Facebook ads custom audiences guide

Through Custom Audiences, you can target your Facebook Ads with a list of email addresses, phone numbers, website visitors, fan page members, Facebook user IDs, and even engagement.. Her

The Ultimate Guide to

Facebook Custom

Audiences

2016 Update! by

by Massimo Chieruzzi

CEO, AdEspresso

Table of contents

1 What are Custom Audiences?

2 How to Create a Customer List Custom Audience

3 How to Create a Website Custom Audience

4 How to Create an App Activity Audience

5 How to Create a Lookalike Audience

6 How to Target Your Facebook Ads to a Custom Audience

7 7 Ideas To Boost Your Campaigns with Custom Audiences

8 Doing More With Custom Audiences and AdEspresso

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There’s a reason why all of the top marketers

are using Custom Audiences in their Facebook

Ads - they actually work! If you’re not using them

already, chances are you’re losing money, which

clearly shouldn’t be in your marketing plan!

If you’re not up on Custom Audiences, here are

some case studies that quickly prove their worth:

A KingNet: +75% CTR, +46.6% Conversion Rate,

43.37% lower CPA

A OpenSky: +30% Conversion Rate

A JackThreads: 30% Lower CPA for member

signups

A KIXEYE: 2x Higher conversion rate, 5.5X higher

LifeTime Value

If Facebook Ads are already working for you,

Custom Audiences can make your ROI skyrocket to

new heights

If you’re in a niche where Facebook Ads tend to

be a less-effective channel, such as B2B, Custom Audiences can make your ads work much better and reach hundreds of thousands of more

customers in the process

Want proof? We experienced the power of Custom Audiences ourselves As a B2B startup, Facebook wasn't our most effective acquisition channel

Now, thanks to Custom Audiences, it generates more signups than Google AdWords at just one-third

Custom Audiences are an extremely effective

way for marketers to target their Facebook

Ads Through Custom Audiences, you can

target your Facebook Ads with a list of email

addresses, phone numbers, website visitors, fan

page members, Facebook user IDs, and even

engagement!

The opportunities for precisely targeting potential

customers are basically endless You’re no longer

limited to hard-guessing your advertising targets

by gender or vague interests Instead, you can

target a very precise niche of highly-targeted

users

Let’s look at an example: Say you have an email

list of 10,000 customers who’ve bought your product You want to promote the launch of an updated product version to these customers By simply uploading your email list to Facebook, you'll create a new Custom Audience Facebook will then try to match those email addresses with its users

For the sake of our example, let’s say Facebook was able to match 70% of your list You can now target advertising for the new, improved version

of your product to 7,000 customers who already loved the previous one - I bet the conversion rate will be pretty high!

This example is just the beginning Since Custom

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Audiences launched in October 2013, Facebook

has continually made significant updates, making

it much more powerful and flexible than ever

before

Here are your options for custom audiences:

Standard Custom Audience

Upload a list of emails, phone numbers, or

Facebook User IDs you want to target and

Facebook will match them with it’s users

Facebook will usually match between 60-80% of

the contacts on your list

Website Custom Audiences

Website Custom Audiences means you don’t need

to have target users' email addresses or phone

numbers Instead, simply insert the Facebook

Pixel tracking code on your website and you’ll

be able to target your Facebook Advertising for

all users that have visited a specific page on your website during a set time period of up to 180 days

If this marketing technique sounds familiar, it’s because it's basically Retargeting on Facebook without the hassle and the costs of the FBX program

App Activity Custom Audiences

You can create audiences based on what actions people take when they use your app - either on Desktop or Mobile You can create audiences of people who recently opened your app, recently completed a purchase, completed large purchases,

or achieved a certain level in your game or platform For example, you can create an audience of those who have used your app previously, but not used it

in the last 30 days

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With the ability to immediately expand your list and target users who are likely to convert, you can see why

Lookalike Audiences are so powerful

Since launching, Facebook has expanded Lookalike Audiences, allowing you to create them based on your

Facebook Page fans, website visitors, and customer lists

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Getting Started with Custom Audiences

To create your first Custom Audience, go to the ”Audience" section of the Facebook Power Editor or Ads Manager.

In the Ads Manager, it’s under the Tools section Select “Audiences.”

