3 Proven Ways to Target Your Ideal Audience with Meta Ads in 2025 (Types and Use Case )

This podcast explains the three main types of audience targeting available for Meta Ads in 2025: custom, lookalike, and saved audiences. It provides guidance on how to leverage these options effectively for advertising campaigns and emphasizes the importance of reading audience descriptions to ensure accurate targeting. Additionally, the podcast highlights best practices for optimizing audience targeting, such as considering audience size when using custom and lookalike audiences.

Saved Audience

• 00:01:50 Saved audiences, also known as detailed targeting, allow advertisers to target specific demographics, interests, and behaviors without needing custom or lookalike audiences. This method uses the information users provide in their profiles to categorize them, including location, age, gender, and interests. Advertisers should read the detailed audience description to ensure accurate targeting.

Custom Audience

• 00:09:40 Custom audiences allow advertisers to retarget users who have previously interacted with their business. This can include users who visited a website, engaged with a Facebook page, or interacted with ads. It's recommended to use custom audiences when their size is significant to achieve optimal results. Advertisers should always strive for a large and relevant custom audience for the best outcomes.

Lookalike Audience

• 00:13:28 Lookalike audiences expand the reach of custom audiences by targeting users with similar characteristics to those who have already engaged with a business. These audiences are created based on a source audience, which could be a website, Facebook Page, or custom audience. It's essential that the source audience is large and engaging to create a relevant and effective lookalike audience, otherwise the audience will be too broad to be effective.

Location Targeting

• 00:03:05 Meta's location targeting feature enables advertisers to target specific cities, states, or even areas within a country. The platform uses audience size to select which cities are available for targeting. This method allows advertisers to specify the target area, but the platform pre-selects cities based on audience size, which limits complete customization.

Audience Targeting Best Practices

• 00:12:59 When crafting Meta Ads, it's crucial to focus on building a large and relevant custom audience before considering lookalike audiences. Avoid using small custom audiences or targeting too broadly with lookalike audiences. Carefully consider the size of your audiences, ensuring a large, relevant audience size, to avoid wasting money on advertising and ensure effective targeting and a higher return on ad spend.