One of the main issues that advertisers face when running Facebook ads is audience overlap, which can lead to wasted ad spend as you target people outside of your ideal audience. Thankfully, there are ways to see if audience overlap affects your ad campaign and prevent this issue from arising.
Here we’ll dive into what audience overlap is, how you can see it using Facebook tools, and tips for preventing it in your social media marketing efforts.
What Is Audience Overlap and What Does It Mean?
Audience overlap occurs when members of one audience fall into another audience you’re targeting with ads. In turn, you might send multiple ads to the same person when they’re meant to target different audiences based on where they are in the customer journey. As a result, you might send too many ads to a single person, resulting in ad fatigue. At the same time, you might waste your ad budget on ads that are no longer relevant for a particular audience, which can severely limit your ROI with enough audience overlap.
By eliminating audience overlap in your Facebook ads, you can make the most of your budget and ensure the right people see your ads at the right time. Although overlapping audiences may not always be bad, as it can help you connect with some audiences more frequently and shut out competitors, it poses a potential problem when it’s not helping convert your audiences into leads or customers.
How to See Audience Overlap in Facebook Ads
If you’re worried about Facebook audience overlap, you can see if this issue affects you using Facebook’s helpful tool.
The following are the steps you can take to check audience overlap within Facebook:
1. Access the Audiences Tool
Within your Facebook Business Manager dashboard, you can select the Audiences tool to begin analyzing your audiences and seeing where they overlap.
2. Look at the Metrics to Identify Audience Overlap
Next, you’ll see a drop-down menu when you click on Actions, where you can click on Show Audience Overlap.
This option will present you with a pop-up window that details all audiences you’re targeting with your ads along with corresponding metrics. Within this view, you can specifically compare the top audience with the four audiences listed below and see if there is any overlap. You’ll see the number of people in each audience and the percentage of people who fall under both audiences.
Based on the percentage of people overlapping and the number of people within your audiences, you can decide whether overlapping is a real problem you need to correct and prevent.
Limitations to Keep in Mind
When checking the Facebook Business Manager tool to see if you have any audience overlap issues, there are some limitations that may restrict your ability to get the insights you want.
Some of those limitations include the following:
- You can’t see overlap with active ads
- You won’t be able to see overlap data if your audience comprises fewer than 1,000 people
- Your campaigns may suffer by the time you realize the overlap has occurred
What You Can Do to Prevent Audience Overlap
If you’re having problems with audience overlap and want to avoid it in the future, you can take certain steps to mitigate overlapping.
Facebook gives the following two main tips to help resolve and prevent audience overlapping:
- Optimize ad targeting — One step you can take to prevent audience overlap issues is to refine your ad targeting options. For example, you can select different genders, locations, ages, interests, and behaviors to ensure every ad connects with unique audiences and minimize overlap. Facebook also recommends creating unique Lookalike and Custom Audiences, with Lookalike Audiences consisting of people who resemble your best customers and Custom Audiences targeting those who you can track using a Meta pixel in the data you collect.
- Join audiences together — If you notice that the similarities between ad audiences are enough to consider them the same audience, you can always combine them into a single audience and adjust the budget accordingly.
Of course, another simple strategy to prevent overlapping is to exclude audiences from each other, keeping them tied to separate ad campaigns. In the process, you can keep each audience in specific silos and avoid the problems of ad fatigue and budget waste.
Develop Winning Ad Campaigns With Facebook Advertising Experts
Issues like audience overlap can be detrimental to your ad campaigns if you’re not careful. While you may be aware of this problem and the potential fixes, you may also need some help setting up, managing, and monitoring your ad campaigns on Facebook and other platforms. If you’re in need of some guidance around Facebook ads and other aspects of social media marketing, Kore Media is here to help.
Contact us today to speak with one of our experts about Facebook ads and other invaluable marketing services to grow your business.
