Facebook Local Awareness ads are a new tool that makes it easier for businesses to reach the right customers at the right time. For many brick-and-mortar businesses, the Local Awareness program is poised to become one of the strongest tools in their paid advertising arsenal.

On the surface, setting up a Local Awareness ad looks a lot like setting up a traditional Facebook ad.Social Media Examiner has set up a very good tutorial here. If you are already working with Fair Marketing, or are considering working with us, you probably won’t need to get this deep into the weeds. What you do need to know is this tool will make your ad dollar more effective, minimizing the risk of advertising to people who are never going to walk through your door.

What Makes Local Awareness Ads Different?

Old Facebook ads could target the zip code of a customer’s reported place of residence. By contrast, Local Awareness uses IP and mobile data to pinpoint the customer’s current location.

This matters, because:

Customers may change locations several times throughout the day.

Customers are, on average, willing to venture at most 15 miles from their current location to pursue most products, services or offers.

Not their homes necessarily, as is so often reported, but their location. If, as many people do here in Houston, you work 45 minutes away from your home you’re not going to drive all the way home to have lunch. You’re going to pick the café down the street from your office. If a customer then goes to his daughter’s soccer game at some third location, he will probably grab dinner 5 to 15 minutes away from the soccer field, not from his home or job.

Therefore, if you own a café 5 minutes away from Mr. Customer’s workplace, you definitely want to advertise to him while he’s there. But once he’s at home, that customer no longer represents an ad dollar worth spending. Fortunately, Local Awareness is able to detect when customers enter or leave the area so you don’t waste that money.

Super-precise geo-targeting is now within your grasp.

So, you say, you live in an area where traffic is thick and you think most of your customers only really come from 3-5 minutes away? That’s fine. You aren’t limited to choosing your city or even your zip code. You can literally ensure you’re only bothering with customers within a 1-mile radius if that’s what you want to do.

Not sure you’re going to reach enough people that way? You won’t have to guess. Facebook will tell you how many customers you are likely to reach with your current settings, and you may adjust your reach as necessary.

This tool is incredibly useful for multi-location businesses as well. For example, we have a car wash client with 9 locations across the Houston metro area. Local Awareness will send potential customers to the right car wash as they move about the city, ensuring they’ll continue to engage with whatever branch is closest to them.

All other targeting options are still available.

Run a clothing boutique aimed at women ages 18-25? You can make sure your ads are only going to people within a pre-set demographic so you’re not unknowingly trying to entice the 48-year old man next door.

Yes, you can circumvent Ad Block.

These ads don’t appear in the sidebar. Instead, they appear right on your target customer’s news feed. Psychologically, many customers absorb these ads just like they absorb their friend’s post, especially if they’ve been targeted correctly in order to ensure relevancy. This means they’re more open to receiving the message, because they don’t feel like their overall Facebook experience has been interrupted.

What’s next?

Work with your marketing team to design a fantastic ad! To make the most of Local Awareness, use a gorgeous photo and a powerful call to action. Offers, special events, and popular product offerings can all create powerful draws that compel people to make an unplanned trip.

With Facebook Local Awareness, you get the power to create an alluring trifecta of sentiments that few customers will be able to resist: “It’s a great deal, it’s something I love, and—look! It’s right around the corner!”

Sources:

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-use-facebook-local-awareness-ads-to-target-customers/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=FacebookPage&utm_campaign=New
http://screenwerk.com/2014/05/02/measuring-the-local-consumer-drive-radius-17-minutes/
https://www.facebook.com/business/news/facebook-local-awareness