Alix’s Take on the Scariest Facebook Targeting Options of All Time

If you’re anything like us, then you’ve been sharing humble brag holiday snaps, embarrassing time hops and hilarious GIFs on Facebook for nigh-on a decade.

In this time, Facebook advertising has come an awfully long way and you can now target social users to a creepily specific level. Although, this can be great for business purposes, it is slightly scary how much this social giant knows about us all.

Check out what PPC Specialist, Alix Charles, thinks are some of the scariest Facebook targeting options of the moment below:

1. Likely number of cars in the household

It’s quite surprising how few automotive companies use Facebook ads for two reasons:

1. CPC on AdWords is usually expensive in the automotive industry.
2. Facebook has a huge amount of creepy targeting options.

The example below is a strong estimate on how many cars there are in the household… multi-car discount ads anyone?

2. Almost anything you’ve told Facebook

You can target people based on anything you’ve inputted into your bio. For example, your employer. In the example below, we can see that ads could go directly to people that work at Liberty Marketing. Fear not though, you need an audience of at least 1,000 people to run a campaign.

3. Education level and fields of study

The recruitment dream. Many recruitment companies will disagree with you (or work with you), but Facebook ads could be a place to put job postings.

For example, we can target people that have a Master’s Degree and narrow by their field of study e.g. marketing:

4. Likely to move and other residential statuses

Perfect for removal van companies, you can target people considered ‘likely to move’ based on web behaviour. Or maybe furniture stores could target ‘recent homebuyers’? Decorators could target ‘recent mortgage borrower’… the list is goes on.

5. Anything from Axicom’s financial data

Axicom provides Facebook with a lot of data. One of the things it can help to target is the number of lines of credit a person has. For example, we can target people with 3 lines of credit, which targets people within households with people whose total number of credit cards (bank cards, retail cards, gas cards) is 3.

Talking of which, big brands and department stores may get excited by the following…

… and try targeting the high-end department store cards spending method. Alternatively, eCommerce stores would do well to exclude the people whose spending habits are primarily cash.

6. Late technology adopters

Do you sell phones, tablets or laptops for a living? Then Facebook can help find you a technophobe who is well-overdue a device upgrade.

Targeting the people who are late technology adopters effectively means you target people who access Facebook on older devices or operating systems before Windows 7, Mac OS X or Windows NT 6.2.

7. Household composition

Another options is to target based on what someone’s household make-up looks like. For example, companies selling elderly care products may benefit from targeting the ‘veterans at home’ audience:

8. Travel profile

There’s loads of targeting options for anything travel related. For example, you can target frequent travellers. But, why not narrow this down by people who recently returned from a trip 1 week ago? Holiday compensation lawyers at the ready…

9. Parental status

Remember when you posted about the arrival of little baby Jimmy? Yeah, Facebook remembers too…

10. Automotive purchases

Perfect for insurance companies, car/motorbike accessories retailers, blah, blah, blah…

In fact, insurers, why not target people who recently purchased a used motorbike? You could upsell breakdown cover too… just saying…

11. Income

Most of the time, when you’re selling something, you’ll want to target high-earners with the most expensive product you have. Which is creepy enough. However, there has been increased popularity in targeting the not-so-well-off. Targeting people with an income of £20k-£25k could allow you to show deals that can’t be missed.

Note that pay-day loads are not allowed to advertise on Facebook… thought I should mention that here.

12. Friends of…

This is a pretty big category that allows you to target people who are friends with someone who recently:

• Got married
• Got engaged
• Moved house

Or people who are within a certain timeframe including:

• Close friends of women with a birthday in 7-30 days
• Close friends of people with a birthday in 7-30 days

Need Help With Your Facebook Advertising?

Whether you provide holiday compensation advice, sell birthday gifts, or work for a luxury retail brand, if you could do with some Facebook advertising guidance, heed Alix’s advice then get in touch with our expert team

Read more:
Digital Audience Targeting: Which Types Should You Target?
Should Social Influencers be More Responsible?