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Facebook location targeting demystified

February 4, 2015 By Dennis Yu 14 Comments

A few years ago, when you chose a location target on Facebook, you naturally assumed you were targeting people by where they lived. That worked for local businesses and nearly anyone except travel-related companies.

But if you were selling rooms for a Las Vegas hotel, knowing where they live or where they currently are doesn’t help you much. By the time the prospect is in Vegas, they’ve already made their travel arrangements. And targeting people who like Las Vegas wasn’t helpful, either.

In the last year, mobile traffic on Facebook has exploded.
Nearly 70% of the Facebook traffic for the Golden State Warriors is from mobile.
And that’s made location super important, yet super confusing.

You see, somebody might live in San Francisco, but work in Menlo Park (at Facebook headquarters).

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They might be traveling to New York on business.
They could be at the SFO or OAK airports.

In each situation, they’re in a different state of mind (trying to check into the flight, chilling on a Sunday afternoon, busy at work, etc…)
And each of these is driven by location, largely on mobile.
Dayparting, the ability to turn ads on and off at certain hours or days of the week, isn’t enough.

So now Facebook has significantly enhanced location targeting, especially if you’re targeting audiences in the United States.
And you can use most of these features without needing to request special access.
You can even use them in combination with your custom audiences, interest targets, and so forth.

If you’re a retailer or local store, you better be paying attention here.
This new location targeting applies across all ad objectives– website conversions, boosting posts, check-ins, video views, etc…

You can target a country, state/region, DMA, city, ZIP or postal code or a specific business address.
And you can even exclude a particular state/region, city, zip or postal code

Apply radius from a business address or from the center of a city.
Just be careful when you’re doing this in a major metro, like NYC, where another mile could add in a few million people.

10454464_10100578638745299_502226637653806025_n__1423012479_24.196.180.154

According to Facebook directly, there are four ways advertisers can choose to reach people within a location:

  • (Default in FB Interfaces) Everyone in a location: People who live in that location as stated on their Facebook profile (“current city”) as well as people who have that location as their most recent, based on information from their mobile device.
  • Recently in a location: People whose most recent location as is the selected area, as determined by information from their mobile device. This includes people who live there or who may be traveling there.
  • People who live in a location: People whose stated location from their Facebook profile “current city” is within that location. This is also validated by IP address and aggregate information about their friends’ stated profile locations.
  • People traveling in a location: People whose most recent location is the selected area, as determined by information from their mobile device, and are greater than 100 miles from their stated current city from their Facebook profiles.

Grab their two page guide here.
If you’re not in the United States, international postcode targeting is rolling out in 31 other countries, so hang tight.

Consider the kinds of stuff you can now do:

  • Golden State Warriors fans who check in at the Oracle Area, but live in San Francisco– make them proud of the new arena being built in Mission Bay.
  • Alcatraz tours and other sightseeing companies targeting people who have just landed at the airport (zip code plus 1 mile radius).
  • T-Mobile targeting Verizon in areas where their service is weak, with different messaging for business travelers, casual tourists, and residents.
  • Hillary Clinton targeting people who are on the fence about her, have made political contributions in the past, but just live in zip codes that matter to her.
  • You’re moving your store to a new location and want to advertise to people who live and work there.
  • Downtown food trucks in Portland, Oregon or cruise ships in Fort Lauderdale want to attract the tourists who have have excess cash, but not waste money on residents.

Are you thinking about the possibilities beyond just the default?

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Dennis Yu

Dennis Yu is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of BlitzMetrics. He is an internationally recognized lecturer in Facebook marketing, having been featured in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, LA Times, National Public Radio, TechCrunch, Fox News, CBS Evening News, and AdWeek. Dennis has held leadership positions at Yahoo! and American Airlines. He studied Finance and Economics from Southern Methodist University and London School of Economics. Besides being a Facebook data and ad geek, you can find him eating chicken wings or playing Ultimate Frisbee in a city near you. You can contact him at dennis@portage.co.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy LinkedIn profile

Latest posts by Dennis Yu (see all)

  • Buying links gives way to buying influence– is it the same game? - June 10, 2015
  • Facebook location targeting demystified - February 4, 2015
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Filed Under: Social Media Networking SMM Tagged With: facebook

Comments

  1. Dennis Yu says

    September 16, 2016 at 5:38 am

    Nick— thanks!

