Targeting Block Groups in Facebook

Why block groups instead of zip codes or radius circles

When most local businesses set up their first Facebook campaign, they use a radius circle around their address. It's the default. It's easy. And it's significantly less precise than what TerritoryIQ enables.

Here's the difference:

• A 3-mile radius from your business address might include 25 different zip codes and 60 different neighborhoods — some highly relevant, some with completely different demographics that would never be your customers.
• A zip code target is better than a radius, but a single zip code might span 15,000–30,000 households across dramatically different income levels, ages, and community types.
• A block group target is 600–3,000 households that share a real geographic neighborhood. It's the level at which communities actually function. The households in a block group are likely to share similar demographics, community ties, and consumption patterns.

TerritoryIQ identifies your unconquered block groups — the specific neighborhoods where you have few or no customers — and generates a zip code file that maps those block groups into a format Meta's Custom Audience tool understands.

The step-by-step workflow

1. 1
   Upload your customer data (Data tab)

   Go to Territory Command → Data tab and upload your customer CSV. Enable Save addresses so TerritoryIQ stores the geocoded addresses for audience file generation. Your heatmap will show red (unconquered), yellow (contested), and green (stronghold) neighborhoods.

2. 2
   Identify neighborhoods to target

   Look at your map for red block groups with attractive demographics — large household counts and income levels that match your typical customer. Click any block group to see its household count, penetration rate, and Census demographic breakdown.

3. 3
   Go to the Campaigns tab and download your audience file

   Switch to the Campaigns tab in Territory Command. TerritoryIQ automatically generates a zip code list from your unconquered block groups and shows you how many zip codes and neighborhoods it covers. Click Download Zip Code CSV.

4. 4
   Upload the file to Meta as a Custom Audience

   In Meta Business Manager, go to Audiences → Create Audience → Customer List and upload your zip code CSV. Meta matches those zip codes to Facebook users who live in those neighborhoods. Name the audience something recognizable — for example, "TerritoryIQ — Unconquered — [Month]."

5. 5
   Create a campaign targeting that audience

   In Meta Ads Manager, create a new campaign using your Custom Audience as the target. Awareness or traffic objectives work well for local businesses reaching new neighborhoods. Set your budget, add your creative, and launch.

6. 6
   Log the campaign in TerritoryIQ

   Once your campaign is live, record it in the Campaigns tab tracker. Log the target neighborhood, start date, and budget. This history gives the TerritoryIQ agent context when you discuss your territory in future sessions.

What the targeting looks like in Meta Ads Manager

When you create a campaign using your Custom Audience, Meta shows you the estimated audience size for those zip codes. For zip codes covering a handful of block groups, the reachable audience is typically 5,000–20,000 people — enough for Facebook's algorithm to optimize effectively while staying highly targeted.

Targeting multiple neighborhoods

The audience file TerritoryIQ generates covers all of your unconquered block groups at once — all their zip codes in a single file. This is usually the right starting point: let one campaign reach the full unconquered territory, measure which zip codes respond, and then create focused follow-up campaigns for the best performers.

Alternatively, if you want to test specific neighborhoods against each other, you can create separate audience files by manually filtering the zip code list before uploading.