Carpet Bombing

By definition…

Carpet bombing, also known as saturation bombing, is a large area bombardment done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land. The phrase evokes the image of explosions completely covering an area, in the same way that a carpet covers a floor.

How the concept works for Ads

The principle of carpet bombing, is that is it cheaper to remove all targeting and let those who are interested ‘put their hand in the air’ by engaging with the ad – allowing you to retarget those people.

Think of it like a haystack – and there are 10 needles in the haystack (the needles are your customers), instead of fishing through the whole hay stack trying to find the needles, you are holding a super magnet over it, and drawing the needles up towards you.

When is it effective?

Carpet bombing should be used for local businesses, where there are no reliable or predictable ways to target them – for example, if your business repairs washing machines it is near impossible for FB to know that someone’s washing machine is broken. Or maybe you’re a carpet cleaning business – there’s no targeting option for ‘wants their carpets cleaned’ – literally anyone could have dirty carpets!

This strategy works best where you have a product or service that has a broad appeal – such as beauty, cleaning, a restaurant or local food business.

If for example, you own a local Indian restaurant you might be tempted to create ads based on people who like Indian Food, Indian monuments…. but really, do you need to like the Taj Mahal on Facebook to be partial to a Chicken Rogan Josh on a Saturday night? Absolutely not!