Behavioral Targeting
Behavioral targeting reaches people based on actions and patterns — purchase behavior, device usage, travel, or life events — rather than stated interests.
What it actually means
Behavioral targeting selects audiences by what people do rather than what they say they like. On Meta this has historically included signals such as recent purchases, device and connection type, frequent travel, and life events like a recent move or engagement. Behaviors can be powerful because actions predict future actions better than interests do, but the available options have narrowed considerably under privacy regulation. As with interest targeting, the modern trend is to feed behavioral signals to the algorithm through conversion data rather than hand-picking them. Where still available, behavioral targeting is most useful for offers tied to a specific moment, like ads for movers aimed at people who recently relocated.
A local business can use life-event behaviors — 'recently moved' for a cleaning service, 'newly engaged' for a venue — to reach people exactly when they need you.
Related terms
Interest targeting reaches people based on topics, pages, and activities Meta has associated with them, such as 'yoga' or 'small business owners'.
A core audience is a targeting group built from Meta's own data — location, age, gender, interests, and behaviors — rather than from your customer lists.
An audience is the defined group of people your ads are eligible to reach, built from location, demographics, interests, behaviors, or your own data.
Broad targeting gives Meta minimal audience constraints — often just location, age, and gender — and relies on the algorithm to find buyers.
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