Being stuck in a traffic jam is annoying. The last time I was in one, I was almost in tears.
There were cars everywhere, both in front and behind ours, but none was moving.
Their horns were ear-shattering, and the tempers of other motorists flew everywhere.
I needed water, but one guy hawking stuff came to sell some books to me.
Did I buy it?
No way!
Who cared about books at that moment? I was even more irritated at the guts he had.
I had no interest in the books.
The story may seem extreme, but you can see that interest is the main factor determining if a person will buy from you or not.
Having an interest in your offer or product is the most important thing your audience needs for your Facebook ads to succeed.
And when you market things to people not interested in what you are selling, you lose money and time.
Therefore, to avoid this loss, your Facebook ads must reach the right audience; so that you can achieve your advertising goal.
Who then is the right audience?
These are people who are already interested in your industry and niche. They have less buying resistance and are easier to sell to.
Selling to them is easy because with their interest, what you sell is already appealing.
But even with this appeal, reaching these people on a Facebook ad can be a challenge.
And it is challenging because you need to determine what keywords you would use as their interests, and if you get it wrong, you will have a failed advert.
It is a waste of everything.
When you reach the wrong audience, you waste it all, your time, and your money.
Then you get heartbroken from the failed Facebook ad campaign.
But to avoid this, you use Facebook ads interest targeting to reach your target audience.
There are several basic ways to reach your target audience with your Facebook ad.
None, however, can give you quality results as much as this interest-based targeting option.
What is the Facebook Ads Interest Targeting?
It is a Facebook targeting option that enables you to reach a specific audience based on the interest such a person has shown to have on Facebook.
These interests could be anything from the pages they like and follow, groups they’ve joined, sites they visit, blogs they read, and to the T.V shows they watch, etc.
Facebook knows their interests.
And since Facebook knows their interests, you can get them to serve your ads to the exact audience you need; by using the best interest keywords.
For any interest keyword you use, you tell Facebook the kind of people you want to see your ad.
And Facebook, using their algorithm, has different groups of users for as many interest categories as possible.
So, when an advertiser runs an ad to any interest category, only the people Facebook has dimmed interested will see the ad.
Here is how it works?
If I were to advertise an E-book on cooking to people who love to cook, I would look out for chefs they should like.
It could be chefs such as Gordon Ramsay, Alain Duncasse, or Chef Stone, etc.
In addition to chefs, I could also look out for T.V shows they watch. Such as chopped, Hell’s Kitchen or MasterChef, etc.
I will then check if these chefs and shows have pages on Facebook and if their Pages have a large enough following in Nigeria.
If they do, I will use them as my interest keywords to reach the audience I want to buy my cooking e-book.
Facebook will then use these interest keywords to get my ad to the audience that fits the description.
This brings us to the question: How do I know my interest keyword would work?
There is a vast number of interests you can target, so using the wrong one is possible.
To avoid using the wrong one and be assured of the accuracy of your keyword, You must research your audience.
The accuracy of your keywords hangs on the quality of audience research you carry out to get them.
With quality audience research, you get their specific interests, thereby increasing your chances of getting better ad results.
And reducing the need for you to force the offer down their throat.
Is Facebook interest targeting effective in reaching the right audience?
With this kind of targeting, you can help pinpoint the exact audience that needs your offer. This will help you reach people with the least resistance and give you good ad results.
Your result, however, depends mainly on how accurate and suitable the interest keyword you use is to the audience.
The more suitable the keyword is, the better the results you would get.
Is it better than other options?
Although you can combine interest targeting with other Core targeting options: such as their demography, location, and behaviors. Interest-based targeting is, however, by far the best for reaching cold audiences who need what you offer.
This audience would see your offer as relevant. And consequently, it will make the ad relevance score increase, which will eventually make your ad cheaper going forward.
Not only will it become cheaper, but you will also remain in Facebook’s good book.
This is because Facebook loves to show ads to people who will find them relevant.
And if your ad fails to do so, the audience will either ignore it or report it, both of which you cannot afford.
They should have interests in this and that.
Ignore the voice in your head that tells you to use any keyword as interests because you think the audience would be interested in them. There is no room for guessing.
Running quality audience research takes away the need to guess and gives you exact interest keywords you should use.
Conclusion.
If the hawker had sold me water, I would pay him and also thank him afterward.
Get your offer to people interested enough to pay for what you sell, and they would pay for it.
Interest-based targeting is what will get you to the audience that needs what you sell.
Drop a comment if you have any questions, and I will send in a reply as soon as I can.
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