Facebook just told us the BEST Audience Size!

Summary

Meta's new recommendation for Facebook ads suggests targeting broad audiences, with a minimum audience size of over 2 million, to enhance ad delivery and performance. This shift emphasizes reaching more people and providing Meta's ad system with greater flexibility. While broad targeting can reduce cost per action, it's crucial for advertisers to test various audience sizes and targeting options to find what works best for their specific business needs. Meta's interest aligns with advertisers as broader targeting helps fill more ad inventory, benefiting both parties.

Takeaways

• 🔍 Meta has released new recommendations for Facebook ads audience size, advocating for broader targeting.
• 📈 Broad targeting can result in an average 12% decrease in cost per action compared to more specific targeting.
• 🚫 The traditional recommendation of not going below 500,000 people for an ideal audience size has been significantly increased to over 2 million by Meta.
• 🌟 Broad targeting allows Meta's system more flexibility in determining the best audience to display ads to, improving delivery.
• 📊 Meta's new audience size estimations only include active accounts that have been served ads within the last 30 days, excluding inactive users.
• 🏢 It's crucial to target the widest audience that makes sense for your business, not just the largest possible audience.
• 📉 Even with Meta's push for broad targeting, it's still important to test different targeting options to see what works best for your specific business.
• 🌐 For advertisers with the ability to target very large audiences, Meta's new recommendations may lead to better ad performance.
• 📈 Meta's machine learning and AI are continually improving, enhancing the effectiveness of broad targeting over time.
• 💡 The move towards broad targeting aligns with Meta's interests in filling more ad inventory, but it also tends to benefit advertisers.

Q & A

What is the new recommendation from Meta regarding Facebook ads audience size?

Meta now recommends setting your audience to reach more than 2 million people for optimal ad performance.

Why does Meta suggest using broad targeting for Facebook ads?

Meta suggests broad targeting because it allows for reaching more people and provides the delivery system with more flexibility, potentially resulting in better cost per action.

What is the difference between broad targeting and detailed targeting in Facebook ads?

Broad targeting does not include any detailed targeting options like lookalikes or other criteria that narrow down the audience, whereas detailed targeting specifies more precise audience characteristics.

How does Meta's recommendation impact the cost per action for Facebook ads?

Meta claims that using broad targeting can result in an average of 12% less cost per action compared to more specific targeting methods.

What is the importance of setting the audience size to over 2 million according to Meta's new documentation?

Meta's delivery system works best when the audience size is greater than 2 million, providing more flexibility in determining the best times and audience segments for ad delivery.

Is it always necessary to follow Meta's recommendation of targeting over 2 million people?

While Meta recommends targeting over 2 million people, it's also important to consider the specific needs and goals of your business and test different audience sizes to find what works best.

What does Meta mean by 'the widest audience possible that makes sense for your business'?

Meta advises targeting the broadest audience that is still relevant to your business's offerings and capabilities, rather than simply targeting everyone indiscriminately.

How does Meta's recommendation affect smaller countries or niche businesses?

In smaller countries or for niche businesses, it might not be possible to reach an audience of over 2 million. In such cases, Meta's recommendation is to target the broadest audience possible within the constraints of the business's market.

What is the impact of Meta's recommendation on advertisers who prefer more specific targeting?

While Meta's recommendation favors broad targeting, advertisers who find success with more specific targeting options like lookalikes or detailed interests should continue testing and using those methods.

How does Meta's new audience size estimation based on active accounts affect ad targeting?

Meta now estimates audience sizes based on active accounts that have been served ads within the last 30 days, which can result in more accurate and relevant audience sizes for ad targeting.

What should advertisers do if their ideal audience size falls below the 2 million recommendation after Meta's changes?

Advertisers should reassess their targeting strategy, considering broader options or testing different audience segments to align with Meta's recommendation and maintain optimal ad performance.

Outlines

00:00

📈 New Meta Recommendation for Facebook Ads Targeting

Meta has introduced a new recommendation for Facebook ads targeting, suggesting advertisers to use broad targeting to reach more people. The documentation provided by Meta encourages advertisers to adopt this approach, as it claims it results in lower cost per action. Broad targeting means not specifying detailed targeting options like lookalikes, allowing Meta to decide who within the targeted area should receive the ads. Meta recommends setting the audience size to over 2 million to optimize their delivery system, which provides more flexibility in determining the best times and audience segments for ad delivery. However, it's crucial to ensure that the targeting still makes sense for the business and doesn't contradict the ability to serve the advertised products or services.

