If you’ve started talking to us about your website or digital marketing, we’ve probably asked you a lot of questions about your target market. Who are your customers? What do they care about? Where do they spend their time online? Do you really need to answer all of these? The short answer is yes.
Every marketing decision, from the words on your homepage to the people who see your Facebook Ads, depends on knowing exactly who you’re talking to. Get it right, and your budget reaches people who are ready to listen. Get it wrong, and you’re shouting into the void.
In this guide, we’ll cover what a target market is, why it matters, what you need to know about yours, and how to put it to work with Facebook Ads.
- Your target market is the people most likely to buy from you. Focusing on them makes every marketing dollar work harder.
- Understanding them shapes everything: your messaging, tone, offers, channels and even what you sell.
- The most important question is "why should they buy from you?" Know what they value and what tips the scales in your favour.
- Facebook Ads lets you reach them with precision through core, custom and lookalike audiences.
- Match your audiences to the marketing funnel, then keep testing and refining as your customers evolve.
What is a target market (and who should be in it)?
Your target market is anyone you focus your products, communication and marketing on. Your target audiences are the specific groups of people within it, defined by shared traits like interests, demographics or location.
It should be the people most likely to need or want what you sell. Outliers might buy from you too, but it’s far better for your budget to talk to the people most likely to pick up what you’re putting down.
For example, if you’re selling Peppa Pig merchandise, your core target audience is most likely going to be parents and grandparents of children who love Peppa Pig (it may also include the children themselves, so they can beg their parents until they cave in).
You may find you have a few equally important core audiences. Together, they make up your target audience.
Why understanding your target market matters
You need to know what messaging and 'tone' will hit home
It’s no good talking in engineering terminology to people outside of the engineering industry. It’d be as effective as using ‘rizz’ and other Gen Z slang on people over the age of 70. Your words, style and content need to suit your audience if you want them to resonate and drive action.
You need to know what matters to them
To get potential customers interested in your brand, you need to know what information to present: what they like, what they need and what will convince them.
You need to be able to find them, and then reach them
Marketing channels aren’t created equal. Your audience might prefer Instagram over LinkedIn, or keep one for leisure and the other for work. Some still prefer a phone call to an email. Knowing where they spend their time means your efforts land where they’ll actually be seen.
You can't meet needs you don't know about
Does free delivery make or break a sale? Do reviews drive their decisions? Would they rather book online or talk to an expert first? Any chance you get to ask your customers, take it. Their feedback is gold, and it helps you adapt as their needs change rather than getting left behind.
What do you need to know about your target market?
To truly connect with your customers-to-be, you need to put yourself in their shoes. Start by asking:
- Who are they, and what matters to them?
- What problems are they facing, and what solutions are they looking for?
- Are they the decision-makers, or are others involved?
- Where do they spend time online, and how do they like to communicate?
- What language do they use, and what path to purchase do they prefer?
- What could tip the scales in your favour?
Build your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Your answers come together in an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): a clear picture of the customer who benefits most from what you offer, including their traits, goals and challenges.
The best ICPs come from real conversations, not guesswork. Run customer surveys, chat to your existing clients and look at how they interact with your business. If you keep getting DMs asking whether your product comes in reusable packaging, for example, sustainability is probably a shared value you can build your messaging around.
The most important question: why should they buy from you?
If there’s one thing you need to know about your target market (apart from where to find them), it’s why they should choose you. It all comes down to “what’s in it for them?”
- Know what they care about most. Is it quality, affordability, convenience or something else? Lead with the benefits that matter most to them.
- Focus on benefits, not features. Will you save them time or money, solve a problem, remove a pain point or simply make them happy?
- Find your tipping point. Better value, standout service, a unique feature or great reviews and case studies: whatever makes them choose you over a competitor, highlight it.
- Know how they see your competitors. What are "the other guys" saying, and how can you do it better?
Let your customer drive your decisions
Your customer’s perspective should shape:
- Your messaging and creatives: what resonates with them, not what you like.
- Where you advertise: where they spend their time, not where you feel comfortable. Targeting Gen Z? TikTok and Instagram will likely beat Facebook or LinkedIn.
- Your offers and promotions: attractive to the customer and sustainable for your business.
- What you sell: if it doesn't match their needs, something has to change, whether that's who you target or what you offer.
Putting it into practice: finding your target audience on Facebook
Once you know who your target market is, Facebook Ads (and Instagram, through Meta’s ad platform) is one of the best places to reach them. You can go well beyond age and location to target people by their interests, behaviours, life events and how they’ve already interacted with your business.
A quick note on Advantage+ Audience
Meta’s targeting has changed a lot in the past few years. Advantage+ Audience is now the default for most campaigns. Meta’s AI treats your targeting as a suggestion rather than a strict fence, and will show your ads to people outside it when it predicts better results. Location and minimum age remain hard limits.
That makes understanding your target market more important, not less. Your audience suggestions, creative and conversion data are what point Meta’s AI towards the right people.
The three types of Facebook audiences
- Core (saved) audiences are people defined by demographics, interests, behaviours and location. They're best for reaching new people who match your ICP.
- Custom audiences are people who've already interacted with you, like website visitors, engagers or your customer list. Use them for remarketing and for excluding existing customers.
- Lookalike audiences are new people who share traits with your best customers, helping you scale to fresh audiences that are likely to convert.
You’ll find all three under Audiences in Ads Manager. Click Create audience and choose the type you need.
Targeting options worth knowing
- Geographic: Drop a pin, or enter postcodes or addresses, to reach people in a specific area.
- Life events: Reach people who are newly engaged, celebrating an anniversary or birthday, and more.
- Device: Target desktop users for business software, or mobile users to promote an app.
- Engaged shoppers: Reach people who've clicked a "Shop Now" button on ads before.
- Travellers: Reach frequent travellers, a signal of disposable income that suits luxury brands.
- Interests: Reach people by hobbies, food and drink, industries and more.
- Connections: Reach people who like your page or have attended your events.
Meta has also retired or merged many narrow interest categories, and you can no longer exclude people based on interests or behaviours. Exclusions now work through custom audiences built from your own data, like customer lists or people who’ve already converted.
How to get the most out of Facebook targeting
- Start with your ICP. The better you know your customer, the stronger your audience suggestions, creative and offers will be.
- Set up Meta Pixel and the Conversions API. Together they give Meta reliable data on what your website visitors do, which matters more than ever now that its AI does so much of the targeting.
- Keep your audiences up to date. Refresh your custom audiences and customer lists as behaviours and interests change.
- Test, test and test again. Refine your creatives and audiences based on the data to lift engagement and lower your costs.
Get into the mind of your customer
The key to successful marketing is seeing things from your customer’s perspective. When you truly understand who they are, what they need and why they should choose you, your messaging lands, your offers convert and your Facebook Ads reach the people most likely to buy. Facebook’s targeting tools are powerful, but they’re only as good as the understanding behind them.
Want help reaching the right people?
Our team of specialists can help you define your target audience, build your Ideal Customer Profile and create Facebook Ads campaigns that put your budget in front of the right people.
Book a free Facebook Ads campaign review and walk away with a bunch of ideas to superpower your next campaign.
