Facebook ads are about to get even more personal, now telling marketers more about the people who pass by their businesses and whether those potential customers may have seen a brand’s ad on the platform.
The social media company is rolling out two new ad products aimed squarely at small businesses who have typically been reluctant to fork out for prime placement on the site.
The data, from Facebook’s page insights tool, will be presented in trend format, showing what range of people are likely to be nearby at certain times.
The first tool will let marketers to tailor ads that encourage them to come into the store.
Small businesses which have multiple locations can target their adverts based on where their customers actually are.
As an example, Facebook says, “a cafe with multiple locations … could choose to automatically populate the city name in their ad copy, depending on where the people seeing the ad are. So, people in Glasgow would see ‘join us for lunch in Glasgow’, while people in Bristol would see ‘join us for lunch in Bristol’.”
Demographic targeting by location
The second tool lets businesses monitor demographics of all Facebook users who have passed through their area – ideally to allow them to better target adverts to potential visitors.
That information includes standard advertising metrics like age and gender, but also facts like the proportion of people passing who are local residents versus tourists.
The feature also lets businesses link (in aggregate) the people who have seen their ads to the people actually passing the store, so they can discover how well-targeted their adverts actually are.