Creating custom audiences for Facebook advertising - Part 2

Continuing from the last post, we will continue to see different customized audiences which can be created for better targeting Facebook users for your ads. In the last post, we saw how to target lookalike audience and your website visitors. In this post, we will discuss how to target FB users who are a part of customer database and users who engaged with your Facebook content.

1) Custom audience from my customer file: This type of custom audience is used to engage and target users who are existing customers and the company has a record of their details. In most cases, they are regular customers and the company wants to target them to show ads for new products, offers, etc. You can also use them as a source to create lookalike audiences since these are your best customers.

Firstly, one needs to go to the Ads manager and select customer file when creating the audience. Select the option to chose a file or copy and paste the data.

The screen below allows you to upload the .csv or .txt file. But it should be in an acceptable format. To use the acceptable format, download and use the template file from the link in the image below. Post that upload the file with the customer data in the right format.

Once the custom audience is created, you can create an ad for that audience or use it to create a lookalike audience.  

                            

2) Engagement Custom audiences : An Engagement Custom Audience is made up of people who have engaged with your Facebook content. "Engagement" refers to actions like spending time viewing your videos, interacting with your page, opening your lead form or Canvas. Using Engagement Custom Audiences, you can re-target ads to people who've taken these actions. You can also use it as a source for a Lookalike Audience, which will let you find people who are similar to those who've engaged with your Facebook content.

You can select from among the below 4 options. Lets see each option in sequence:

(a) Video: Custom audience can be created for users who have viewed your videos. There are various options in terms of video length (3 sec, 10 sec, 25%, 50%, 75%, 95%) to select from as show in the second image below. Post that you can select the video for which this audience is being created. And then complete creating the custom audience.

(b) Lead ad : You can create a custom audience for users who opened or submitted your lead form ad on Facebook. Follow the below steps shown in the screenshots:

(c) Canvas ad : You can create a custom audience for users who opened or clicked any links in your canvas ads on Facebook. The below screenshots show how to get it running. You need to select the canvas ad. Since I have never created any canvas ad, it doesn't show up. But if you have, it will show the list of the canvas ads. Select the one, then select the action of the users and finally define the number of days.

(d) Page: You can create a custom audience for users who visited your page, engaged with any post or ad from your page, sent your page a message, clicked on the call to action button or saved your page/post. Use the steps below to achieve the same.

In the next post, we will see the last category of custom audience i.e. the mobile app users. Keeping it as a separate post since its a little complex. Meanwhile, do subscribe to the blog by submitting your email id.