Display advertising is dead. Period. I hate banners. They make your website look like some internet yard sale in the hood. It doesn’t feel safe or like you’re dealing with someone who’s legit. They’re awful, whether you have some 6 figure designer crank them out or a guy from eLance who charges you $40 for two. There’s no innovating on it, either. If it moves, it actually becomes even less credible – if that’s possible.

The same goes for taking those banner ads off your site and changing their dimensions to run ads on Facebook. People know what an ad looks like and their brains are coached to ignore. They know that shit stinks and they will not click on it. Please don’t waste your money on some high paid consultant to learn that by letting them spend your money, then blame “the algorithm” or your budget. I have a much better idea.

Here’s the deal. If you want to use Facebook for business and you need to accelerate your connections quickly, you need to hyper-target your ads. That means instead of adding keywords and, should have been implied, budget to find 10,000 people to reach  – I want you to reach 1,000 people. Hell, if you can get Facebook to admit there are less than 500 people in a certain segment you’re trying to find – try that.

The lesson here is that when it comes to Facebook ads, less is more. Hyper-targeting fewer people at a higher frequency will drive better results than targeting many people with a broad stroke and less context. Here’s an example just in case that doesn’t make sense. Say I was advertising a beer festival in my neighborhood. I need as many people to come as possible. Would it make more sense for me to reach everyone in Tennessee or just people within a 15 mile radius? Sure, I might get some people from middle of nowhere Tennessee but the likelihood I’ll get my neighbors to come is much higher.

I realize this seems like a no brainer but if you’ve had a meeting with a Facebook agency recently, you know most of them want to take broad strokes. They get a cut of your budget so to them – bigger is better.  Not so fast, sleezeballs.

How To Hyper-Target Facebook Ads

• Go to https://www.facebook.com/ads/manager/
• Click Audiences

• Click “Create Audience” in one of the 4 places they tell you to and start typing in keywords and locations. If you’re targeting everyone in the US, try certain cities first.
• Add interests one by one so you know how many new people they add
• Keep it to less than 5000 people and you can spend less than $100 to drive some solid results.

While there’s nuance to creating a post people actually click on, creating a targeted audience is really that easy. I guess there’s a post for next time…

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