Identifying Your Primary Audience

Now it is time to identify your audience. The audience you define will determine who is eligible to see your ad. When marketing yourself as a real estate agent, choosing a highly relevant audience is important.

You want to increase the likelihood that people will not only interact with your ad but that they'll perform the intended objective. Now by this point, we've identified our objective. We've selected our images, added our content, and verified our placements. I've gone ahead and scrolled further down in the Ad Create tool to the audience section. And you'll see the heading "who do you want your ads to reach" in the top left.

In this section, we're presented with a list of options. We'll focus on the first five: location, age, gender, languages, and demographics. I'll walk you through how to configure each one and provide some guidance for making the right choices.Now before we get started, I'll be referring to this graphic on the right side that looks a little like a fuel gauge. It's just under the heading Audience Definition. As we make our selections, Facebook will provide a detailed summary of the choices, indicate our potential reach, and gauge how specific or broad our targeting is. Use this gauge as a guideline. As you advertise more and more, you'll start to get a sense for how specific you need to be to generate the type of response you desire. You'll also get new ideas based on the data and results of your previous efforts.

Now before we get started, I'll be referring to this graphic on the right side that looks a little like a fuel gauge. It's just under the heading Audience Definition. As we make our selections, Facebook will provide a detailed summary of the choices, indicate our potential reach, and gauge how specific or broad our targeting is. Use this gauge as a guideline. As you advertise more and more, you'll start to get a sense for how specific you need to be to generate the type of response you desire. You'll also get new ideas based on the data and results of your previous efforts.

The only targeting option that is required is country targeting. Obviously, as a real estate agent, you want to get a bit more specific than that, unless you can travel across the country at the same pace as Santa Claus.

The audience will be the start of how you refine where these ads display. All the future targeting options you identify will be dependent upon this audience.

So we'll start by identifying a location. It's here that we can include a country, state, city, or even a ZIP code. I want to use Armonk, New York, for my location, so I'll go ahead and type that into the locations field. As we start typing, Facebook will be quick to provide a list of options that match our search criteria. Find the correct option and select it.

More specific options will override general ones. So at this point, we'll only be serving ads to people in Armonk, New York. But it's actually a bit more detailed than that. We're technically serving this ad to people within a 25-mile radius of Armonk, as indicated by this +25 next to the city name. If you are planning on targeting people in other countries, you should know that targeting by city is not available worldwide.

When you target each ad to smaller and more specific groups of people, you'll be able to customize your ad so it's more personalized and appealing to the audience you are trying to reach. In that case, let's adjust this location even further by clicking on the plus 25. You'll see that I get a new dialogue that includes multiple options. We can include only Armonk within a 10-, 25-, or 50-mile radius. It's also here that you can apply some exclusion targeting. Let's say we wanted to prevent our ad from being displayed in Pleasantville, which is a city next to Armonk.

I'll select Exclude Locations, and then type Pleasantville. Just as before, we'll select from the list, and then I'll choose Exclude. You can include a large number of cities, states, or countries. They'll work like OR statements. So if I had another city, say Bronxville, my ad will now be shown to anyone in Armonk within 25 miles excluding Pleasantville OR Bronxville.

Next up, you can identify age, gender, or even a language. If I am trying to sell in Armonk, I know that is an expensive, family-oriented community. Therefore I do not want to spend money advertising to young people. I am going to target people ages 30 to 60.

From my personal experience, I know that I have had more success working with women in this community than men, because I have learned that they are typically the key decision makers on residential property. So I will choose women for my gender selection, as I do not waste my advertising dollars on men.

For language, I'd like to be sure that only English-speaking people see this, as that is the only language I speak fluently. So I'll need to make sure that I type in English. If you had another language you are comfortable speaking, you could enter it here.

One last option in this first section is the ability to target a demographic. From the more demographics drop-down, you can identify a wide array of optional categories.

I hope you are sitting down for this one! This is where you are going to say to yourself, "Oh man, I am going to rule the real estate world! How are the dinosaurs who are not internet-savvy even surviving?"

Browse these categories, and then select one to see the targeting options available.

Remember how said Armonk was a community for families? I can go under Relationship Status and click Married. But I am not done-I can click more demographics, like life events-newly-engaged (6 months) and/or recently moved.

Honestly, it is going to feel like you're cheating. If you do this correctly, your advertising will be so targeted and get you so many leads that you will be asking yourself, "Is this even legal?"

Well, my answer it is... It is today! So let 'er rip!

Once you have selected a demographic, it will be included in your targeting. You could continue adding or remove items by choosing the x.

On the right-hand side, you will see a review of what we've just set up. All the way at the bottom, Facebook is going to indicate our potential reach. It says here how many people match the criteria.

Now, we haven't done our interest or behavior targeting yet, so we're going to expect that number to get smaller and smaller as we continue. Your audience is crucial to the success of your ad.

To make the most of your advertising money, start with an audience that meets the profile of your ideal client. That will help keep costs low and ensure that you are successful. I would then begin to tweak my campaign to increase conversions until I found the winning combo, and I would start to expand my audience to increase my reach. For example, my ideal client is in Armonk, but people within a 25-mile area of Armonk may want to buy or list a house here too. But your IDEAL client is in Armonk, so start there, and as you get more comfortable expand the reach to 5 miles, then 10 miles, and so on.