Detailed Targeting

Updated: May 21, 2026

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Ads in WhatsApp Status are available via the Marketing API. Learn more about ads in WhatsApp Status.

With Targeting Search, you can find targeting with one targeting type in a single API call. With the Detailed Targeting API, you can search for multiple targeting types in a single request. You can also get suggestions based on your query.

The API has four endpoints: Search, Suggestions, Browse, and Validation.

The response for these endpoints contains the following:

Name	Description
`id` type: string	Target audience ID
`name` type: string	Name of the target audience
`audience_size_lower_bound` type: integer	Estimated lower bound target audience size
`audience_size_upper_bound` type: integer	Estimated upper bound target audience size
`path` type: array of strings	Includes the category and any parent categories the targeting falls into
`description` type: string	A short description of the target audience

If you do not provide limit_type, the API filters results with fewer than 2,000 people into four categories: work_employers, work_positions, education_majors, education_schools. Otherwise you get fewer meaningful results. When you use limit_type, results are filtered for one of those four categories and not everything is returned.

Search

Retrieve target audiences for your ads that match your search query. You can provide the following parameters at this endpoint:

curl -G \
-d "q=harvard" \
-d "access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/act_<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>/targetingsearch

Name	Description
`q` type: string	Required. Query string.
`limit` type: integer	Optional. Number of results.
`limit_type` type: string	Optional. Limit the type of audience to retrieve. Defaults to all types. Valid values: `interests` `education_schools` `education_majors` `work_positions` `work_employers` `relationship_statuses` `college_years` `education_statuses` `family_statuses` `industries` `life_events` `behaviors` `income`
`locale` type: string	Optional. The locale to display audience names and descriptions, if available. Defaults to the ad account’s locale.

Suggestions

Returns additional audiences you can target based on the audiences you provide.

curl -G \
-d "targeting_list=[{'type':'interests','id':6003263791114}]" \
-d "access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/act_<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>/targetingsuggestions

Provide these parameters:

Name	Description
`targeting_list` type: array of `{'type':'{TYPE}', 'id':{ID}}`	Required. Array of `{'type':'{TYPE}', 'id':{ID}}` pairs as input audience for suggestions.
`limit` type: integer	Optional. Number of results. Default is 30. Maximum is 45.
`limit_type` type: string	Optional. Limit the type of audience to retrieve. Defaults to all types. Valid values: `interests` `education_schools` `education_majors` `work_positions` `work_employers` `relationship_statuses` `college_years` `education_statuses` `family_statuses` `industries` `life_events` `behaviors` `income`
`locale` type: string	Optional. The locale to display audience names and descriptions. Defaults to the ad account’s locale.

Browse

Get targeting in a structured taxonomy for Facebook categories, third-party data providers, and some interests. Results from this endpoint appear in the Browse function of the Detailed Targeting UI component in Ads Manager.

curl -G \
-d "access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/act_<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>/targetingbrowse

Provide the following optional parameters:

Name	Description
`limit_type` type: string	Optional. Limit the type of audience to retrieve. Defaults to all types.
`locale` type: string	Optional. The locale to display audience names and descriptions. Defaults to the ad account’s locale.

Validation

Verify whether an audience is valid for targeting. Validation is helpful if you have already created an ad set and want to verify its targeting spec is still valid. If the targeting is not valid, remove it from the targeting spec.

curl -G \
-d "targeting_list=[{'type':'interests','id':6003283735711}, {'type':'relationship_statuses','id':100}]" \
-d "access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/act_<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>/targetingvalidation

In addition to the standard Detailed Targeting response fields, this endpoint also returns:

Name	Description
`valid` type: boolean	Whether the audience is valid.

Here is the list of input parameters:

Name	Description
`targeting_list` type: array of `{'type':'{TYPE}', 'id':{ID}}`	Array of `{'type':'{TYPE}', 'id':{ID}}` pairs for validation. Preferred.
`id_list` type: array of strings	Array of IDs for validation. Succeeds only if an ID is uniquely identifiable in the Meta audience database.
`name_list` type: array of strings	Array of strings for validation. Interests only. Case-insensitive.
`locale` type: string	Locale to display audience names and descriptions. Defaults to ad account’s locale.

Provide at least one of the following: targeting_list, id_list, or name_list.