Greg K.SEO and analytics at Adcore · LinkedInTargeted advertising, or ad targeting, means social media ads shown not to everyone but to people you choose, based on their interests, their behavior or your own data. In Ukraine people usually just call it “target,” borrowing the English word. The easiest way to understand how it works is through a question everyone has asked: why does my phone show me sneakers right after I talked about sneakers?
Is your phone listening to you for ads
You tell a friend over coffee that you’re looking for sneakers. That evening, Instagram shows you sneaker ads. The conclusion writes itself.
A familiar scene. Here’s what’s really behind it.
In the US, someone even decided to cash in on this suspicious coincidence. Cox Media Group, a large media company, sold advertisers a service called Active Listening. The company’s website said: “It’s True. Your Devices Are Listening to You.” A pitch deck for clients promised to capture purchase intent straight from conversations near phones and TVs, with the logos of Google, Amazon and Facebook alongside. When journalists at 404 Media published this, Google kicked the company out of its partner program, and Meta said it doesn’t use phone microphones for ads.
The story has an unexpected ending. In May 2026 the US Federal Trade Commission published complaints against the companies involved in the service. According to the complaints, the service “did not, in fact, listen in on consumers’ conversations or use voice data at all.” Customers were simply resold email lists at a markup. Under the proposed settlement, Cox Media Group is to pay $880,000. The prime evidence of eavesdropping turned out to be false advertising for advertising.
There’s research too. Scientists at Northeastern University in the US tested 17,260 Android apps and didn’t find a single one that sent audio. What they did find was something nobody expected: third-party libraries that recorded the phone’s screen without permission. The authors warn that they may have missed something, and they didn’t test iPhones, so this is a strong argument but not a final verdict.
Where speaking out loud really does affect ads. Google says the text of your voice requests to its Assistant may inform the ads you see, although the recordings themselves are kept separate. Since December 2025, Meta has factored in chats with Meta AI, except in the EU, the UK and South Korea. Both cases involve talking to an assistant, not to a friend over coffee.
Where ads really learn about the sneakers
They simply don’t need a microphone: there’s plenty of data without one.
Based on Meta Business Help: Pixel, Custom Audiences, Lookalike Audiences and Detailed targeting.
The most likely explanation is duller than a conspiracy. You started talking about sneakers because you were already thinking about them: you’d looked at them on a site, paused on someone’s photo, scrolled through reviews. The ad followed those tracks, not the conversation. One more thing: you see dozens of ads a day and forget almost all of them, but you remember the one that matched your conversation. Psychologists call this the frequency illusion.
Check it yourself. On any Facebook or Instagram ad, tap the three dots and choose “Why am I seeing this ad?” Meta will show you some of the reasons, and in your Ad preferences you can remove interests. While you’re at it, take a look at the Meta Ad Library: it shows all active ads from any page, including your competitors’.
What targeted advertising is and how it differs from search ads
Search ads appear in response to a query: someone searches for “running shoes,” and you answer. Targeted ads are aimed at a person: they’re not searching for anything, just scrolling their feed, and you come to them. That explains the difference in what each channel can do.
| Search advertising | Targeted advertising | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sees it | Someone who is searching | Someone who isn’t searching but may become interested |
| What it’s based on | The query | The person: interests, behavior, data |
| Where | Google, partner sites | Facebook, Instagram, TikTok |
| When it works best | When demand already exists | When you need to create demand or bring someone back |
| What matters most | The query and the page | The ad |
Targeted advertising is also often confused with SMM (social media management), but they’re different things. SMM means running a page: posts, videos, talking to followers. Targeted advertising means a paid ad seen by people who don’t even follow you. The two work well together, because people usually check out your page before buying. Nor is search advertising a rival to ad targeting: one channel catches people who are already searching, the other creates demand.
What targeted ads look like: examples
To the viewer, it’s an ordinary post labeled “Sponsored” in the feed, Stories or Reels. The difference is who gets to see it.
Breakfast ads go to people within a kilometer right now. The location setting does the work.
Someone looked at sneakers on the site and left. The pixel logged it, and for the next few days they see those exact sneakers.
The company uploads the phone numbers of customers who haven’t ordered in six months and shows them a win-back discount.
The system gets a list of people who have already paid and looks for new people who behave similarly.
Where to run targeted ads in Ukraine
Most Ukrainian businesses start with Facebook and Instagram, because both run from one ad account, while TikTok only brought ads back to Ukraine in April 2025. Audience estimates vary widely even when they draw on the same ad platforms, so we show both.
| Platform | DataReportal | UAMASTER |
|---|---|---|
| 14.2 million | 9.7 million | |
| 12.6 million | 13.2 million | |
| TikTok, 18+ | 19.0 million | 21.5 million |
DataReportal, late 2025; UAMASTER, a Ukrainian digital agency, via Forbes Ukraine, January 1, 2026. These are potential ad reach figures, not counts of active users: Meta itself warns against confusing the two.
