I am doing my second Facebook ad. It is for a local business, so I am really targeting the location. The first ad I did I only targeted the city and some keywords and it had potential of reaching 5,000 people. We got two likes from that ad and one of them was from a different country. I thought ok, they could have had their location wrong.

Now I’m doing the second ad that just started running last night. This time I am targeting a 10 mile radius of the city with some keywords. It’s set to potentially reach 100,000 people. We have received 7 likes as of last night and four of those 7 are in different countries.

This seems to be very unproductive for a local business that can’t service international customers. Is this a bug in the Facebook ads system? Or is there some secret to doing targeted ads?

Thanks so much!!
Angela

@nurby Hi Angela

I pulled this from Facebook’s official page regarding Ads (you can find it here).

Facebook determines the location of a user based on IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, which can help identify the country or city where a user is physically located. If a user has listed a current address on their profile (timeline), they may see ads targeted to that location, regardless of where they are currently located. Ads are not targeted to a user’s geographic networks or any other information.

I think what FB is saying is that if a person has filled in their address details on their profile then they will see ads targeted to that location, otherwise their location will be determined by their IP Address.

So, if they created their FB profile when they lived in the USA and put their address as New York, USA but are physically in Brisbane, Australia, they would see ads targeted to New York. If they delete that address information then they would see ads targeted where they physically are.

Hope that ramble makes sense!

Russell

@nurby Hey! I’m a rookie at the whole fb AD thing as well, but I watched a very helpful webinar by Amy Porterfield that gives you the basics. All you have to do is is enroll here and its free! http://www.amyporterfield.com/webinars/ultimate-facebook-makeover/.

I’d suggest you make sure you specify your exact location (city, state etc). Ads tend to take a little time to catch on, and you may want to create several ads within the same campaign and experiment with them. Try uploading different thumbnails and directing the people who click on your ad to you web page if you have one, or to a customized app within your Facebook site. Personally, I have 5 different Ads running right now, all targeting different people with diverse interests. A good tip to remember when creating an Ad is using your competition as an specific interest so that your competitors audience is also targeted. Amy explains all of this in further detail. So, don’t give up! persistence and determination is key!! Cheers!

That does seem strange that you haven’t received any local likes from your ad, @nurby  Judging from these parameters – wider range around a city, decent size audience, I’m surprised you haven’t gotten more local likes.   Definitely some good advice from @kimberlyjimenez