If you’re working to build an engaged Facebook group of potential customers, then you’re going to want to reach them with your next Facebook ad campaign!
The struggle here is that Facebook does NOT make it straightforward for you to target your group with ads. There’s no simple way to check a box next to “Facebook group” and start sending ads their way.
So, here are a couple of the best workarounds I’ve found to make sure that the people in my group actually see my ads.
Do a Facebook live inside your group
If your Facebook group is linked to your Facebook business page, then you can use this option.
The idea here is to make an awesome video in your group and then target the people who watch it with an ad. Of course, not every single person in the group will watch it, but this will help you get your most engaged viewers into a Facebook ad audience.
First, make your live video inside your group and then go into the “Audiences” dashboard inside Facebook Ad Manager.
When you go to set up an engagement audience based on video views, you can select the live video from your group.
In the image above, the selected video called “Q+A - let’s talk” was a live video that I did for my Attract Your Tribe marketing community Facebook group.
If I make an audience with the viewers of this video, then I will reach the people in my group who watched it.
However, a word of caution here… sometimes this is glitchy AF!
When I scroll through the list of videos to create my targeting audience, I don’t see every live video that I’ve ever done inside my group in the list. Why? I have no idea.
So, if this happens to you and you can’t figure out how to make an audience based on a live video in a group, then you can try…
Share a video from your Facebook business page into your group
You can either do a live video or upload a video to your Facebook business page.
Then, share the video over to your group.
Go into the “Audiences” section of Facebook Ads Manager and create an engagement audience. Then select the live video that you shared into your group.
The people who watch the video for 3+ seconds from INSIDE your group will now be in the engagement audience of people who viewed the video and you can target them with a Facebook ad!
The problem, again, is that not everyone in your group will watch the video. But your most engaged group members will probably watch it, and they’re the ones who you most want to advertise to anyway.
Drive Facebook group members to your website
First of all, this method will only work if you have your Facebook pixel properly installed on your website.
The pixel tracks your website activity and allows you to create an audience of your website visitors to use for Facebook ads.
So, get that pixel on your website. Like yesterday.
Then, you’ll want to share links to your website in your group.
The best way to do this is to share links to blog posts, freebies and an occasional sales page when you’re promoting a specific product.
When one of your group members clicks on over to your website to check out your link, the pixel will track them and now they will be inside your website traffic audience!
One thing to note here… don’t link to your website in every single post in your group. The Facebook algorithm thinks this is spammy and won’t show your posts to very many group members. You’ll get better results if most of your posts to your group are conversation starters, tips, live videos, etc. Once or twice a week make a post with a link to your site.
Work it, work it, work it…
When it comes to targeting your Facebook group with Facebook ads, it’s not that easy!
You have to be planning how to get people to either watch your videos or click out of your group and onto your website.
Then, when you set up your ads, be sure to target your video viewers and your website traffic and you will get your ad in front of your group peeps.
By the way, if you want step-by-step instructions on how to create your website visitor and video viewer audiences in the backend of Facebook Ads Manager, you can find those inside my course, Magical Facebook Ads Targeting.
And, your Facebook group is not the only audience that you’ll want to target with your ads! Grab my free guide Facebook Ads Targeting Goldmine to learn about 4 other awesome audiences that you’ll want to target to make more sales with your Facebook ads.
