The Power of Meta Interest Targeting: A Strategic Guide for Smarter Campaigns
In the noisy world of digital advertising, targeting the right people with the right message at the right time is everything. For small and medium-sized businesses, the key to doing this effectively on Meta (Facebook and Instagram) lies in mastering interest targeting. It’s not just a checkbox in your Ads Manager, it’s a powerful strategy that, when used wisely, can drive performance, reduce wasted spend, and unlock new growth opportunities.
In this guide, we break down how interest targeting works, how to use it strategically, and how to analyze performance to double down on what’s working.
What Is Interest Targeting on Meta?
Interest / Detailed targeting allows advertisers to reach people based on their behaviors, activities, Pages they’ve liked, apps they use, and content they engage with on Facebook and Instagram. Meta builds these interest profiles using both on-platform and off-platform data (like browsing behavior via Meta Pixel).
This means you can go beyond demographics and surface-level attributes to engage audiences who’ve already shown intent in your category—or in adjacent ones you may not have considered. Under Detailed Targeting you can find:
Demographics
Interests
Behaviours
More categories
Why Interest Targeting Still Matters in 2025
Despite privacy changes like iOS 14.5 limiting some tracking capabilities, interest targeting continues to play a key role for one big reason: it doesn’t require first-party data to work. Unlike Custom Audiences or Lookalikes, interest targeting enables businesses—especially those early in their marketing journey—to reach relevant people without having to upload customer lists or rely heavily on retargeting.
It’s especially useful in:
Top-of-funnel awareness campaigns
Testing new markets or audiences
Running promotions tied to lifestyle interests or seasonal behavior
And while Meta’s AI-driven Advantage+ audiences have gained traction, manual interest targeting still gives advertisers more control over who they reach and why.
How to Build Smart Interest Segments
1. Start With Audience Research
Before diving into Meta’s targeting options, take a step back and start with the most important element of any successful campaign—your customer. Good audience research is more than picking interests from a dropdown list. It’s about understanding your customer’s mindset, motivations, lifestyle, and needs.
Ask:
What do they care about beyond your product?
What other lifestyle decisions / choices do they usually make?
What values drive their buying decisions?
Map out their day, their digital behaviours, and the communities they belong to. For example, a plant-based milk brand might not only look for “veganism” as an interest, but also explore related passions like “gut health,” “morning routines,” or “barista coffee at home.”
Once you have a clear customer profile, use tools like Meta’s Audience Insights, Google Trends, and platforms like Reddit or Quora to validate and expand on these insights. This ensures that your interest targeting is grounded in real behavior—not assumptions.
2. Layer Interests for Tighter Targeting
Avoid broad interest dumps. Combine related interests (e.g. “Sustainable fashion” + “Zero waste lifestyle” + “Fair trade”) to build more defined psychographic profiles. You can also use Narrow Audience in Meta Ads Manager to create an "AND" condition (e.g. people who like both "Pilates" AND "Lululemon"). Always make sure that when stacking interests that it does not limit your audience reach - especially so in smaller markets.
Audience Overlap: A Critical Yet Overlooked Tactic
One of the most common mistakes advertisers make is unknowingly targeting overlapping audiences. This results in internal competition and ad inefficiency.
Use Meta’s Audience Overlap tool in Ads Manager to:
Avoid duplicative spend on the same audience pools
Refine which segments should go into which ad sets
Understand which interests are distinct and which are redundant
If two interest groups show over 40–50% overlap, consider merging them or using exclusions to avoid overlap waste.
Breaking Out Interests by Ad Set: Better Reporting, Better Learnings
Rather than lumping multiple interests into one ad set, a smarter move is to split key interest segments into separate ad sets—with the same creatives. This helps you isolate what’s working and what isn’t.
Why this works:
Better budget control for high-performing segments
Clear attribution—you’ll know which interest is driving clicks, conversions, or leads
Data-backed decisions—no guesswork when it comes to pausing or scaling
We recommend grouping interests into 3–5 logical themes per campaign (e.g., "Eco Lifestyle," "Coffee Enthusiasts," "Minimalist Living") and giving each its own ad set.
Should Small Businesses Use Meta’s Advantage+ Audience?
Meta’s Advantage+ audience (formerly known as “Advantage Detailed Targeting”) uses AI to go beyond your selected interests and expand reach to people likely to convert, even if they fall outside your original parameters. It’s tempting—especially for time-strapped business owners—to let Meta handle the heavy lifting. But should small businesses use it?
The answer: Yes, but with strategy.
For small businesses with limited data or testing budgets, Advantage+ can be a powerful tool to find new, high-performing audiences. Meta’s machine learning engine continuously optimizes based on real-time performance, helping you discover customer pockets you may never have considered.
That said, it works best when paired with clear inputs. Meta needs enough conversion signals (e.g., purchases, leads, add-to-cart events) to understand what success looks like. Without this, Advantage+ can become a black box, serving your ads broadly without accountability. We recommend that Advantage+ audience only be used in conjunction with Advantage+ Sales/ Leads/ Apps campaigns.
When Advantage+ Works Well:
You have a mature pixel with solid historical data.
You’re running conversion-optimized campaigns at scale.
You want to broaden your reach efficiently without manual segmentation.
When to Avoid or Use With Caution:
You’re just starting out with low conversion volume.
You need to test niche customer segments deliberately.
You’re running awareness-focused campaigns where control matters more.
Our take: For small businesses, Advantage+ isn’t a silver bullet, but it can be a smart tool in your mix—especially when used alongside custom audiences, interest-based targeting, and retargeting. Think of it as your data amplifier, not your strategy replacement.
How Our Agency Approaches Interest Targeting
At Majorform, we take a strategic approach to interest targeting:
We map audience interests to the customer journey (awareness, consideration, conversion)
We use overlap and performance data to refine audience structures
We A/B test creative relevance by matching messaging to each audience's psychographics
Our goal is not just to get impressions—it’s to help your brand reach the right people with messaging that converts.
Final Thoughts
Small and medium businesses often feel constrained by limited budgets. But budget constraints can lead to better, more focused marketing. By prioritising high-ROI channels, leveraging first-party data, and producing evergreen content, you can build a marketing engine that scales sustainably.
If you're ready to take a strategic approach to growth, our team at MajorForm specialises in working with SMBs and Regional Brands alike. We build marketing systems that work harder for your business and help you make every dollar count.
Contact us here or read more about the work that we do here.
