Facebook Targeting by Relationship Status & Workplace

Well, we’ve already covered many of the targeting options available to advertisers through Facebook.

As we near the end of this series, today we’re going to cover targeting by relationship status and by workplace. (not because they’re related in any way, but because neither warrants an entire blog post on their own!).

Targeting by Relationship Status

Currently when someone signs up for an account on Facebook, they have several options in terms of relationship status:

Single
In a relationship
Engaged
Married
It’s complicated
In an open relationship
Widowed
Separated
Divorced
In a civil union
In a domestic partnership

Unfortunately for advertisers however, we only have a few targeting options:

Single
Engaged
In a relationship
Married
or all of the above.

It’s unclear to me why advertisers don’t have access to more of these options, although I can see it getting a bit weird if people could start advertising to widows or those in open relationships, for example (think of the possibilities!).

I’ve seen a multitude of different uses for relationship targeting: Dating sites targeting singles, wedding planners or venues targeting engaged users, marriage counsellors targeting married users, etc. And of course, if your product or service has nothing directly to do with relationship status, you can always still tailor your message, image, and headline to appeal to these different user groups.

Targeting by Workplace

There are so many great ways to use this targeting feature!

Local Businesses

For brick and mortar companies, particularly service-related businesses, targeting large workplaces in the area can work well. For instance, a dry cleaner advertising a 30% discount to employees of company x, or a restaurant advertising today’s lunch special (with an image of their mouth-watering fare) to company y, which just happens to be 3 doors down).

Targeting Particular Industries

Although Facebook doesn’t ask users what industry they work in, you can often deduce this information from company names. For instance, let’s say you want to target users in the finance industry.

Besides the obvious option of simply Googling businesses in this sphere, a quick search of workplaces beginning with ‘financial’ will yield a whole bunch of relevant companies:

Or the automotive industry…

Or jewellery businesses….

Etc., etc. I think you get the point.

Targeting Particular Businesses

Obviously, you can choose to target individual companies as well.

For instance, if you worked at ABC Inc., would you be more likely to click on an ad with this headline?

Discount for ABC Employees!

or this one?

Discount today only!

People aren’t that accustomed to seeing totally customized ads, so the surprise factor alone may get their attention.

How do you use relationship status and workplace targeting in your campaigns (or do you?). I’m also curious to hear your thoughts on why Facebook won’t allow advertisers to target other relationship statuses? Leave a comment below!