Solved: Finding Audiences on Meta Beyond Keywords

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

It’s a really common question, and honestly, you've hit on the single biggest reason people burn through cash on Meta ads and get absolutely nowhere. They try to treat it like Google, searching for a magic 'keyword' or interest that'll unlock a flood of customers. It just doesn't work that way.

Google is like a librarian; you tell it what you want, and it finds it for you. Meta is more like a bartender at a party; it knows who's in the room, what they're talking about, and can make an introduction if you play your cards right. The skill isn't in knowing every single person's name (every brand and interest), but in understanding the *type* of conversation you need to be in.

I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on how we approach this. It’s less about finding audiences and more about building a system that lets the right audiences find *you*. It's a fundamental shift in thinking, but it's what seperates the campaigns that scale from the ones that stall.

We'll need to look at your core assumption... your ICP is a Nightmare, not a Demographic

Right, let's get this sorted first because it's the foundation for everything else. Forget the sterile, demographic-based profile your last marketing hire made. "Companies in the finance sector with 50-200 employees" tells you absolutely nothing of value and leads to generic ads that speak to no one. It’s lazy and it’s why most B2B ads are so painfully dull and ineffective.

To stop burning cash, you must define your customer by their pain. Their *nightmare*.

You need to become an absolute expert in their specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening problem. Your Head of Engineering client isn't just a job title; she's a leader terrified of her best developers quitting out of frustration with a broken workflow. Your Head of Sales client isn't just looking for 'a CRM'; he's waking up at 3 AM because his pipeline is a mess and he's about to miss his quarterly target for the second time in a row. Your ICP isn't a person; it's a *problem state*.

Once you've isolated that nightmare, you can start to build a picture of the person experiencing it. Where do they go for information? What niche podcasts do they listen to on their commute, like 'Acquired' or 'My First Million'? What industry newsletters do they actually open, like 'Stratechery' or 'The Hustle'? What SaaS tools do they already pay for, like HubSpot, Salesforce, or Apollo.io? Are they members of the 'SaaS Growth Hacks' Facebook group? Do they follow people like Jason Lemkin or Sam Parr on Twitter?

This intelligence isn't just data; it's the blueprint for your entire targeting strategy on Meta. You're not guessing interests. You're using real-world watering holes as proxies for their pain. Someone who follows 'SaaS Growth Hacks' is almost definately trying to solve a growth problem. Someone who has 'HubSpot' as an interest is invested in a certain way of doing marketing. You're using these clues to build a highly probable profile of someone who has the exact problem you solve.

Do this work first. If you don't, you have no business spending a single pound on ads. You'll just be shouting into the void.

I'd say you need to structure your targeting by temperature, not guesswork

Okay, once you know the 'nightmare', you can start thinking about audiences. The biggest mistake I see in client accounts we audit is a total mess of random audiences being tested with no clear structure. They'll have one campaign with a lookalike audience, an interest-based one, and a retargeting audience all lumped together, competing against each other. It’s chaos and it tells you nothing.

A professional structure separates audiences by 'temperature'. Think of it like a sales funnel. Some people are ready to buy right now (hot), some are aware of you but need a nudge (warm), and most have never heard of you (cold). You speak to each group differently and you prioritise your budget accordingly.

Here's how we prioritise audiences, from hottest to coldest. This isn't just a list; it's an order of operations. You build from the bottom up.

BoFu (Bottom of Funnel - The "Hot" Audiences)

These people are on the verge of converting. They know who you are, they've been on your site, and they've shown strong intent. Your only job here is to get them over the finish line. These are your highest ROI audiences, and you should always have retargeting campaigns running for them, even with a small budget. Don't let these leads go cold.

• -> Added to Cart / Initiated Checkout (in the last 7-14 days): This is the lowest hanging fruit. They were *this close*. Your ad should address potential objections. "Still thinking it over? Here's a 10% discount" or "Worried about setup? We offer free onboarding". A bit of urgency works well here.
• -> Viewed a Key Page (Pricing, Product Page, etc. in the last 30 days): They're interested but not fully convinced. Show them a customer testimonial video, a case study, or an ad that highlights a specific benefit they might have missed on the product page.
• -> Previous Customers: Don't forget these! They already trust you. This is your audience for new product launches, upsells, or cross-sells. The cost to get a sale from an existing customer is a fraction of acquiring a new one. I remember one campaign we ran for a subscription box client that achieved a 1000% ROAS just by targeting past purchasers with a new seasonal box.

MoFu (Middle of Funnel - The "Warm" Audiences)

These people have engaged with you in some way but haven't shown buying intent yet. They've watched your videos or visited your blog. They are problem-aware, and now you need to make them solution-aware (with *your* solution). The goal here is to build trust and educate them.

• -> All Website Visitors (in the last 30-90 days, excluding BoFu audiences): A general catch-all. Show them your core value proposition or a piece of high-value content that solves a small part of their problem for free.
• -> Video Viewers (e.g., watched 50% of your ad in the last 90 days): This is a fantastic, often under-utilised audience. They've already given you their time. Retarget them with a more direct offer, like an invitation to a webinar or a link to a detailed case study.
• -> Social Media Engagers (Liked, commented, shared on your Facebook/Instagram page in last 90 days): They're part of your community. Treat them like it. Give them behind-the-scenes content or ask for their opinion on a new feature.

