When setting up a paid advertising campaign on social media, you’ll typically have to choose between broad targeting and interest targeting. However depending on the platform you choose, these will be shown under different names. 

Generally speaking, ‘broad targeting’ means showing your ad to a wider range of people, often based on their demographic data or location. 

‘Interest targeting’ may mean targeting what’s known as a ‘lookalike audience’, so people who appear to share the same characteristics and interests as your existing customers, or those of your competitor. 

Alternatively, it may mean targeting customers based on relevant topics they’ve shown an interest in. 

Why many small brands choose to start with broad targeting

Small brands often start out with a broad targeting approach for one of the following reasons: 

• They think they want ‘brand awareness’, when in fact getting more sales was the main objective of their campaign
• They believe that reaching a wider audience would help them achieve more sales 
• They don’t know who their audience is yet, so they don’t want to narrow down their options

Why it doesn’t work as well as they’d hoped

By its nature, broad targeting is better suited to big brands with bigger budgets that are targeting a larger cross-section of people. 

For brands that are already driving a large volume of sales, and may have exhausted their initial specific marketing segments, broad targeting is often the logical next step. At this point, their website is refined, their tracking is perfected, and they’re ready to find who else their product resonates with.  

But if you’re running a broad campaign with a small budget, you’ll find it gets eaten up quickly, often without translating to sufficient sales. 

When we spoke to paid ad managers about their experience of managing paid accounts, many said they regretted not leaving broad targeting behind sooner, recognising the cost of this decision:

“Early on, I wasted money on broad targeting, which led to low conversions. If I could go back, I’d spend more time learning about our ideal customer before starting campaigns.” – Paolo Piscatelli, Owner & CEO, Alarm Relay.

So, what’s the alternative? 

Paid ads are an expensive way to find out who your audience is. Your budget will go a lot further if you’re able to start your paid ads journey with some strong insights here already.  

“In the beginning, I wasted money by targeting too broadly. I didn’t focus on specific customer segments, which led to low conversions. If I could start over, I’d spend more time researching our target audience and refining our ad targeting to use the budget more effectively.” – Andrew Merrick, Owner of Aquasoltech

But your budget will go even further if you already know who your best customers are – not just who visits your website.

Essentially, when it comes to your audience, you want to go as specific as possible with your campaigns to begin with. 

The challenge as a smaller brand is finding this information. Shopify data is limited, and changing cookie regulations have made it hard to build up a clear picture of who your audience is. 

👋 FERO plugs straight into your e-commerce store, and builds up a unique picture of your customers using over 430 data points that don’t rely on cookies. 

But we don’t stop there. We also optimise your checkout experience for each individual customer based on their own unique needs and preferences, meaning you can get even more people through from click to purchase. 

And if they do abandon your website with items still in their cart? We’ll show you how to tailor your abandoned cart email to their specific pain points to bring them back. Try FERO for free.