Should You Use Broad Targeting for Mobile Apps? (2025)

For years, the conventional wisdom was clear: narrow your targeting. Stack interests, layer demographics, exclude behaviors. Build the perfect audience.

Then Facebook's algorithm evolved significantly. In 2024-2025, that advice reversed for most app campaigns.

Apps that removed their detailed targeting and switched to broad, open audiences saw CPI reductions of 30-84%. Performance marketers who built careers on audience precision are now running campaigns with nothing but age, gender, and location selected.

The shift isn't subtle, and it's not limited to specific app categories. Broad targeting now outperforms narrow targeting across fitness apps, productivity tools, social apps, and even some niche categories.

Here's why, when it works, and when you still need narrower targeting.

What Is Broad Targeting?

Broad targeting (also called "open targeting") means you configure only:

Location: Country or region (e.g., United States, United Kingdom)

Age: A reasonably broad range like 25-54 or 18-65

Gender: All, Male, or Female

Everything else—interests, behaviors, job titles, education, purchase behaviors—stays blank.

You're giving Facebook's algorithm maximum flexibility to identify patterns in who converts, without imposing manual constraints.

Why Broad Targeting Works in 2025

Facebook's machine learning improved dramatically over the past few years. The algorithm can now identify conversion patterns faster and more accurately than human marketers can through manual audience definition.

Algorithmic Pattern Recognition

When you add interest targeting like "Fitness & Wellness," you're telling Facebook: "Only show this to people who've shown interest in fitness content."

But Facebook's algorithm might identify that your actual best converters are:

• Parents aged 30-45 who recently moved
• People who engage with productivity content but haven't shown fitness interest
• Users who installed competitor apps but aren't in fitness interest categories

Manual targeting can't capture these nuanced patterns. The algorithm can.

More Data = Faster Learning

Narrow targeting limits Facebook to a small subset of users. With broad targeting, the algorithm evaluates billions of daily signals to identify who's likely to convert.

This larger data set enables faster exits from the learning phase. Instead of 10-14 days to optimize, broad campaigns often stabilize in 7-10 days.

Reduced Audience Fatigue

Narrow audiences exhaust quickly. A 500,000-person interest-targeted audience might be saturated after $5,000-$10,000 in spend.

Broad targeting in the US alone provides 200+ million potential users. You can scale to $50,000-$100,000+ per month before facing meaningful saturation.

The Performance Data

Multiple agencies and app marketers have published results from broad vs narrow targeting tests.

CPI Improvements

84% CPI reduction: One UA agency reported this dramatic decrease after switching from interest-based targeting to broad open targeting across multiple app clients.

15-30% average CPI reduction: More typical results show broad targeting reducing CPI by 15-30% compared to layered interest targeting.

User Quality Considerations

The concern with broad targeting is always: "Are these quality users or just cheap installs?"

Data from 2024-2025 shows:

Retention rates: Comparable or slightly better with broad targeting, likely because the algorithm optimizes for users showing engagement signals

Conversion rates: When optimizing for downstream events (purchases, subscriptions), broad targeting delivers similar or better conversion rates than interest targeting

LTV: No significant difference in LTV between broad and narrow targeting when campaigns optimize for revenue events

The algorithm finds users who complete your optimization event. If you optimize for purchases, broad targeting finds purchasers—not just anyone who installs apps.

When Broad Targeting Works Best

Broad targeting isn't universal, but it works for most app categories.

Mass-Market Apps

Apps with broad appeal see the strongest performance from broad targeting:

• Productivity apps (to-do lists, note-taking, calendars)
• Social apps (messaging, community, dating)
• Utility apps (photo editors, file managers, password managers)
• Casual games (puzzle games, word games, card games)
• Lifestyle apps (meditation, habit tracking, journaling)

These apps serve millions of potential users across varied demographics. Broad targeting captures that diversity.

When You Have Limited Data

If you're just launching and don't have thousands of users to build precise lookalike audiences from, broad targeting is your best starting point.

It lets Facebook learn who your users are through campaign performance rather than requiring you to guess in advance.

When Previous Narrow Targeting Underperformed

If you've tested detailed interest targeting and consistently saw:

• High CPIs ($8-$15+ when category averages are $2-$5)
• Small audience sizes (<500K people)
• Difficulty scaling beyond $50-$100/day

Broad targeting likely improves performance immediately.

When to Avoid Broad Targeting

Despite strong performance for most apps, some situations still benefit from narrower targeting.

Extremely Niche B2B Apps

Apps serving specific professional niches may still benefit from targeted approaches:

• CRM tools for real estate agents specifically
• Scheduling software for healthcare practitioners only
• Industry-specific compliance or workflow apps

These apps serve tens of thousands of potential users, not millions. Broad targeting might generate installs from irrelevant users who immediately churn.