05:01

🔍 The Impact of Meta's Broad Targeting Recommendation

The video script discusses Meta's interest in having advertisers use broad targeting, as it aligns with their goal of filling as much ad inventory as possible. While Meta's recommendations often align with advertisers' interests, this particular suggestion is particularly beneficial for Meta. The speaker shares their experience, noting that broad targeting has generally produced better results in their tests over the years. They also highlight a recent change in Meta's audience size estimation, which now only includes active accounts that have been served ads within the last 30 days, excluding inactive accounts. This change can affect the estimated audience size and should be considered when planning ad campaigns. The speaker emphasizes the importance of testing different targeting options to find what works best for each advertiser's specific situation.

10:02

🚀 Exploring the Pros and Cons of Broad Targeting

The final paragraph hints at a video that discusses the pros and cons of broad targeting in detail. It suggests that while broad targeting is often recommended and can be effective, it's not always the best approach. There are scenarios where more specific targeting options might yield better results. The video aims to guide advertisers on when to use broad targeting and when to consider more tailored audience targeting strategies.

Keywords

💡Broad Targeting

Broad targeting refers to a strategy in Facebook advertising where minimal or no detailed targeting options (like demographics, interests, or lookalikes) are applied, allowing Meta to optimize ad delivery across a wide audience. In the video, broad targeting is suggested as a way to reduce cost per action and leverage Meta’s algorithms to find the right audience from a large pool of users, which can result in better ad performance.

💡Cost per Action (CPA)

Cost per action (CPA) is a metric in digital advertising that refers to the cost incurred when a user takes a desired action (such as a purchase, sign-up, or click). In the video, Meta claims that broad targeting can reduce CPA by 12% on average, highlighting the potential cost-efficiency of reaching a larger, less specifically targeted audience.

💡Delivery System

Meta’s delivery system is the underlying algorithm that determines how, when, and to whom ads are shown on the platform. The video explains that the delivery system works best when targeting audiences of over 2 million people, as it gives the system more flexibility in finding the optimal users to serve ads based on various signals like time of day and user engagement.

💡Audience Size

Audience size refers to the estimated number of people an advertiser can reach with their ad based on the targeting criteria set in Facebook Ads Manager. The video discusses Meta’s new recommendation to target audiences of over 2 million people for optimal ad delivery. Previously, advertisers focused on keeping their audience above 500,000, but the shift towards larger audience sizes reflects improvements in Meta’s algorithms.

💡Detailed Targeting

Detailed targeting involves using specific criteria such as interests, behaviors, or demographics to define a target audience in Facebook ads. The video contrasts this with broad targeting, explaining that while detailed targeting can still work for businesses with smaller, more niche audiences, Meta now recommends broader audiences to improve results.

💡Lookalikes

Lookalikes are a Facebook advertising feature that allows advertisers to target users who are similar to their existing customers or other specified audiences. In the video, lookalike audiences are mentioned as a more specific targeting option compared to broad targeting. Some advertisers may still find success with lookalikes, despite Meta’s new recommendation for larger, broader audiences.

💡Ad Inventory

Ad inventory refers to the total number of opportunities or 'slots' available on Facebook and Instagram where ads can be shown. The video mentions that Meta benefits from advertisers using broad targeting because it allows them to fill more ad inventory by reaching a wider pool of users. If advertisers target too narrowly, it limits Meta's ability to fill all ad slots, which could impact their revenue.

💡Machine Learning

Machine learning in the context of Facebook ads refers to Meta’s AI-driven system that optimizes ad delivery by learning from user behavior and other data signals. The video highlights that as Meta's machine learning improves, it can better identify the right users within a broad audience, increasing the likelihood of successful ad outcomes without needing highly specific targeting.

💡Active Accounts

Active accounts are Facebook and Instagram user profiles that have been served ads in the past 30 days. The video discusses a recent change in how Meta calculates audience size, now only including users with active accounts, which can provide advertisers with a more accurate estimation of the audience that is reachable through their ads.

💡Open Targeting

Open targeting is another term used in the video to describe broad targeting, where no specific filters (such as demographics or interests) are applied, and the platform's algorithm decides who within a wide audience should see the ads. Open targeting is recommended by Meta for advertisers who have the capacity to serve a broad and varied audience, relying on machine learning to optimize results.

Highlights

Meta has released new recommendations for the ideal Facebook ads audience size.

Meta is advocating for broad targeting in Facebook ads, which is a significant shift from previous advice.

Broad targeting can result in an average 12% lower cost per action compared to more specific targeting.

The new recommendation suggests setting the audience size to reach more than 2 million people.

Meta's documentation aims to persuade advertisers to use broad targeting to reach more potential customers.

The change in recommendations reflects Meta's machine learning and AI advancements in ad delivery.

Meta's delivery system works best with audience sizes greater than 2 million for better flexibility.

It's crucial to target the widest audience that makes sense for your business, not just the widest possible.

Testing different targeting options is essential, as what works best can vary between advertisers.

Meta's interest in broad targeting aligns with advertisers' needs for better ad performance.

The change to only include active accounts in audience size estimations can affect ad targeting strategies.