ToFu (Top of Funnel - The "Cold" Audiences)

This is where you find new customers, and this is where most of your budget will eventually go once you're scaling. This is the bit you were asking about. But you only scale here *after* your BoFu and MoFu campaigns are working. Why? Because you need a solid retargeting system to catch all the new people you're bringing in. Without it, you're just filling a leaky bucket.

• -> Lookalike Audiences (1-3%): This is your most powerful tool for finding new people. You give Meta a 'seed' audience (e.g., a list of your best customers), and its algorithm goes and finds millions of other people who share similar characteristics. But the quality of your seed audience is everything. A lookalike of 'All Website Visitors' is garbage compared to a lookalike of 'Highest Value Previous Customers'. Prioritise your lookalikes in the same order as your funnel: start with a lookalike of purchasers, then checkout initiators, then video viewers, and so on. You need at least 100 people in your seed audience, but honestly, you want more like 1,000+ for it to work really well.
• -> Detailed Targeting (Interests & Behaviours): This is where your 'nightmare' research comes in. You're not just typing in "business". You're targeting interests like specific software they use (e.g., 'Shopify' admins), influencers they follow (e.g., 'Jason Lemkin'), publications they read (e.g., 'TechCrunch'), or events they attend. Group related interests into themed ad sets so you can see which 'angle' works best. For one B2B SaaS client selling to sales teams, we found targeting people interested in 'Salesforce' was okay, but targeting people who were members of specific 'SaaS Sales' Facebook groups performed 3x better because it was a much more specific indicator of their profession and challenges.
• -> Broad Targeting: This means targeting just by age, gender, and location, with no interests at all. This sounds insane, but once your Meta Pixel has thousands of conversion events, the algorithm can get so good at identifying patterns that you can just let it run free. This only works for accounts with a lot of data and a consistent conversion history. Definately don't start here.

You probably should delete your "Request a Demo" button

Now, we could have the most perfectly researched, brilliantly structured set of audiences in the world, but it will all fall apart if your offer is rubbish. And the "Request a Demo" button is perhaps the most arrogant, high-friction, low-value Call to Action ever conceived in B2B marketing.

Think about it from your prospect's perspective. They're a busy, important person. They've just been interrupted while scrolling through pictures of their friend's holiday. You've shown them an ad. And your ask is for them to commit 30-60 minutes of their valuable time to get on a call and be sold to. It's an immediate turn-off. It positions you as a commodity, a vendor, a time-waster.

Your offer’s only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell *themselves* on your solution. You must solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve the whole thing.

What does this look like in practice?

• -> For SaaS Founders: This is your unfair advantage. The gold standard is a free trial (no card details required) or a freemium plan. Let them use the actual product. Let them feel the transformation. I can't tell you how many software clients we've worked with who've seen insane results just by switching from a 'demo' model to a 'trial' model. One of our B2B software clients generated 4,622 registrations at just $2.38 each because they offered an instant, free tool rather than a sales call. When the product itself proves its value, the sale becomes a formality.
• -> For Agencies/Consultants: You are not exempt. Bottle your expertise into a tool or asset. For us, it's a free 20-minute strategy session where we audit failing ad campaigns. For a marketing agency, it could be a free, automated SEO audit that shows them their top 3 keyword opportunities. For a corporate training company, it could be a free 15-minute interactive video module on 'Handling Difficult Conversations' for new managers. Give them a taste of the result, not a presentation about it.
• -> For eCommerce: The offer is often a discount, free shipping, or a bundle deal. But you can be more creative. For a high-ticket product, it might be a free 'buyer's guide' or a virtual consultation to help them choose the right model. For a women's apparel brand we worked with, a simple "15% off your first order" offer helped drive a 691% return on ad spend. It's a simple, compelling reason to act *now*.

Fix the offer. Make it irresistible and frictionless. It will do more for your conversion rates than any fancy targeting trick.

You'll need to know what a customer is actually worth

This brings me to the final, critical peice of the puzzle. Most advertisers are obsessed with the wrong metric. They're desperate to lower their Cost Per Lead (CPL) or Cost Per Click (CPC). But the real question isn't "How low can my CPL go?" but "How high a CPL can I *afford* to acquire a truly great customer?"

The answer lies in its counterpart: Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). If you don't know this number, you are flying blind. You have no idea if your £50 CPL from LinkedIn is a bargain or a disaster. Calculating it is simpler than you think.

Once you have this truth, everything changes. With a £10,000 LTV, a healthy 3:1 LTV:CAC ratio means you can afford to spend up to £3,333 to acquire a single customer. If your sales process converts 1 in 10 qualified leads into a customer, you can afford to pay up to £333 per qualified lead.

Suddenly, that £250 lead from a CTO on LinkedIn doesn't seem expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain. You're no longer scared of high CPLs; you're actively seeking out the high-quality, high-intent leads that your competitors are too scared to bid on because they haven't done the maths. This is the logic that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth and frees you from the tyranny of cheap, low-quality leads.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

To pull all this together, here’s a summary of the approach. It’s a complete system, not a collection of tactics. Each part builds on the last, from foundational strategy to practical campaign execution and measurement.

As you can see, getting Meta ads right is a lot more involved than just picking a few interests and hitting 'boost'. It's a strategic process that involves deep customer insight, a structured approach to targeting, compelling offers, and a solid understanding of your business economics.

It can be a lot to take on, and it's easy to make expensive mistakes. Getting expert help can often be the fastest way to get it right and start seeing a return on your investment.

If you'd like to go over your specific situation and see how these principles could be applied to your business, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can take a look at what you're doing now and give you some actionable advice on the spot.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh