What are Facebook Custom Audiences?

Custom Audiences allow retailers to reach customers they already know with ads on Facebook.

They can upload a list of email addresses or phone numbers (at least 20 people) and Facebook will deliver an ad to those Facebook users.

Retailers can also build audiences from the people that visit their website or from people who use their mobile app.

Custom Audiences make it easy to target specific customers or prospects with ads that scale.
According to Facebook Custom Audiences also allows retailers to:
    • Match their customer list against Facebook users in a secure and privacy safe way. Example: Email match rates are typically between 40% to 60%.

 

  • Use their customer list together with Facebook standard targeting, such as demographics and location, to reach highly engaged customers

 

How Do Retailers Create Facebook Custom Audiences?

You can create a Custom Audience with any of the following tools:

  • Power Editor
  • Ads Manager
  • Ad Creation

 

Create Custom Audiences in Power Editor

Step 1: Download the ad account in Power Editor

 

    • In Power Editor, log in as an admin of the ad account, click the Download button in the top right corner and select All My Accounts. Then, click Download again.

 

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Step 2: Design your audience

Once a retailer has created a Custom Audience, all those contacts will stay together as a single group or target audience. If a retailer wants to further customize their targeting audiences, they can split up their contacts and create separate Custom Audiences.

 

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Step 3: Prepare and upload lists

Retailers can gather their lists together in a CSV or TXT format, or upload a list directly from their MailChimp account.
Each contact identifier must be separated by a new line or carriage return. The identifier can be an email address or phone number as seen in the below example:
  • Phone number: country code + number (ex: 1-650-234-5678)

Each list a retailer uploads must contain one type of identifier. If they want to create a Custom Audience based on emails / phone numbers, they will need to upload each list of identifiers separately.

Step 4: Create a Custom Audience

    • Click Create Audience on the Audiences tab in Power Editor

 

    • Enter a unique name for your Custom Audience

 

    • Select which type of identifiers your list contains

 

    • Click Choose File to upload your list and then click Create to finish

 

Power Editor will begin uploading lists to Facebook and retailers will see the progress bar moving. It may take up to one hour for your custom list to be available for targeting. While your list is being processed, the status of your Custom Audience will be listed as waiting.Click Check Updates to refresh the status. When the processing is complete, the status of your custom list will change to Ready.

 

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Step 5: Using your Custom Audience for ad targeting

1. Target your Custom Audience with an ad

 

    • In Power Editor, retailers should make sure they are working with an updated version of their account and audiences. To do this, click Check Updates or re-download the ad account that contains a Custom Audience.

 

    • Click Create Ad using Audience, in the Custom Audiences tab

 

    • Select the campaign that you want your new ad to be a part of

 

    • Enter ad details and schedule the ad to run as you would for any other ad

 

    • Now the new Custom Audience will be targeted by the new ad

 

2. Exclude a Custom Audience from your ad targeting

 

Custom Audiences can also be used to specify people that should not see an ad. Retailers can use this feature to manage a marketing opt-out list or to exclude your current customers from an acquisition campaign.

 

    • Use the Custom Audiences fields among ad targeting options to exclude audiences from your targeting
    • Note: if retailers exclude an audience from your ad targeting, this will override any other “include” targeting that was created
    • Retailers can also add Facebook standard targeting, such as demographics and location, to reach highly engaged customers

 

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Step 6: Updating your Custom Audience

After creating your Custom Audiences, retailers can go back any time to update or delete it in Power Editor.
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Create Custom Audiences in Ads Manager

  1. Go to your Ads Manager.
  2. Select Audiences from the left side and click Create Audience.
  3. Choose whether you’d like to upload your Custom Audience through MailChimp or a data file.
  4. If you’re uploading a file, create a .CSV file in Excel with a customer list you want to create a Custom Audience with using email addresses, phone numbers or Facebook user IDs from your app. The document should have a single column of data with no heading.
  5. Follow the required steps to upload your Custom Audience.

 

Create Custom Audiences in Ad Creation

  1. Go to ad creation to start making your ad.
  2. Go to the Create Your Audience section and select Create New Audience.
  3. Choose whether you’d like to upload your Custom Audience through MailChimp or a data file.
  4. If you’re uploading a file, create a .CSV file in Excel with a customer list you want to create a Custom Audience with using email addresses, phone numbers or Facebook user IDs from your app. The document should have a single column of data with no heading.
  5. Follow the required steps to upload your Custom Audience.

If you experience an error while uploading your Custom Audience, report it or contact [email protected]

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