If you’re looking to build your Facebook audience and wondering how to get ahead of the competition, the answer can be found on Facebook itself. You just have to know where to look. 

Start with these eight steps to help capture a similar Facebook audience to your competitors. 

8 Steps to Capturing Competitor’s Facebook Audience:

1. Follow the Competition

Start by navigating to the Benchmarking tab on your Facebook Business Suite to see recommended pages that are similar to your business. Don’t be surprised, you might even see your competitor there. If you do find competitors, add their Facebook page and any recommended pages to your list to see how their posts perform. That gives you an idea of what engages their audiences. 

2. Define Your Audience

Next, dig deeper into the Business Suite. Click the Audience tab and “Potential Audience” to select the audience demographics that target your perfect customer. Remember to include their age, gender, and location. Facebook wants you to succeed, so they’ll recommend the top pages that these audiences are engaging with, which gives you even more inspiration on what content to post on your page. 

3. Discover Demographics

Do you know that Facebook may already be displaying recommended pages – and your competitors – in your Facebook feed? If you see paid content, click the three dots in the ad’s corner and choose “Why am I seeing this ad?” In the dropdown, Facebook will list demographics and interests that describe why it matched the audience to the ad. If certain interests match your industry or niche, add them to your custom list to build a similar audience.

4. Target an Audience’s Interest

If you want to target your perfect Facebook audience, narrow it down based on their interests. Look for the section labeled “Detailed Targeting” at the bottom of your Ad Manager page. Type the list of interests your competitors use, and Facebook will automatically generate an estimated audience on the right-hand side. Type additional interests to narrow the size of the audience even further. If you start too broadly, your ads may not be delivered to your intended audience.

5. Combine Testing with Targeting

Interest targeting goes a long way, but if you want to learn what drives your audience to click an ad, think about running A/B tests. As you might have guessed, Facebook has tools to make testing easier, so you can spend more time on creating new content that your audiences will love and less time poring over data to see which ads worked. 

For each ad you create, you can run an A/B test by clicking “Duplicate” and then changing a variable, like the audience you want to see the ad or the copy you’re featuring. If you run these tests over time, Facebook will display which one audiences prefer. Go with the winner, then optimize it further with more A/B tests until you’re satisfied with the ad’s overall performance.

6. Check Out the Library

Looking for a little inspiration? Check out the Ads Library under the All Ads option and search specific keywords to see current ads used in your industry. Each ad will display which demographics it’s targeting and whether variations of the ad were created for certain Facebook audiences. This data will give you valuable details to help you know how to segment your audiences and create more relevant ads that target their interests.

7. Customize Your Audiences

Over time, you’ll be able to see who engaged with your Facebook ads to build custom audiences to retarget with new ads. In the Custom Audience section, select filters such as people who clicked your page recently, and choose which ads will display for these audiences. You can also narrow or broaden your audience with each filter you choose. 

One benefit is that you can use this strategy to build a marketing funnel for a specific audience on Facebook, plus you can control the sequence of ads they see to convert them into customers. 

8. Generate Lookalike Audiences

The good news is that once your ads receive enough engagement, Facebook will be able to create lookalike audiences based on yours. This saves you tons of time from doing all the research yourself. 

With your lookalike audience, you can choose by what percent you want people to see your Facebook ad and adjust it as your campaign runs so you don’t blow your ad spend. Don’t let the name fool you, lookalike audiences are real people who want to see your ad according to Facebook’s algorithm. 

Bottom line: Targeting a Competitor’s Audience on Facebook

One thing is for certain. You don’t always have to do the research yourself to find the perfect audience to target. Facebook has enough data on your competitors to point you in the right direction. When your trial and error is over, and you understand where your audience is on Facebook, spend time creating ads that speak to your audience, so they become customers. 

Robin Samora is a marketing consultant in Boston with over 20 years of experience creating winning marketing plans for clients. If your business needs Facebook and social media strategy, reach out online!