The key to marketing success is getting the right message in front of the right person at the right time.
Facebook’s targeting capabilities allow us to do just that, which is what makes it so powerful as an advertising platform.
You can target people based on interests, demographics and behaviours. But there’s also another way to target people… one that’s slightly less known, definitely less understood, but arguably much more powerful…
It’s called Facebook Custom Audiences. But what are Facebook custom audiences and how do you use them? In this article, I explain all…
What Are Facebook Custom Audiences?
A custom audience is essentially an ad targeting option that allows you to target an audience of people that have already had a touch of your brand.
They give you the ability to retarget people you’re already engaging with as a business.
For example, if someone:
- visits your website
- watches your videos on Facebook or Instagram
- engages with your Facebook or Instagram page
- is on your customer or email list
You can serve them a specific ad.
This is hugely powerful. You know who your ad is being delivered to and so it’s easier to craft a compelling message for them. Also, by targeting a “warm” audience (group of people who already engage with you), the chances of your ads performing well is much higher.
What Type Of Custom Audiences Can You Use?
There are four main types of custom audiences:
Facebook Custom Audiences From A Customer List
This is where we upload lists of data (such as email lists, customer lists etc.) to Facebook. You take your list, upload it to Facebook and Facebook will match the data you have with their users. You obviously need permission to do this.
If someone is already on your mailing list, they’ve shown interest in what you do: so by serving ads to them, you can bring them closer to becoming a customer.
Website Custom Audiences
You can advertise to anyone who has visited your website in the past 180 days as long as you have the Facebook pixel installed on your site.
You can set the time frame from 1-180 days and can select whether you want to target people that have visited any page on your site, or specific pages.
For example, you might want to target people that visited specific product pages in the last 24 hours, or you might want to target everyone who visited any page on your site in the last 180 days).
You can also set it up so you’re targeting people based on how long they visited your site. This is done by percentages, so you can target the top 10% of visitors by time spent on your site, for example.
Mobile App Custom Audiences
If you have a mobile app, you can create custom audiences based on people who have engaged with/used your app in the last 180 days.
For example, people who have used your app or taken specific actions on your app in the last 30 days.
Offline Activity
Offline Activity custom audiences are based on people who have engaged with your business in-store, by phone or other offline channels.
Engagement Custom Audiences
There are different engagement custom audience options:
Video Custom Audiences
Arguably my favourite type of custom audience. With the video custom audiences, we’re able to create audiences of people that have watched your videos on Facebook or Instagram.
This is why content creation is so important. The more video content you post and the more views you amass, the more people you can retarget.
When creating video ads, you can choose whether you want to target people who have watched 10s of a video all the way to 100% of your video.
Lead Form
Lead forms and lead generation campaigns on Facebook are a way to generate leads through forms that appear on the Facebook feed. Rather than sending people to a landing page, the form appears on Facebook and they can fill it in without leaving the platform.
Lead Gen Engagement custom audiences allow you to create audiences of people based on how they interacted with your lead form.
Canvas
Similarly to lead forms, canvas custom audiences allow you to create audiences based on the interactions people had with your canvas.
Facebook Page
You’re able to create an audience of people that have engaged with your page, such as viewed your page, saved a post and other things.
Instagram Business Profile
Exactly the same as above, but instead of your Facebook page, it’s your Instagram business profile.
Event
Target people who have engaged with your Facebook events. Perhaps someone claims an interest in your event, you might want to retarget them, to remind them to actually show up.
How To Set Up Facebook Custom Audiences
To create a Facebook custom audience, simply:
- Go to your Facebook ad account.
- Hover over the menu on the left-hand side and click on “audiences”.
- Click on the blue “Create Audience” button and select “Custom Audience” from the dropdown menu.
Alternatively, you can follow the screenshots below. Please note, Facebook’s UI is always changing and the screenshots below may look different to what you see.
Head into your Facebook Business Manager and click the ‘hamburger’ menu top right. From there, click on all tools > audiences, as per the screenshot below.
Once you’re in the audiences section, you need to click on Create Audience, then Custom Audience.
Once you’ve done, that Facebook will invite you to create a custom audience. This is where you select the type of custom audience you want to create, as outlined above.
Simply choose the Custom Audience you want to create and you’re good to go!
Whenever you run an ad, especially if you’re trying to sell something, you need to ask yourself ‘Who is most likely to take this action?’.
Chances are it’s going to be the people that already know, like and trust you
Facebook Custom Audiences allow you to target those people with ease.
If you’re looking for support creating custom audiences and running ads to people in yours, get in touch with us today.
Gavin
