Why is Facebook so great for targeting? Let me tell you something that’s probably happened to you.
You’re sitting around talking about Nike shoes for 10 minutes. Then later that day, boom, Nike ad pops up in your feed. Or you’re searching for basketballs somewhere on the internet. At some point, you’re probably going to get basketball ads in your feed.
We’ve all had it happen before. And Facebook is unbelievably great at finding who is interested in your product or your service.
I’m Jake Sheldon, co-founder of Pest Control Millionaires. I own a portfolio of service businesses from moving to pest control, and I work as a fractional CMO for companies across the country. Today I want to show you exactly how to target your Facebook ads for pest control so you’re reaching the right people and not wasting money on leads that will never convert.
Facebook uses a lot of AI now to figure out who’s interested in what. But what’s still great about Facebook is we can actually choose the targeting that we want. We have control.
And Facebook is constantly retargeting people. I buy a lot on Facebook, so it’s constantly showing me ads for things I’ve looked at. That’s the power of the platform.
Target Women 35 to 55 Interested in Home and Garden
What specific interests or pain points should you target to reach homeowners looking for pest control?
Really, it’s all the same across most markets. We’re typically targeting women most of the time. Not all the time, but mainly women between 35 and 55 who are interested in home and garden, home ownership, HGTV.
These are the types of interests that we’re typically going after. Not all the time, because it’s going to change by zip code, but for the most part, that’s the type of ideal client we’re targeting.
Now, I like to test it because every market is a little different. I find that in most markets it’s going to be females that we target and that we have our winning ads to.
But for places like Florida and parts of California, we actually find more men click on the ads in those areas. I should restate that. Where people are retired, like Phoenix, Florida, California, New Mexico, some of these places, we see a lot more men click on ads. It’s significantly higher.
So test both. Don’t just assume one gender is always better. Let the data tell you.
Lookalike Audiences Are Incredibly Powerful
How can you use lookalike audiences effectively based on your existing customer data?
Let me define what a lookalike audience is first because a lot of people may not have even heard of this.
You can actually choose people who look like the audience that you put in there. So you either put in a custom source of data. That could be a list that you upload. This could be your Facebook page followers. Let’s say for your pest control company, you have 10,000 people that like your Facebook page. You can actually tell Facebook you want people who look like them to see the ad.
Same thing with a customer list. Say you have 2,000 people in your customer list. You throw that into Facebook and say, “I want people who look like this clientele list.”
So if you have a list of 1,000 customers or 5,000 customers, you can take all that data, pull it out of your CRM, upload it into Facebook, and it’s going to find people who look just like your current customers.
It’s almost to a creepy level. But it’s very cool. Next level stuff there.
Start Broad, Then Narrow Your Targeting
What geographic targeting strategies work best? Radius targeting, zip codes, or something else?
I like this question because it actually depends on your messaging, your ad copy, and your offer.
The more specific your offer is, the more specific your targeting should be. The more broad your offer is, the more broad your targeting should be.
In the beginning, I like doing the analogy of the wide net. I’m trying to figure out what offer and what image or video works. What’s my message, my headline, all that good stuff. I’m trying to figure out what works first.
So I typically do a larger radius. It’s like you’re throwing out a big fish net. In that fish net, we’re going to grab the green fish that we want. We’re going to grab some blue fish that are all right. We’re going to find some yellow fish that are kind of just bargain hunters, but they’re a little bit interested. And we’re going to find the red fish who are like, you don’t want the red fish. They’re going to bite you.
That’s what you’re going to get with the wide net.
Now what’s great about that is you’ve found out some ads that are working and some fish that you actually want to catch. And now we can narrow in on the demographic. As you start figuring out who you’re supposed to be targeting, you can narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow.
That’s why with any kind of advertising, it does take time to test and figure out what’s going to work.
Radius First, Then Zip Codes
Do I like using radius or zip codes? What works better?
I like using radius at the beginning. Then as time goes on, when I’ve found my offer, my demographic, my headline, my targeting, all that good stuff, then I actually like doing zip code targeting.
Here’s a perfect example of why. Say there’s a lake nearby and this lake is getting a lot of mosquito calls. Let’s call this lake and the community around it the Dory neighborhood.
