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Master Facebook Custom Audiences for CRO
  • Contest Factory
  • April 25, 2023

Custom audiences

Facebook custom audiences are a targeting feature that allows businesses to create a specific audience based on their existing customer data. Custom audiences can be created using a variety of sources, such as email addresses, phone numbers, website visitors, and engagement with Facebook and Instagram content.

By using custom audiences, businesses can deliver targeted ads to a specific group of people who have already interacted with their brand in some way. For example, a business can use custom audiences to target customers who have abandoned their shopping carts or to upsell to customers who have previously made a purchase.

Custom audiences can also be used to create lookalike audiences, which are audiences that share similar characteristics to the existing custom audience. This helps businesses reach new potential customers who are likely to be interested in their products or services.

Overall, Facebook custom audiences are a powerful tool for businesses to deliver highly targeted ads and improve the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns.

Popular types of Facebook custom audiences

Customer lists

This audience is created by uploading a list of email addresses, phone numbers, or other contact information that the business has collected from its customers.

Website traffic

This audience is created by tracking visitors to a business’s website using Facebook’s tracking pixel. The pixel can track specific actions such as page views, add-to-cart events, and purchases, and businesses can create custom audiences based on these actions.

App activity

This audience is created by tracking users who have interacted with a business’s app. The business can create custom audiences based on specific in-app actions such as installs, purchases, and registrations.

Engagement

This audience is created based on how users have interacted with a business’s Facebook or Instagram content. Businesses can create custom audiences based on actions such as video views, likes, comments, and shares.

Lookalike audiences

This audience is created by using Facebook’s algorithm to find people who share similar characteristics to an existing custom audience. This is a powerful tool for businesses to reach new potential customers who are likely to be interested in their products or services.

Custom audiences based on Facebook groups

Advertisers can create custom audiences based on people who are members of specific Facebook groups. This can help them reach people who have a shared interest or hobby.

There are more targeted and granular Facebook audience segments that you can create. The more personalized the segment, the more customized the targeting ad can be. For example, creating segments of people who look at bakeware as opposed to customer segments that look at the knife section of your homewares catalog. Offering likeminded individuals offers will increase your response rate by offering the right product to the right customer.

Here are the steps to create a custom audience based on website traffic:

  1. Go to Ads Manager and click on the “Audiences” tab.
  2. Click on the “Create Audience” dropdown and select “Custom Audience.”
  3. Select “Website Traffic” as the source of your custom audience.
  4. Choose “People who visited specific web pages” and enter the URL of the category page on your website that you want to target.
  5. You can further refine your audience by setting a time range for how far back you want to go and by adding additional rules such as excluding certain URLs or targeting people who have visited multiple pages on your website.
  6. Once you’ve created your audience, you can use it to create targeted Facebook ads that will be shown to people who have visited the specific category page on your website.

And once you have created this custom audience, you can leverage it to fill the top of your funnel with people that are not familiar with your brand. This methodology will find people on Facebook that have similar demographics and psychographics to the people in your category segment, enabling you to appeal to a wider audience. Remember this audience segment will convert at a lower rate than someone that is familiar with your brand, but you have to continually fill your funnel to find new customers, and this is one of the many targeted methodologies to do so.

To create a lookalike audience in Facebook, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Ads Manager and click on the “Audiences” tab.
  2. Click on the “Create Audience” dropdown and select “Lookalike Audience.”
  3. Choose the source of your lookalike audience. You can use your Facebook pixel data, your custom audience data, or your page fans.
  4. Select the country or region where you want to find similar people.
  5. Choose your desired audience size, which ranges from 1% to 10% of the total population of the selected country or region. The smaller the percentage, the more closely the lookalike audience will match your source audience.
  6. Click “Create Audience” and wait for Facebook to create your lookalike audience. This may take a few hours.
  7. Once your lookalike audience is ready, you can use it to create targeted Facebook ads that will be shown to people who have similar characteristics and behaviors to your source audience.

There are endless options on configuring Facebook audiences. Your limit is only your creativity and your brand understanding. Understanding brand nuances can help you uncover like characteristics you may have not considered, such as a private group these likeminded individuals may participate in. In addition to being creative with your custom audiences, you can also layer your audiences.

Layering Custom Audiences

Layering Facebook custom audiences is the process of combining multiple custom audiences to create a more refined and targeted audience. Layering your custom audiences can provide even further optimization to your targeting by adding additional criteria and further segmenting your audience. Because the audience is more targeted, you are more likely to see a higher conversion rate and lower cost per conversion with layered custom audiences. By layering custom audiences, you can also create retargeting campaigns that are tailored to specific behaviors or interests, which can lead to higher engagement and conversion rates. By targeting only the most relevant audience, you can save money on ad spend and get more value for your advertising budget.

Overall, layering Facebook custom audiences can help you create more targeted and effective ad campaigns that can lead to higher engagement, conversion rates, and return on investment.

How to Layer Custom Audiences

  1. Go to Ads Manager and click on the “Audiences” tab.
  2. Click on the “Create Audience” dropdown and select “Custom Audience.”
  3. Choose the source of your first custom audience. You can choose from website traffic, customer file, engagement, app activity, offline activity, and more.
  4. Set up the targeting for your first custom audience. You can include or exclude specific groups of people based on their behavior or characteristics.
  5. Click “Create Audience” to save your first custom audience.
  6. Repeat the process to create a second custom audience using a different source, such as a different page on your website, a different customer file, or a different type of engagement.
  7. Once you have created your second custom audience, click on the “Create Audience” dropdown again and select “Custom Audience.”
  8. Choose “Custom Combination” to create a new audience that combines your first and second custom audiences.
  9. Select the source of your first custom audience and the source of your second custom audience.
  10. Set up the targeting for your new custom audience. You can include or exclude specific groups of people based on their behavior or characteristics from both of your original custom audiences.
  11. Click “Create Audience” to save your new custom audience.

You can repeat this process to layer more custom audiences and create a more refined and targeted audience. By layering custom audiences, you can create an audience that includes people who meet specific criteria from multiple sources, which can help you reach a more relevant audience and achieve better results with your Facebook ads.

Now that you have the comprehensive facts and how-to for Facebook Custom Audiences, it’s time to take on the Facebook Ad types so you can find out which is best for your audience. Best of luck with the social selling!

You might also like: 8 Types of Facebook Ads to Crush Your Sales Goals

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