Apps with Narrow Geographic Requirements

If your app only works in specific cities (e.g., public transit apps, local delivery services), combine geographic targeting with broad demographic targeting:

• Location: Portland, OR metro area
• Age: 18-65
• Gender: All
• Everything else: Blank

This isn't technically "broad" targeting, but the principle holds—keep demographic and interest targeting as open as possible within your required geography.

When You Have Proven Narrow Winners

If you've tested broad vs narrow targeting and consistently find that specific interest audiences deliver 20%+ better efficiency or user quality, keep using what works.

Don't switch to broad targeting just because it's the current trend. Use what your data confirms performs best.

Implementation Strategy

If you're currently using narrow targeting, don't immediately shut down all campaigns and go broad. Test systematically.

Test Setup

Create three ad sets to run in parallel for 7-14 days:

Ad Set 1 (Control): Your current best-performing narrow targeting

• Budget: $15/day

Ad Set 2: Broad targeting - same geo, age, gender only

• Budget: $15/day

Ad Set 3: 1% Lookalike of purchasers (if you have sufficient data)

• Budget: $15/day

All other variables (creative, placements, optimization event) stay identical.

What to Monitor

CPI: Which approach delivers the lowest cost per install?

Install Volume: Can each targeting approach spend its full budget?

Install-to-Event Conversion: What percentage of installs complete your key value event (purchase, registration, subscription)?

7-Day ROAS: For revenue-generating apps, which targeting delivers best return on spend?

After 7-14 days, you'll have clear data on which approach works best for your specific app and market.

Rolling Out Broad Targeting

If broad targeting wins your test:

1. Gradually shift budget from narrow to broad over 7-10 days
2. Don't immediately shut down narrow targeting—reduce budget by 20-30% and monitor
3. Keep narrow campaigns as a backup in case broad targeting performance changes

This gradual approach prevents shocking your account structure and gives you a fallback if needed.

Optimization Considerations with Broad Targeting

Broad targeting places more emphasis on other campaign elements.

Creative Quality Matters More

With narrow targeting, mediocre creative can sometimes work because you're reaching a pre-filtered audience likely to be interested.

With broad targeting, your creative does the filtering. It needs to immediately communicate value to the right people and be ignorable to the wrong people.

Expect to refresh creative more frequently—every 2-4 weeks instead of monthly.

Optimization Events Are Critical

Your chosen optimization event tells Facebook what "success" looks like.

If you optimize for installs with broad targeting, Facebook finds people who install lots of apps—not necessarily quality users.

If you optimize for purchases, Facebook finds people who buy from apps, even within a broad audience.

Broad targeting amplifies the importance of optimizing for events that correlate with real business value.

Budget Requirements Increase

Broad targeting needs slightly more budget to exit learning phase because the algorithm is evaluating a larger potential audience.

Minimum recommended budget: $15-20/day per ad set with broad targeting, vs $10-15/day with narrow targeting.

The 70/30 Framework

Most successful 2025 app campaigns use a hybrid approach:

70% of budget: Broad targeting across core markets

30% of budget: Testing—lookalike audiences, narrow interest tests for specific hypotheses, new geos

This ensures your baseline performance is optimized while still exploring potential improvements.

FAQs

Does broad targeting work for app install campaigns?

Yes, broad targeting consistently outperforms narrow targeting for most app campaigns in 2025. Recent data shows agencies have seen CPI drop by 84% after switching from interest-based targeting to broad open targeting.

What is broad targeting on Facebook?

Broad (or "open") targeting means you only select core demographics—location, age, and gender—while leaving interests, behaviors, and detailed targeting blank. This gives Facebook's algorithm maximum flexibility to find users who will convert.

When should I not use broad targeting?

Avoid broad targeting for extremely niche apps (B2B tools for specific industries, apps for rare hobbies), apps with very small addressable markets, or when you have proven data showing narrow targeting consistently delivers better user quality at similar or lower costs.

Does broad targeting work the same on iOS and Android?

Broad targeting typically performs slightly better on Android because Facebook has more complete tracking data. It still works well on iOS but may take a few days longer to exit learning phase due to SKAdNetwork's delayed attribution.

How long does it take to see results with broad targeting?

Expect 7-10 days for broad targeting campaigns to exit learning phase and stabilize performance. Initial CPIs will be 30-50% higher than final optimized CPIs as the algorithm learns.

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Broad targeting isn't about being lazy with audience definition. It's about trusting Facebook's algorithm to identify patterns you can't manually define. In 2025, for most apps, that trust is data-backed and consistently pays off.