Dive Brief:
- Facebook is expanding its Lookalike Audiences ad targeting capabilities across the globe with its new International Lookalike Audiences tool, according to a blog post.
- Marketers can upload an audience list of at least 100 people from one country and use that list to target similar Facebook users in another country.
- About 60% of U.S. Facebook users "are connected to a business in a foreign country," according to Facebook.
Dive Insight:
Once marketers have researched and tested campaigns to find out what their ideal customer looks like, ad budgets can be adjusted to target those people through "lookalike audience" ad targeting capabilities. By expanding the targeting tool across borders, Facebook is taking some of the guesswork out of the hands of marketers who are looking to broaden their reach around the world with the same types of consumers they're already reaching in the U.S.
Between Google and Facebook, marketers have access to an amazing wealth of consumer data for micro-targeted ad campaigns, ranging from search to display to mobile video ad formats. But targeting isn't always everything it's cracked up to be: Proctor & Gamble, the world's largest advertiser, recently rolled back the amount of targeting it's doing with its Facebook advertising after finding its strategy was overly narrow and ads with a broader reach performed better.