B2B Facebook Targeting: Best Practices for Reaching Your B2B Audience

When you think of business-to-business (B2B) advertising on social media, your first thought is likely geared toward LinkedIn — and that’s not wrong! At least, not necessarily. While LinkedIn is seen as the end-all-be-all for B2B advertising and targeting, there’s another social platform out there that can help you reach your professional audiences.

B2B Facebook targeting and advertising is a widely overlooked opportunity for businesses, and we’re here to set the record straight about the opportunities Facebook’s B2B targeting and ads can offer businesses by offering some best practices to help you effectively reach your B2B audience.

By the way — WebFX’s Facebook advertising services for B2B and business-to-consumer (B2C) brands are top-notch. Don’t believe us? Just check out our 395+ Clutch reviews and testimonials!

Team up with WebFX for your next B2B Facebook ad campaign by giving us a call at 888-601-5359 or contacting us online today.

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Why use B2B Facebook targeting?

Facebook’s B2B audience targeting gets a bad rap. There, we said it. But Facebook’s B2B ad targeting has the capability to be as specific and detailed as LinkedIn’s dynamic audiences — at least, if you follow some best practices and strategies.

With almost 3 billion active users and a median cost per click that’s significantly less expensive than LinkedIn, Facebook is essentially a gold mine of opportunity for B2B targeted advertising, and we’ve got the tips you need to tap into it.

2 types of B2B Facebook audiences

Facebook’s B2B targeting options may not be as niche and specific as LinkedIn’s, but there are still valuable audiences you can reach. Read on to learn about the two main B2B Facebook targeting options you can explore today.

1. Facebook Lookalike audiences

Facebook’s B2B Lookalike audiences are a great way to reach new people who share similar characteristics with your existing audience. In turn, they may also be interested in your business.

Lookalike audiences are created from existing Custom Audiences you identify as a source audience. Facebook leverages data like demographics and behaviors from your source audience to find other people who share those qualities, or “look like” your source audience.

Once you create your Lookalike audience, you can assign a percentage range to indicate how closely you want your Lookalike audience to mirror your source audience. The smaller your percentage, the closer it’ll match your source audience. On the other hand, the larger the percentage, the broader your audience will be.

2. Facebook B2B Enterprise Employees

Rather than using Facebook’s company and job title targeting, consider using Facebook’s B2B Enterprise Employee targeting. Located in “Detailed Targeting” under “More Categories,” Enterprise Employee categories target employees of small, medium, and large B2B companies.

Specific targeting for Facebook’s B2B Enterprise Employee targeting options are as follows:

• Small B2B enterprise employees (10–200 employees)
• Medium B2B enterprise employees (200–500 employees)
• Large B2B enterprise employees (500+ employees)

Facebook B2B Enterprise Employee audience targeting is an effective method for reaching better audiences that will find your ads relevant.

4 B2B Facebook targeting best practices

Read on for some tried and true B2B Facebook targeting best practices to help you nail your next campaign.

1. Use first-party data

We’ve said it in previous articles, but we’ll say it again: First-party data is your friend! First-party customer data gives you invaluable insight into your audience, especially your high-value audience members who are more likely to convert.

Use your first-party customer data to help focus your B2B Facebook targeting efforts so you can ensure you’re setting your B2B targeting options for your most profitable audiences.

2. Use exclusion tools to narrow your audience

Just like you filter out inconsistent or outdated customer data in your customer relationship management (CRM) system, you can filter out B2B audiences on Facebook who you don’t want to reach with your campaigns.

Facebook’s audience exclusion features for campaigns are a great way to ensure your B2B Facebook ads are being seen by the right people. Better yet, you’re lowering the risk of funneling resources into a B2B ad campaign on Facebook that isn’t being shown to people who will engage with it.

3. Create ICPs to narrow your B2B audience search

Ideal customer profiles (ICPs) are incredibly helpful tools for B2B companies trying to reach their target audience. An ICP is a fictitious company that has all the qualities and characteristics of those who would best benefit from a B2B company’s products or services.

In essence, ICPs help B2B companies better understand who they’re selling to. More importantly, ICPs assist B2B companies in focusing their marketing efforts. That includes B2B Facebook targeting.

With an ICP on hand, you can identify details about your audience like interests, behaviors, preferences, and everything else under the sun. Using this information, you can utilize B2B Facebook targeting options with the confidence of knowing you’re effectively reaching your target audience.

4. Strategize with confidence with the help of RevenueCloudFX

RevenueCloudFX is WebFX’s very own revenue marketing platform that unifies sales, marketing, and advertising data. With all your data in one place, things like audience segmentation, campaign data analysis, and lead tracking are simplified and organized.

The increased organization RevenueCloudFX affords its users makes strategizing for B2B Facebook targeting that much easier. Audience segmentation and ad campaign analysis tools allow you to make data-backed decisions regarding changes to your Facebook targeting strategies.

WebFX helps companies like yours reach their business goals

“Our marketing department has a lot of key performance indicators that WebFX has always helped us achieve… WebFX has always worked hard to make sure that we’re getting what we need out of the partnership, not just what may seem like the best result.”

HydroWorx

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Develop a B2B Facebook targeting strategy that reaches your audience with WebFX

As we said earlier, B2B campaigns on Facebook have the capacity to be as effective as LinkedIn when it comes to reaching your audience.  WebFX has had the pleasure of helping partners launch over 650 ad campaigns, and that includes targeted B2B campaigns on Facebook!

Contact us online or give us a call at 888-601-5359 to speak with one of our digital marketing specialists to learn more about how WebFX (and RevenueCloudFX) can assist you with B2B Facebook targeting and ad campaigns.