• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Social Media Examiner

Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

  • 🔥 Free Newsletter
  • ⭐ FREE Web3 Course
  • 🗓️ Our Events
    • Social Media Marketing World (Mar 13-15)
    • Other Industry Events
  • 💡 Society
  • ⚙️ Tools
  • 🎙️ Podcasts
    • Social Media Marketing Podcast
    • Social Media Marketing Talk Show
    • Web3 Business Podcast
    • Our YouTube Channel
  • 🎯 Partner With Us
    • Podcast Sponsorship
    • Email Sponsorship
      • Email Newsletter
      • Dedicated Email Blast
    • Event Sponsorship
      • Social Media Marketing World
    • Tools Sponsorship
  • 👋 About Us
    • Our Story
    • Articles
      • Web3
      • Instagram Marketing
      • Facebook Marketing
      • YouTube Marketing
      • LinkedIn Marketing
      • TikTok Marketing
      • Expert Interviews
  • Search
  • Social Media Marketing World10th annual. Biggest industry event. Sale ends soon!IMPROVE YOUR MARKETING

    How to Use Facebook Local Awareness Ads to Target Customers

    by Rocco Alberto Baldassarre / December 21, 2015

    social media tools Do you want to promote your local business to customers using Facebook?

    Have you heard of Local Awareness Ads?

    Local Awareness Ad campaigns are easy to set up and let you reach Facebook users based on the business location they’re closest to.

    In this article you’ll discover how to target customers near your business with Local Awareness Ads on Facebook.

    facebook local awareness ads
    Discover how to use Facebook Local Awareness Ads to target customers.

    Why Local Awareness Ads?

    Instead of using boosted posts or Facebook ads to drive online engagement, your business can get a greater return on its advertising investment with local awareness ads that are designed to bring customers through your door.

    You can set these ads up to serve people near your location with directions to your store. Or you can choose to provide a phone number so they can easily call you. Or let users message you if they have a question. All with the click of a button from your ad.

    The best part is how easy it is to scale your campaigns to promote multiple locations to local customers. Here's how.

    #1: Create Your Local Awareness Campaign

    While you can create a local awareness ad from the Ads Manager, you'll want to create these campaigns in Facebook Power Editor because it gives you more flexibility with audience targeting.

    If you don't use the Power Editor Chrome extension, you can access the Power Editor dashboard from the Facebook Ads Manager by clicking on the Power Editor link in the horizontal menu at the top of the page.

    power editor link
    You can now open Power Editor from within the standard Facebook Ads Manager navigation menu.

    Once you've opened Power Editor, you'll need to start a new campaign by clicking the Create New button. Then you'll open the Objective drop-down menu and select Local Awareness from the list.

    select local awareness
    Select Local Awareness as your objective if you want to promote a local business.

    From here, enter the first location of the business you want to promote. It's important that you use only one location per local awareness ad campaign so you can optimize the performance of individual campaigns in the most granular way possible.

    use one business location per campaign
    Remember to use only one business location per campaign.

    #2: Define the Ad Target

    To determine who sees your ads on Facebook, you'll edit the audience section of your ad set. You need to determine two parameters: the geographic location you want to target and the custom audience you want to target.

    For instance, the ad group we created above is targeting everyone who logs into Facebook in Aventura, Florida. If you want to promote your local clothing boutique, you could refine this audience with behavior targeting to reach only shoppers in Aventura, Florida.

    The Conference You've Been Waiting For

    As a small business marketer, you can probably only pick one or two events to attend each year. Get back into the game with an unbeatable conference experience and expert training at Social Media Marketing World in sunny San Diego, California—from your friends at Social Media Examiner.

    🔥🔥 As a valued reader, you can save $350 if you act now! Sale Ends Wednesday!

    CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE
    use behavior targeting
    Use behavior targeting to drill down to the right audience for your ad.

    There are hundreds of targeting combinations you can use on Facebook. If you want to use more than one targeting method per business location or in a split test, be sure to create a new ad set for each one. This will let you accurately track the performance of each targeting method.

    Tools Resource Guide

    Looking for something to make your life easier?

    Discover the tools we recommend to drive engagement, save you time, and boost sales across your entire marketing funnel or business.

    Whether you need help planning content, organizing social posts, or developing your strategy, you’ll find something for every situation.

    FIND YOUR NEXT FAVORITE TOOL

    For instance, if you want to target online shoppers as well as in-store customers, create two different ad sets so you can customize the budget and track the performance of each one separately.

    use behavior targeting
    These ad sets promote the same business location but target audiences with different behaviors.

    #3: Design Your Ads

    To get the most out of local awareness ads, you need to give the people who see your ad a reason to stop by your store or contact you. Let people know why they should pay attention to your message early in the ad copy.

    First, in the text portion of your ad, consider highlighting a promotion and include a call to action.

    Next, choose an image that is relevant to what you're offering. If you're a restaurant and you want more reservations for dinner, you might use a picture that shows a plated meal or a welcoming host. If you're trying to attract in-store shoppers, an image like the one in the ad below would work well.

    Finally, use the description line to give customers one more reason to click on your ad. You'll also want to include one of Facebook's call-to-action buttons to encourage viewers to call your establishment, get directions to your location, send you a message or learn more about your offer on a specific page of your website.

    Following these steps, here's what a local awareness ad might look like.

    use one business location per campaign
    Successful local awareness ads motivate people to interact with your business.

    Remember you'll need to create ads in each ad set of your campaigns.

    #4: Scale Your Campaign for Multiple Locations

    If you have more than one brick-and-mortar location, you can quickly scale your local awareness campaigns for all of your stores.

    First, select the original campaign and duplicate it.

    use one business location per campaign
    Complete campaigns can be scaled easily.

    Next, rename the copied campaign to match the additional location name. In the example below, the copied campaign is renamed for Boston.

    rename each campaign to match its location
    Rename each campaign to match its location.

    Select both ad sets for the newest location and change the location targeting to match the audience in the additional location.

    adjust your targeting to each location
    Adjust your targeting to each location.

    Now you can either modify the existing ads from the original campaign or create new ads. Considering how you can set up your target location at the ad set level, it makes sense to create location-specific ads to tailor the customer experience. This is a good idea if you feature images of your stores and they're different for each location.

    Conclusion

    By using these tips, you can create a local awareness ad campaign for one or several of your locations in minutes. Each of your campaigns can drive more foot traffic by giving customers directions, making it easy for them to call you and offering the option to use messages.

    What do you think? Have your tried local awareness ads for your business yet? Did you see an increase in foot traffic? Have you developed techniques that helped you increase your return on investment? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

    how to use facebook local awareness ads to target customers
    Tips for using Facebook Local Awareness Ads to target customers.

    Get Your FREE Course: Web3 for Beginners

    Web 3 for Beginners

    Curious about Web3, but don't know where to start or who to trust?

    Introducing Web3 for Beginners, a course taught by Michael Stelzner, the founder of Social Media Examiner.

    Learn the basics of Web3 and apply it to your business with this FREE comprehensive course.


    CLICK HERE TO GET FREE ACCESS

    Tags: Facebook, Facebook Ads

    About the authorRocco Alberto Baldassarre

    Founder and CEO of Zebra Advertisement, a SEM consulting firm. Rocco consults companies that spend up to US$5M in ad spend per day and speaks 3 languages.
    Other posts by Rocco Alberto Baldassarre »

    Get Social Media Examiner’s Future Articles in Your Inbox!

    Get our latest articles delivered to your email inbox and get the FREE Social Media Marketing Industry Report (39 pages, 50+ charts)!

    Industry Report Cover

    Worth Exploring:

    Facebook

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Instagram

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    YouTube

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Linkedin

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Web3

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Social Media Marketing Industry Report

    Get Free Report →

    Social Marketing Trends

    The data you've been missing!

    Need a new plan? Find out how thousands of marketers plan to change their social marketing activities in our 14th annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report. This 39-page report reveals what marketers have planned for their organic social activities, video marketing, social ads, and more. Get this free report now and never miss another great article from Social Media Examiner.

    Enter your email to get
    our free report:


    Footer

    Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
    Copyright © 2023 Social Media Examiner®
    All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy.

    Helpful Links

    • About us
    • Our content via email
    • Our podcasts
    • Our YouTube channel
    • Our live show
    • Our industry report
    • Sponsorship opportunities
    • RSS
    • Accessibility