As any digital marketer knows, targeting is vital to the success of online ad campaigns. Without strategic targeting, your ad spend goes wasted on unqualified traffic and optimization efforts fall short. In most cases, digital ad platforms, such as Facebook, are constantly releasing new ways to zero in on our audiences. However, if you’re attempting to target people based on a specific ethnicity, you’ve likely found your options to be limited.

In the past, targeting people according to ethnicity was executed mainly through broadcast television networks – via channels like Univision and Telemundo – where advertisers were able to reach a Hispanic audience at scale.

In the digital space, advertisers attempt to replicate the reach of broadcast TV by leveraging contextual targeting, creative keyword strategies and interest targeting to find loopholes – though success rates are low.

The good news? If you’re targeting a Hispanic audience, that’s all about to change.

With 23 million registered Hispanic users, Facebook is putting a spotlight on the audience – leading the charge to help advertisers tap into a hyper social and savvy segment. For the first time, marketers will be able to reach the audience with precise digital targeting at scale… and considering the demographic’s purchasing power of $1.2 Trillion dollars, that’s hardly something to scoff at!

Now, is the ability to target this audience totally new to Facebook’s ad platform? No.

Back in July of 2013 Facebook released a US Hispanic Affinity Targeting Segment for brands to utilize based on factors such as Hometown and Pages Liked. However, with Facebook’s recent announcement of their new language preference setting, our opportunity for precision has now greatly increased.

With Facebook’s new Hispanic language preference, your audience is divided into three segments:

1. Spanish Dominant
2. Bilingual
3. English Dominant

This segmentation allows advertisers to reach their Hispanic audience, using an individual’s language of choice. With that, ads fit in more seamlessly with the user’s social experience as they appear to the user in the same language that he or she uses to communicate with friends and family.

Here at Unified we were invited to be one of the first BETA testers for the new release. In order to test it out, we worked with a Fortune 500 Automotive brand to drive engagement around a car launch leveraging the Hispanic language targeting. The results were outstanding.

Here’s a quick look at what we saw:

1. 90% increase in overall engagement
2. 41% more efficient CPC (as compared to to the Auto Industry average)
3. 364% higher CTR on mobile vs. desktop

Thinking about getting started with Facebook’s Hispanic language targeting for your brand?

Here are the top 4 things you need to know in order to maximize the effectiveness of your campaign:

1. Tailor your copy to the language segment you are targeting

Make sure you’re “speaking” to your audience in their language of choice. Use only Spanish copy for your Spanish Dominant audience and considering testing a combination of the English and Spanish – or unique variations of each – for your Bilingual segment.

FACT: CPG advertisers have seen +25% increase in click-through rate (CTR) and -19.9% decrease in CPC’s upon aligning creative messaging to a specific language segment demonstrating a deeper level of engagement with the audience. (Facebook Internal Data, 2014)

 

2. Target people that are about to experience a life-changing event such as getting married, buying a home or the birth of a child

Combine language targeting with life event targeting as life-changing moments evoke stronger need-based purchases in many categories. By focusing on these life-changing moments you can reach your audience when they are in the right frame of mind to make a purchase.

FACT: The Hispanic market over indexes on life changing events as compared to Non-Hispanic markets. (Facebook Internal Data, 2014)

 

3. Align your campaign with US national holidays and Hispanic specific holidays

Stay relevant and drive more engagement by aligning your content with upcoming events celebrated within the Hispanic community.

 

4. Make it mobile

Capitalize on the demographic’s heavy mobile consumption habits by ensuring your campaign is geared around mobile. For example, use mobile app install ads where relevant, ensure the landing pages you are driving traffic to are optimized for mobile, and use rich, hi res images that emulate the content a user expects to see in their News Feed.

FACT: On average, Facebook and Instagram make up 22% of the total time the Hispanic demographic spends on mobile every day. (comScore, Key Measures and Mobile Metrix US, April 2014)