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In Power Editor, it has its own section, right under the the toolbar

right beneath your ad account number:

Since this is your first Custom Audience, you'll need to create

a new one by clicking the green “Create Audience” button A

popup window will open and ask you to pick which type of

audience you’d like to create

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Let’s select the “Customer List” option These are also where

you can put your leads - or potential customers You’ll have

two options to sync “customer lists:

A Manually upload your audience in a txt or csv file.

B Sync your Email CRM to your Facebook Ads

Account

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A Manual Upload

To get started, you’ll need to prepare a file containing the

contacts you want to add to your Custom Audience Use a

CSV/Excel file or open a simple text editor and insert one

value per line like this:

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Give your Custom Audience a short, easy-to-remember name

that describes this specific audience Some ideas include

"Former customers," "Email signups," or something similar

Add a description You'll eventually want to use this field to

insert notes every time you add a new audience However,

you don't have to worry about it at this point

A Select what’s inside the file you created, such as emails,

phone numbers, etc

A Select the txt or csv file you previously created from

your computer

A Agree to Facebook's Terms and Conditions (more on this later)

A Click "Create Audience" According to how big your file is, it may take some time for Facebook to match your list content with Facebook users

A Once your audience has been created and it’s ready to go, you’ll receive a notification You can go back on the “Audience” page and see how many users have been matched

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Creating a Customer List Custom Audience on AdEspresso is simple and in-line with what you’ve already learned for Facebook’s Ads Manager and Power Editor

1 Login into AdEspresso.

2 Go to "Tools → Custom Audiences"

3 Click “Create Audience”.

4 Select the first option, Data File - Custom

Audience.

5 Now create your audience exactly as you’d do

it on Facebook: Pick a title, a description, select

the content type of your file, and the data file to

upload

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B Syncing with Your Email CRM

Facebook currently only supports MailChimp integration to sync custom audiences For every other CRM, you’ll have to use third party tools to add new leads that you acquire to your email lists, or add your email lists to custom audiences Lucky for you, we have this feature in AdEspresso!

With AdEspresso’s Data Sync feature, it’s easier than ever for businesses and marketers to sync up all the

necessary contacts and leads! New leads will be added to your email list, which can be used to create new custom audiences, both of which are tools that can and should be used to increase conversion rates and build rapport with your new leads!

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HOW TO DATA SYNC WITH ADESPRESSO

You can do this with AdEspresso in 5 easy steps

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Step 5: You’ll set up your mapping fields to make sure all the information is transferred correctly.

And then just review, and you’re done!

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Custom Audiences created from customers - or leads -

allow you to target your advertising at the right people

and achieve awesome ROI’s for your ad spend However,

what do you do if you don’t have a big enough database

of emails, Facebook User IDs, or phone numbers to create

your own Custom Audiences?

This is where the power of Website Custom Audiences

comes in This feature doesn’t require you to have any

data about the users you want to target All you have

to do is wait for a user to visit your website Thanks to

a special tracking code - the Facebook Pixel - Facebook

will recognize users and automatically add them to an

Audience, making them ready to be re-targeted with

advertising

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HOW TO INSTALL THE FACEBOOK PIXEL

Go to your Facebook Pixel Tab in Ads Manager

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1 Click Create a Pixel

2 Enter a name for your pixel There's only one pixel per

ad account, so choose a name that represents your

business

3 Make sure you've checked the box to accept the terms

4 Click Create Pixel If already have one, you won't see the

Create Pixel button

5 Your Facebook Pixel tracks multiple events depending

on the page

You’ll want to add the Pixel to all pages you want to

track, so ask a developer to help, or use a plugin that

automatically does this for you For WordPress, we know

many people use PixelYourSite

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If you want to check to make sure your Facebook

Pixel is working, download the free Google

Chrome Extension, Pixel Helper

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CREATING YOUR FIRST WEBSITE CUSTOM AUDIENCE (WCA)

With the Facebook Pixel installed, you can now

create your first website custom audience

In Facebook Ads Manager, click on the “Audience”

button in the menu, and then click the “Create

Audience” button at the top-right of the page A

popup will ask you what kind of audience you

want to create

1 Select “Custom Audience From Your Website”

2 Facebook will ask you to agree to the Terms &

Conditions for Website Custom Audiences and

provide a link to get your tracking pixel

3 You can choose to add every user to your Custom Audience who has visited any page of your website or

those who qualify according to specific rules Rules are powerful and pretty easy to create You can include

or exclude people who visited a given url Clicking the “+” icon will add another rule.

