In what might seem like an out of character act of charity to the little guy, Facebook has a somewhat secret little ad setting that seems to have been forgotten in all the uproar around dropping organic reach lately: The Local Awareness Ad.
Designed to help small businesses get more awareness in their communities, the local awareness ads help small businesses target people who live in or have recently traveled through their immediate area (Starting with just a one-mile radius!). The local awareness ads still have a somewhat limited segmentation for many areas, but hey- this is still some cool granularity that isn’t available in many areas of the world!
Some of the best uses for the local awareness ads include asking the viewer to message the small business on their page, a call now CTA to get viewers to call in to the business, asking for directions to the brick and mortar location, or simply asking to learn more about the business where you can send them to your website.
What are some examples of how small businesses have successfully used them?
Driving traffic to a local event
Open houses in real estate
Delivering targeted offers for a retail shop
Or targeting special dining offers at particular times of day for restaurants
How do we set them up?
Easy!
Click create an ad in the ad manager
Select Reach people near your business
Choose the page that you want to advertise
Enter your address (If not already loaded), and the demographic information that you want to target
Enter your daily budget and lifetime budget
Upload some images and choose your CTA from above!
Voila! Done!
Good luck and let us know how they work for you if you are using local awareness campaigns in your marketing!