Flexible targeting

Updated: Jun 30, 2026

Combine different targeting options to reach a specific set of users in the flexible_spec with AND and OR statements. Facebook evaluates targeting in flexible_spec via AND with all segments outside the spec such as age, gender, geographic locations. Facebook also evaluates each top-level array element in flexible_spec with AND. Facebook evaluates second-level array elements with OR.

Targeting segments, such as behaviors specified inside flexible_spec, are not available for use outside of flexible_spec.

Fields

Field	Description
flexible_spec type: JSON Object	Array of arrays. Each contains a targeting segment in appropriate format, such as interests, behaviors, and demographics. The top-level array has a limit of 25, and the secondary-level array has a limit of 1,000.

Use these fields in flexible targeting:

• custom_audiences
• interests
• behaviors
• college_years
• education_majors
• education_schools
• education_statuses
• family_statuses
• income
• industries
• life_events
• user_adclusters
• work_positions
• work_employers

Note: When using custom_audiences in flexible_spec, Advantage Custom Audience may be enabled by default. See Advantage Custom Audience for details on opting out.

Examples

Flexible targeting

To target people who live in the U.S., aged between 18-43, who have not recently moved and are travelers or like soccer or movies and are newlyweds or like music:

curl \
  -F 'name=My AdSet' \
  -F 'optimization_goal=REACH' \
  -F 'billing_event=IMPRESSIONS' \
  -F 'bid_amount=150' \
  -F 'daily_budget=2000' \
  -F 'campaign_id=<CAMPAIGN_ID>' \
  -F 'targeting={
    "age_max": 43,
    "age_min": 18,
    "flexible_spec": [
      {
        "behaviors": [{"id":6002714895372,"name":"Frequent Travelers"}],
        "interests": [
          {"id":6003107902433,"name":"Association football (Soccer)"},
          {"id":6003139266461,"name":"Movies"}
        ]
      },
      {
        "interests": [{"id":6003020834693,"name":"Music"}],
        "life_events": [{"id":6002714398172,"name":"Newlywed (1 year)"}]
      }
    ],
    "geo_locations": {"countries":["US"]}
  }' \
  -F 'status=ACTIVE' \
  -F 'access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
  https://graph.facebook.com/v2.11/act_<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>/adsets

With this flexible spec, the resulting audience is:

(segment 1 or segment 2 or segment 3) and (segment 4 or segment 5) and segment 6

flexible_spec=
[
  {
    'segment_type':[segment1, segment2],
    'segment_type':[segment3]
  },
  {
    'segment_type':[segment4, segment5]
  },
  {
    'segment_type':[segment6]
  }
]