    And even more powerful is geo-ip targeting combined with custom audiences and lookalikes! Have you looked into the store visit objective and the new Facebook offers tool?

    Reply
  2. Susan Soltrelly says

    September 16, 2016 at 2:33 am

    Awesome share Dennis.. I’m a true believer that without geo location advertising is worthless on Facebook or any other platform. Geo targeting is what’s up for local marketers.

    Reply
  3. Nick says

    September 12, 2016 at 11:32 am

    Thanks for sharing the precious information.I definitely implement this in my blog.Keep it up!Hoping for more useful articles.
    Nick would love you to read ..Facebook custom audience from email marketing segmentsMy Profile

    Reply
  4. Rick says

    July 22, 2015 at 8:36 am

    Great Post Dennis Yu, good advice going to use this to get more people to my page.

    Reply
  5. Rishton ka sansar says

    February 12, 2015 at 10:04 am

    hi………Very awesome and encouraging Blog post. sure I am going to implement these in my blogging journey.The information you provided is very help full for Facebook users. thank you for sharing. happy blogging.

    Reply
  6. Hanif0 says

    February 10, 2015 at 1:09 pm

    Hi Dennis,

    Great post and share!!! Keep up the good work… Thanks for sharing this valuable information..Really enjoyed reading it… outdoor lighting design idea

    Thanks..
    Hanif0 would love you to read ..PenDant LightsMy Profile

    Reply
  7. Raees says

    February 10, 2015 at 1:18 pm

    Hello Dennis Yu
    Well Explained
    If you want to know fake Facebook users all you need to read below article
    Raees would love you to read ..How to Identify Fake Accounts in Facebook?My Profile

    Reply
  8. Chloe Evans says

    February 10, 2015 at 3:24 am

    Hey Dennis This blog of yours is very informative and i learn something from it, I’ve already read it several times .You’ve given me such useful ideas and increased my interest ..You have mentioned the most significant points in this post. Well written. Thanks for sharing! Hope to hear more from you!

    Reply
  9. Sumit Kumar says

    February 7, 2015 at 6:29 am

    “Hello,

    Thanks for sharing good information, awesome post..keep it up…!

    I recommended mobile app development services, android, iphone app development india.

    Thank you!”

    Reply
  10. hieu says

    February 7, 2015 at 4:01 am

    This is really good article. I felt like reading it again, because as I learn more,. The information you provided is very helpful. thank for your information that you shared

    Reply
  11. Carl edwards says

    February 6, 2015 at 8:00 am

    Hey Dennis,

    Thank you for the information. I’m new to having a website and I’m looking into setting up facebook Ads in the UK. I will be Setting my first Ad today and Target my local area. Hopefully I get some success from this. Thanks again.

    Reply
  12. C S Sudheer says

    February 6, 2015 at 6:44 am

    Hello Denis,
    This is really nice article. I felt like reading it again, because as I learn more, my interest increases . The information you provided is very helpfull.

    Reply
  13. Dennis Yu says

    February 6, 2015 at 12:47 am

    Marcie– thanks. Gail is nothing but awesome!
    I first met her perhaps 10 years ago and was impressed with her knowledge and genuineness to help. It’s caused me to focus more on what’s important, instead of being at every conference. Much easier to share online like this!
    Dennis Yu would love you to read ..Yes and No on guest posting.My Profile

    Reply
  14. Marcie says

    February 5, 2015 at 4:48 pm

    Dennis, this is great. I only considered geo-targeting after an e-mail from Gail. But as I learn more, my interest increases because I have a community site and the information you provided is SUPER helpful. Thanks for sharing.
    Marcie would love you to read ..Read My Author Income Article on Pen & ProsperMy Profile

    Reply

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