Inactive accounts are now filtered out from audience size calculations, which can reduce estimated audience numbers.

It's important to adjust ad strategies based on changes to how Meta calculates audience sizes.

While broad targeting is often effective, there are scenarios where more specific targeting may be necessary.

The video provides a link for businesses interested in professional Facebook and Instagram ad services.

Meta's new audience size calculation method is a positive change for advertisers, making estimates more accurate.

Transcripts

meta has come out with a new

recommendation when it comes to the

ideal Facebook ads audience s now meta

isn't usually anywhere near as clear

with their recommendations as this and I

think this represents a big Facebook ads

targeting change and we're going to need

to adjust our approach as advertisers to

accommodate this So Meta released

documentation with their new audience

siiz recommendations and it is somewhat

different to what I have recommended

before so we absolutely have to discuss

this so here's the article from meta

that I'm referring to and this is

basically a documentation that's trying

to convince advertisers to use broad

targeting it's Lally got broad targeting

at the title it's talking about reaching

more people and they give a number of

reasons why you would want to use broad

targeting for example on average 12% um

Less in terms of cost per action by

using broad targeting broad targeting by

the way for anyone that's not familiar

is simply not including any detailed

targeting options any lookalikes

anything that narrows down an audience

so just allowing meta to work out who

within the total potential population

within the area that you're actually

targeting who Within that should receive

your ads and who should not and what's

likely to deliver the best results so if

then we continue to scroll down we get

to this really interesting section here

where the recommendation is set your

audience to reach more than 2 million

now I've given recommendations around

the ideal Facebook ad audience size

before and I've said things like you

don't really want to go beneath 500,000

people in an Ideal World you wouldn't

have this estimated audience size below

500,000 people and I've been much more

concerned about making an audience not

making an audience too small as opposed

to it being too big a lot of people say

well how big can it be on the upper end

and my response is often we don't really

worry about that we will often use open

targeting broad targeting and just

Target everyone and if we're doing that

say us-wide that's going to be 250

million people so we don't really worry

about an upper limit but we've always

been concerned with a lower limit

because we know that audiences that are

too small don't perform as well what's

really interesting is that meta have

really upped their recommendation in

terms of it's not half a million anymore

or 250,000 like it used to be a number

of years ago now it's 2 million plus

which is really quite a large Facebook

ads audience much larger than we would

have typically targeted 5 6 7 years ago

let's say So Meta do provide a little

bit more context in here as to why it

needs to be 2 million plus if you can

I'll explain a bit more about that in a

second so say here out delivery system

works best when your um audience size is

greater than 2 million people so it's to

help their delivery system more people

to advertise to more flexibility they

can work out who within that audience is

best to advertise to what time of day

they're not forced to advertise to a

specific number of people which may only

be on the platforms at certain times a

day and all that sort of stuff right so

more flexibility with a delivery system

but they do also go on to say so set up

your eyes to Target the widest audience

possible that makes sense for your

business that's not the widest audience

possible it's the widest audience

possible that makes sense for your

business so it's not necessarily always

just going with advertising to

absolutely everyone that's a really

important distinction so the important

message here is don't do anything that

doesn't make any sense for your business

don't advertise in an area where you

can't actually serve the people that

you're advertising to that makes no

sense don't think that the 2 million

plus recommendation is that important

we're not worthy I also wouldn't worry

too much if there are targeting options

that you think make sense for your

business that sound really interesting

and those are beneath the 2 million

let's say you're not a local business

but you advertise nationally and there's

an interest targeting option that you

want to test that's 1 million or 800,000

absolutely fine to go ahead and test

that you may well see that it produces

better results it's also worth noting

that in some countries where the

population is relatively small you may

well be beneath 2 million once you add

in some very basic um narrowing criteria

things like age gender criteria that

sort of stuff may take you beneath that

up so don't worry about it too much it's

more this recommendation is more

interesting for those advertisers that

have the ability to Target much larger

audiences or smaller audiences or

somewhere in between given this new

information from meta I think it makes

more sense to prioritize those larger

audiences and you may well already

you've done that and be seeing that

those produ the best results but if you

haven't definitely test some larger

audiences test some open targeting see

how it performs um given meths of

recommendation I think it's likely to

perform better than some of the smaller

targeting options that's what we've been

seeing U within our agency and we've

seen that trend for a number of years

that I'd expect that to continue as

meta's machine learning processes and AI

get better and better at identifying who

within the target audience is most

likely to take your desired action and

most likely to get you the best results

and there's something else that I want

to quickly highlight that you may not

have thought about and that's that if

all advertisers went with broad

targeting open targeting or as many

advertisers as possible did that's

better for Meta Meta have all this ad

inventory that they want to be able to

fill they have all these at this point

billions of Facebook and Instagram users

and they are on the platform and meta

wants to fill every single possible slot

