Ever since Facebook released their feature of allowing brands and businesses to target their Page Posts, marketers have embraced the opportunity that the network had provided. Recently though, there have been complaints with the actual targeting of these ads, with marketers saying that the people that they have been able to reach through the feature are often not relevant Facebook users. They have complained that the feature does not easily allow them to reach those consumers that they truly need to reach to see success with their Page Posts. Now, it appears that Facebook is upgrading this feature because of some of the complaints that the company has received.
We have released an update to Promoted Posts to target spend to the countries where most of your fans reside by default. You can still control targeting on your own to ensure only the most relevant people see your posts in their news feed.
How do I make sure that my ads get to my intended audience?
The best way to address this is by refining the audience that is eligible to see your posts. This can be done by targeting your Page post to specific locations and audiences. Learn more about Page post targeting in the Facebook Help Center.
This is the entire extent of the announcement from Facebook, but Inside Facebook allows a bit more insight into what is really going on with this update. The unofficial Facebook blog tells us that Page users were becoming increasingly frustrated as they paid to target Page Posts based on a promise that the targeting of these posts would help them reach exactly the people they were looking to reach and then finding that they were absolutely not reaching everyone that they intended to.
Facebook says it took this feedback into account and decided to focus the budget on where the majority of fans come from. This could help some pages reach more relevant audiences, however, it’s recommended that page owners select their own targeting criteria rather than relying on the default.
From Inside Facebook
So, what I’m getting from this announcement is that Facebook is changing some things around, but in order to improve things in the way that is desired, Page owners should take things into their own hands rather than rely on Facebook’s default targeting settings.
According to their reporting of the update, Inside Facebook is saying that the best way to get the most out Facebook in terms of targeting posts is to possibly use a third-party ad vendor. That way, Page users are able to access the Facebook Power Editor, which essentially allows more highly targeted ads as well as a better control over where the posts end up, be it in the News Feed or on mobile. However, if keeping Facebook advertising within the network is the idea, then taking over targeting options and customizing them is apparently the best option. Trusting the default is always risky, for only the marketer knows exactly what they want or need.