What to choose depends on where your customers are and what you sell. According to DataReportal, about 60% of the Facebook and Instagram audience in Ukraine is women, while 55% of TikTok’s is men. B2B services often do better on Facebook, and products with striking video on TikTok, but test it rather than assume.
How much targeted advertising costs
Targeted advertising comes down to two costs: the ad money that goes to the platform and the fee for whoever runs the ads. Almost all Ukrainian providers bill them separately, so the first question to ask of any price list is whether the ad budget is included.
| What you pay for | Cost | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | UAH 4,000 to 12,900, one-time | Public price lists, November 2026 |
| Monthly management | From UAH 5,000–7,000 with small providers, most often $450–700, and up to UAH 27,000 or more at agencies | 9 public price lists |
| Ad budget | Providers advise starting anywhere from UAH 5,000 to $500–1,000 a month | The providers’ own recommendations |
The platforms themselves don’t name a total. Meta says the minimum depends on the country, currency and objective, and advises keeping the daily budget at least five times the desired cost per result: if you want a lead for $5, budget at least $25 a day. TikTok’s help center requires more than $50 a day per campaign and more than $20 per ad group.
The cost of an impression or a click in Ukraine swings a lot, and we found no independent data: figures on providers’ blogs differ several times over, so we don’t offer them as a benchmark. Only a first test in your niche gives you an exact answer. What to track beyond the click, we show in our article on ROI.
How to launch targeted advertising in 2026
Ad targeting has changed over the last two years. Meta removed detailed targeting exclusions and merged some interests into broader groups. In the new Advantage+ mode, age, gender and interests have mostly become suggestions: if you specify women, the ad can also reach men when the AI decides they’ll respond. So the main job now isn’t fine-tuning the audience but giving the system the right data and strong ads.
- Track what makes moneySet up the pixel and the Conversions API and send the lead or purchase event. Without this, the system will look for people who click, not people who buy.
- Upload your own dataA customer list gives you a base for lookalike audiences, and no platform update can take it away.
- Prepare several adsDifferent messages for different people. The ad itself now acts as targeting: whoever responds, the system looks for more people like them.
- Send people to a page that matches the adThe promise in the ad and the first screen of the page must match. More on that here: what a landing page is.
- Track the cost of a saleLikes and cheap clicks prove nothing. Look at what a lead that turned into a sale costs and whether the advertising pays off.
When won’t targeted advertising work? When you have nothing to show, when a narrow niche gives the system too few people to learn from, and when you work in a heavily restricted field: we cover health advertising separately in our article on promoting medical websites.
At Adcore we run targeted ads on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to drive leads and sales. The ads run from your own accounts, so the audiences, the pixel and the history stay with you. Targeted advertising at Adcore.
Frequently asked questions about targeted advertising
What is targeting?
The method of choosing who sees an ad: by location, interests, behavior or your own database. In everyday talk in Ukraine, “target” means social media advertising done this way.
What is a targeting specialist?
The person who sets up and runs these ads: audiences, creatives, budget, reports.
What does targeted advertising get you?
It lets you reach people who aren’t searching for your product yet and bring back those who have already visited your site. It creates demand rather than just catching it.
Can you turn off targeted advertising?
You can’t turn off social media ads entirely, but in your Ad preferences you can remove interests and limit data from other sites.
Sources
Quotes are given as in the originals.
- FTC Fines Marketers Nearly $1 Million, Gizmodo, May 22, 2026.
- Quote from the FTC press release on Active Listening, Simon Willison, May 22, 2026.
- Terms of the FTC settlement, National Law Review, May 21, 2026.
- Here’s the pitch deck for Active Listening, 404 Media, August 26, 2024.
- Panoptispy: Characterizing Audio and Video Exfiltration from Android Applications, PoPETs, 2018.
- Facebook Does Not Use Your Phone’s Microphone for Ads, Meta, 2016, updated 2023.
- How Google handles voice recordings, Google Safety Center.
- Meta AI and advertising, The Register, October 1, 2025.
- About Meta Pixel, Meta Business Help.
- About Custom Audiences, Meta Business Help.
- About Lookalike Audiences, Meta Business Help.
- About Advantage+ audience, Meta Business Help.
- Audience controls and Audience suggestions, Meta Business Help.
- Updates to detailed targeting, Meta Business Help.
- How Facebook decides which ads to show, Meta Help.
- Digital 2026: Ukraine, DataReportal, November 8, 2025.
- TikTok is catching up with YouTube in Ukraine, Forbes Ukraine, January 6, 2026.
- TikTok has resumed advertising in Ukraine, dev.ua, April 26, 2025.