Creative Targeting for Portrait Photographer

In recent months, Facebook has made significant changes to its Meta Ads platform, introducing new features, removing others, and updating its algorithm. A key shift in these updates is Facebook’s move from Audience Targeting to Creative Targeting.

But what does Creative Targeting mean? Let’s explore this new approach and how it compares to traditional methods.

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Audience Targeting: The Past and Present

The Past: Audience targeting

Previously, targeting your ideal audience involved selecting detailed settings within the ad set level of campaigns. You could specify:

Age, gender, and location
Demographics like parents of newborns or individuals interested in specific hobbies or topics (e.g., dog breeds, training, and products).

This precise targeting gave advertisers control over who saw their ads.

The Present: Audience targeting

Facebook’s new Advantage+ Audience allows you to set interests and behaviors as guidelines. However, the platform’s algorithm goes beyond these parameters to find leads.

Key points:

Hard boundaries: Location and minimum age settings prevent ads from being shown outside specific areas or age groups. Be aware, however, that when targeting a location you are targeting those who “live in and have recently been in” your selected location.
Soft boundaries: Gender and age range act as flexible criteria, letting the algorithm explore beyond them.

While this approach may feel less controlled, Facebook’s algorithm has improved, making it increasingly effective at discovering relevant leads.

This is a tricky question, as Facebook ads serve various objectives: building brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, and boosting sales.

For most small businesses, like photography studios in the UK, generating leads should be your top priority. Focus your budget here before diving into other objectives.

The most effective campaigns for lead generation are Lead Ads, which can direct traffic to a landing page or use Meta’s built-in lead forms. Lead forms, in particular, are fantastic for gathering leads quickly and in large numbers.

But what if you’re already running these campaigns and still not booking most of your leads? Don’t panic! A solid lead-to-booking rate is 10–20%, and you can absolutely build a thriving business on those numbers, especially if your customers have a high average spend.

Creative Targeting: The Future of Ads

What is creative targeting?

Creative targeting involves crafting ad creatives such as images, videos, and copy, that resonate deeply with your ideal audience. Let’s break this down:

1. Ad Images and Videos

Visual content should speak directly to your audience’s identity. For instance, in dog photography:

Use photos of pets and their owners.
Overlay text like “WANTED: Dogs of Southampton” or “How much does your fur baby mean to you?” This approach helps viewers immediately recognise themselves as your target audience. For example, people who live in Southampton and those who refer to their dog as their fur baby.

2. Ad Copy

When writing Ad copy, think like your audience. Do they:

Call their dog a “fur baby”?
Worry about their pet’s ageing?
Feel deeply emotional about their pet’s role in their life?

Appealing to emotions is crucial. Identify a pain point and provide a solution.

Examples:

Newborn Photography: Highlight the fleeting nature of a baby’s first days. The solution? Professional portraits that capture this precious moment forever.
Family Photography: Focus on creating lasting memories with grandparents. Emphasise the importance of preserving these connections for future generations.

Testing Your Creatives

Many advertisers abandon Facebook ads after a single campaign fails, but testing is essential for success.

Key tips for testing:

Analyse Data: Look at campaign performance to identify which creatives worked best.
Adjust and Retest: Use top-performing elements to refine your ads.
Stand Out: Ensure your images and copy grab attention. They must stop viewers mid-scroll, even if that means using visuals that aren’t traditionally “on-brand.”
Experiment with Text Length:
- Long copy builds trust and evokes emotions.
- Short copy gets straight to the offer for quicker engagement.

Real-life testing in action

A family photographer partnered with us to improve their cost-per-lead (CPL):

Campaign 1: £21 per lead (Not great).
Campaign 2: £23 per lead (Still not great).
Campaign 3: £4 per lead (Amazing!).

The success came after analysing the data and creating improved variations of the best-performing creatives.

Final thoughts

Creative Targeting is Facebook’s future. To adapt, invest in tools like Canva and enhance your graphic design skills. Experiment with various images, videos, and copy until you find what resonates with your audience.

Remember, every unsuccessful campaign is a stepping stone to success. When a campaign works, it really works. So keep testing, learning, and refining because your perfect Ad is just a few tweaks away.