Targeting (Audience Targeting)
Targeting is the process of defining which users see your ads, based on demographics, interests, behaviours or custom data.
Audience targeting determines who your ads are shown to. Every ad platform offers layers of targeting: demographics (age, gender, location), interests (fitness, cooking, SaaS), behaviours (recent purchasers, frequent travellers) and custom audiences (your own customer lists or website visitors).
Modern platform algorithms (Meta's Advantage+, Google's Performance Max) are shifting toward broad targeting — giving the machine learning a large pool and letting it find the best converters automatically. Manual narrow targeting is increasingly reserved for niche products or small budgets.
The trend is clear: creative is becoming the new targeting. A well-crafted hook that speaks directly to your ideal customer acts as a self-selecting filter even in a broad audience, because only the right people stop scrolling.
Related terms
Retargeting
Retargeting shows ads to people who already interacted with your brand — site visitors, product viewers, cart abandoners — to bring them back.
Lookalike Audience
A lookalike audience is a targeting option that finds new users who resemble your existing customers, based on platform data signals.
CPM
CPM is the cost an advertiser pays for 1,000 ad impressions, used to compare media costs across platforms and campaigns.
CPA
CPA is the average advertising cost to acquire one customer or conversion, calculated as total ad spend divided by total conversions.