How Facebook ads target you

It likely comes as no surprise that Facebook monitors what you (and your friends) do and like. They take that information along with your interests, age and other demographic and geographic information to make your advertising more specifically tailored to you. However, until recently, you may not have heard that Facebook and advertisers infer things based on these things you willingly share. These things might be wrong, and while you can remove it, you’re unable to stop it from happening – although Facebook will sometimes block some of these additional options like they did for ethnic affinity targeting in late 2017.

Key Takeaways:

• Facebook ads can be very specific at the advertiser’s discretion and be based on things like what people post on their timelines, apps they use, ads they click, demographics (e.g. age, gender and location), and even the mobile device they use or their network connection.
• An ad offering called “custom audiences” lets advertisers target anyone who has already bought stuff from them or has visited their websites.
• Dynamic ads use retargeting to market to you if you have already shown interest.

“Facebook warns advertisers not to narrow their audience too much by being overly specific, which can make the ads less effective — since fewer people will see them.”

Read more: https://www.bnn.ca/how-facebook-ads-target-you-1.1056293