it can with an ad that's available if

advertisers get really specific with

their targeting then metha is only going

to be able to put ads in front of those

people and they're not going to be able

to fill add inventory for all those

other people that perhaps advertisers

are less interested in reaching because

they typically purchase less etc etc

right so this is within meta's interest

and whenever meta makes a recommendation

you always have to think is that in my

interest as an Advertiser or meta's

interest as a platform often those are

the same things right because meta wants

us to get good results because if our

advertisers get good results then we

spend more meta makes more money but

every now and then there will be

recommendations where you think I'm not

sure that's better for advertisers I

think that's just better for meta this

recommendation is definitely better for

meta I do think in most scenarios it is

also better for advertisers as well and

we can verify that because we've we've

been able to test it over a number of

years we've been able to test going with

uh more open targeting broad targeting

options versus more specific and the

trend has definitely been towards the

open broad targeting producing better

results for us advertisers as well so it

does overlap but it's just an important

thing to note of okay how important is

this recommendation who does this serve

and this applies to this recommendation

versus all the other ones that you may

see within an ad account or

documentation that the meta provides I

recently pulled my audience for example

and I asked them what's your best

performing cold audience targeting

option um and I gave a few different

options broad look alikes interest Etc

and Broad was the best performer of the

options but it wasn't like 90% of

advertisers see their best results from

board targeting there are a number of

people that said no I see my best

results from lookalikes I see my best

results from detail targeting options so

it's important to test and not just

always go with the recommendation now

there is something else that I want to

show you when it comes to audience sizes

that has changed recently and I think is

very interesting before I do that I want

to quickly let you know about our done

for you Facebook and Instagram

advertising services so my company can

create manage and optimize your ad

campaigns for you we can take that

workload off your hands so we can

hopefully help you get much better

results if you're interested click on

the link in the video description below

that will take you to a page and a

website where you can book in a free

call with one of my team members and

hopefully we get a chance to work

together so what is this extra audience

size um change that I'm talking about so

I've jumped in an example ad account

I've just created a quick examp example

campaign I've jumped to the adset level

to uh to demonstrate this now I haven't

adjusted any of the targeting um here if

we scroll down you can see it'll just be

set to basically all of the UK um by

default and we can see we've got this

estimated audience size over here on the

right now if I go ahead and hover um

over this little eye to to get more

information the change that has been

made is that instead of giving estimated

audience sizes based on how many total

Facebook and Instagram users form with

within that category that that those

targeting options so let's say for

example how many total Facebook and

Instagram users are there in the UK how

many accounts are there meta have

tweaked this so that it only includes

people that have been served and AD

within the last 30 days and you can see

they've got the information here right

so estimated audience size based on

number of factors y y y it's based on on

factors such as targeting selections ad

placements and how many account Center

accounts so Facebook accounts Instagram

accounts ET were shown ads on meta apps

and services in the past last 30 days

now what this does is it filters out

those inactive accounts of which there

must be hundreds of millions if not

billions at this point because um meta

has so many users and people obviously

come to the platform they leave it it

sounds a bit morbid but there must be

hundreds of millions of people that have

had um Facebook accounts Instagram

accounts that are simply no longer with

us so these sorts of numbers for all

sorts of reasons are changing all the

time and they've adjusted as I said not

just to include the total number of

users but to include just the one that

are active and have um been served ads

within the last 30 days now in an

example like the UK just targeting the

whole of the UK that hasn't actually

change the audience size all that much

you can see that the people who have um

who are using Facebook and Instagram are

using it they typically don't set up an

account and then not use it for years

and give up on it they're either using

one of those uh those two social

platforms fairly regularly so these this

audience size hasn't changed that much

but we have seen in certain um certain

targeting setup UPS the estimated

audience size has decreased quite a bit

because it's filtering out those

inactive accounts so if you've been

through this video and you thought okay

well my audience is well over 2 million

um that's absolutely fine I don't need

to make any adjustments go in and check

if your estimated audience size has

shrunk has changed to reflect that

change to only include active accounts

that are being served ads because it may

well have come down quite a bit I've had

a few messages about this and wanted to

adjust it so I think it's a good tweak

for meta I think it makes it more useful

for us advertisers in terms of

estimating our audience size and being

able to predict and plan and adjust

things um but it is just something that

you need to be aware of so as we can see

from this documentation meta is really

pushing broad targeting and that is

sometimes the best way to go but it's

not always the best way to go there are

scenarios where you do want to use it

and scenarios where you don't want to

use it and I explain those in this video

here in that video I walk you through

all the pros and cons of of broad

targeting otherwise known as open

targeting give you scenarios for yes go

ahead and give it a go or no you

probably want to wait so I strongly

recommend if you are interested in

testing broad targeting or anything

along those lines that you check this

out