good results from is Video Views. If you tend to use video creative in your ads, this is a great way to reach people who are likely already aware of your brand, without the higher costs usually associated with remarketing website visitors and other higher intent events. Based on how much you are spending on reaching people with video content - and the type of video used, this type of audience can be modified to reach more (or less) qualified users. For example, you could target only people who have watched your videos all the way to the end, meaning they have shown interest in your content and brand. Alternatively, for a larger audience, you could target users who have only watched a few seconds of your video.

Add to Cart retargeting

Retargeting people who have added to cart on your website, but not purchased, is a great way of reaching a highly qualified, high intent audience. This audience typically sees high conversion rates, as it reaches users at the bottom of the funnel. This will allow you to reach users with relevant and specific messaging, such as transaction-focused USPs that are likely to drive people over the line and push them to convert. For example: “Free shipping”, “Free returns”, “Money-back guarantee”, etc. The only caveat attached to this audience is that it requires the number of “Add to Cart” events you are tracking to be high - which would be tied to high spend in the rest of your activity. If this is not the case, this audience will have low reach and isn’t likely to spend enough to yield results. As always, if you’d like to talk to one of our Facebook ads experts about how you can use this for your brand, drop us an email to hey@303.london and we will get a call booked in!