You could be like, “Hey, this is Jake Sheldon, owner of XYZ Pest Control. I’m going to be in the Dory neighborhood for the next seven days.” Then you can do a specific offer. “We’re doing XYZ offer for the next seven days for only Dory neighborhood. It’s going to end at XYZ day.”
I love that kind of ad. The ad saturation runs through its cycle really quickly just because it’s a very, very small neighborhood. So you’d have to change it quite often. But the results are typically incredible because it’s so specific.
You Can Target Down to a One Mile Radius
How specific, how small of an audience can we target? Can you target just a building?
Well, not a building, I should say. You can target up to a one mile radius. Pretty tight. And you can be very, very specific in your messaging.
That’s really powerful for pest control companies that want to dominate specific neighborhoods or areas with particular pest problems.
How to Avoid Wasting Budget on Bad Leads
How do you avoid wasting your Facebook ad budget on bad leads?
The thing with Facebook, like we talked about in previous videos, the lead quality is going to be much different than a Google ad that most people are used to.
Google ads are going to be high intent, search based, so the quality is going to be pretty high. They’re searching for you.
With Facebook, it’s direct response or disruptive marketing. So your lead quality is already going to be lower. But you can get the lead quality higher as you start niching down the targeting, making the targeting smaller.
That’s why I like, once you find out the offer, your headline, all that good stuff through testing, doing very, very specific Facebook ads. Your quality’s going to get higher. You’re going to close a higher percentage.
Never Target Anyone Under 28 Years Old
What about targeting the younger crowd and maybe even the elderly crowd?
Younger is always subjective, right? But I wouldn’t target anyone below 28 years old actually.
Why? Because how many people own a house at 20 years old? Me personally, I’m going after homeowners, not renters.
So you typically don’t want to target anyone who’s below 28 years old these days. Stick to anyone higher than that.
You’re wasting ad spend sending ads to young kids who don’t own homes and don’t need pest control services.
Seasons and Weather Massively Impact Results
Do seasons or local events influence Facebook ad targeting?
It’s everything.
I mean, we’ve even seen daily rain impact the results. So if you guys are about ready to launch your first Facebook ad and you’re super excited for it, but there’s a tornado coming into town, don’t expect to get any results.
It will just completely destroy your campaign. If there’s hail coming, if there’s rain for that day, you always want to start a campaign when it’s bright and shiny out on the first campaign you ever run.
Now, I will say unless it’s a rodent ad or a bed bug ad, then weather doesn’t really matter. Anything that’s going to be inside or has to do with rodents or anything like that doesn’t really matter.
But yes, be smart and run that ant ad the day after the rain. People are affected by the weather, so your ads need to account for that.
The Biggest Targeting Mistakes
What are the biggest mistakes with Facebook ads targeting?
The biggest mistake I see is people go too broad for too long. I also see that they’ll target people like 18 to 29 and you’re just wasting your ad budget.
And one of the biggest things with targeting is just testing. People don’t test. They’ll just throw out, “I’m going to do 18 to 29 in a radius in Houston, Texas,” and they’ll just let it run.
Well, that’s not going to work because you actually need to test. Facebook wants you to test at least four different variations.
Your testing is essential to making your ads work. You have to test. Facebook wants you to test.
Don’t just set it and forget it. Test different age ranges. Test different interests. Test different geographic areas. Test different offers. Let the data tell you what works.
Start Wide, Then Get Laser Focused
Here’s my targeting strategy in a nutshell:
Start with a wider radius to test your offer, creative, and messaging. Target women 35 to 55 interested in home and garden. Test men in retirement heavy areas.
Never target anyone under 28 years old. You’re going after homeowners, not renters.
Once you find winning ads, narrow your targeting. Use zip codes for hyper local offers. Create lookalike audiences from your customer list.
Pay attention to weather and seasons. Don’t launch campaigns during storms unless you’re selling rodent or bed bug services.
And always, always test at least four different variations. Let Facebook’s algorithm and your data guide your decisions.
Keep Learning and Testing
Want to connect with over 2,000 pest control business owners who are running profitable Facebook ad campaigns? Join our free Facebook group, Pest Control Millionaires. We share targeting strategies, winning ads, and help each other optimize campaigns every day.
And if you want the complete playbook for Facebook advertising that actually works for pest control, check out Zip Code Kings. It’s packed with proven targeting strategies, offer templates, and real campaign examples that are crushing it.
Now go test some targeting and stop wasting money on bad leads.