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For example, you could target everyone who

visited your checkout page, expressing an

intention to buy, but didn’t see the "Thank

You" page (meaning they did not complete the

purchase) This gives you a "second chance" to get

them to complete their purchase

Finally, you can select how many days to track

website visitors This means that your audience

will only include people who match the specified

rules during the last X days While Facebook’s

suggested value is 30, the maximum value is 180

days

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How to do it in AdEspresso

Creating Website Custom Audiences in AdEspresso is extremely simple:

 Go to "Tools → Custom Audiences".

 Click on "Create Audience", and then select “Custom Audience from your Website”.

 You’ll then need to give your new audience a name and select the rules for inclusion The options are the same as Facebook’s: Just hit the "+" icon to add a new rule.

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ADVANCED WEBSITE CUSTOM AUDIENCES

For those that really want to dive into their website

visitors, Facebook released upgrades in May 2016 that

allow highly detailed targeting based on the intensity of

interest visitors display on your website

Simply put: some visitors are more valuable than

others And Facebook will now help you figure out

which ones are most likely to convert to leads or

customers

Under Website Traffic, choose the “Custom

Combination” parameter to get started You’ll need to

switch over to “Advanced Mode” to see these features,

and Facebook may or may not have rolled out all of

them to your particular ad account

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A Frequency: how many times a website visitor performs an action, i.e visit a page This is currently the most

robust, and has been rolled out to the most ad accounts

A Dynamic date: This allows you to target those visitors who have visited over a range of dates rather than a

set number of previous days

A Aggregated values: total amount of time a person has spent on a page or combination of pages

A Devices: including Android, iOS devices, desktop and other mobile devices You an exclude or include each

as their own separate value

You can also target based on Standard Events website

visitors take on your site:

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And to get even more complex?

Combine these metrics with each

other! There’s an “include” function

and “exclude” function depending on

events or URLs You can also keep it

simple though For example, you can

target users who accessed your site on

mobile or desktop

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With mobile being the dominant platform for Facebook

ads, it only makes sense that creating audiences based

on app activity is quickly becoming one of the leading

forms of custom audiences For example, you can target

people who previously used your app, but have not

come back to your app within the last month Or you

can target people who have added an item to their cart

on your app, but never actually purchased it Target

them with a discount coupon and voila!

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You can create audiences based on actions a user

did or didn’t take within your app!

The actions (or non-actions) you can currently

target are:

A Recently Opened your App

A Recently Completed a Purchase

A Completed Large Purchases

A Achieved a Certain Level in your Game

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How to do it in Adespresso (App Audience)

 Go to "Tools → Custom Audiences".

 Click on "Create Audience", and then

select “Custom Audience from Mobile

App”

You’ll then need to give your new audience

a name and select the rules for inclusion

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Lookalike Audiences are a great addition to the

Facebook Advertising toolbox They allow

you to create a broader Audience of people very

similar to those already inside one of your Custom

Audiences

It's not hard to guess how powerful this feature

can be For example, you could create a Custom

Audience with 10,000 of your customers and get a

Lookalike Audience with 200,000 people who are

very similar to your customers and ready to be

targeted with advertising!

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Since you have to use the complex Power Editor to

make them, creating a Lookalike Audience is a bit

trickier than creating a Custom Audience Here's

how to do it:

A Assuming you’ve already created your first

Custom Audience, head to the “Audience”

tab in Power Editor Simply click the green

“Audience” button on the right For Ads

Manager, click on “Tools” -> “Audience” ->

“Create Lookalike”

A Click on the audience you want to use as a

base for your new LookAlike Audience

A Below the list, you’ll get a name and

description of your audience and three action

buttons The first two are to add and remove

users from your audience The last one is

the one we’re looking for: “Create Lookalike

Audience” Click It

A Insert a name for your new Lookalike Audience, then select the country you'd like your Lookalike Audience users to be in

Unfortunately, you can only create a Lookalike Audience that targets users of a single country However, if you're using AdEspresso, you can quickly and easily generate multiple Lookalike Audiences to target users in multiple

countries

The last parameter, “Optimize for”, is very interesting It allows you to specify a smaller reach with better similarities to your original Custom Audience It also allows you to reach more people, though at the risk of lower similarities We always suggest optimizing for similarity even if it means having a lower overall reach This ensures your campaigns will perform better overall.

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