Late last year, Facebook’s Custom Audiences targeting became available to all Facebook advertisers. Some of you may have heard about it but may not be aware of its full potential. This is an amazing targeting tool you should start using today.
What is Custom Audiences?
Facebook’s Custom Audiences allows advertisers to target a particular audience through their Facebook ads. Prior to this, you could only target users based on demographics such as age, location, and gender.
Now, if you have a list of customers who have not liked your Facebook page, (how dare they!) through Custom Audiences you can send out an ad campaign asking only these people to like you on Facebook. You no longer have to post millions of ads to Facebook users who may or may not be interested in your company; you can target people who you know are invested in your brand. Not only does this save you time and money, but your ad conversion rates are likely to be much higher as your target audience already knows who you are and actually likes you!
What can Custom Audiences do for you?
By targeting people who have not yet liked your page, it will help turn all your offline customers into online followers.
Custom Audiences can help to improve sales. If you sell computers and software, for example, you might have a list of people who purchased a new computer from you, but at the time were not interested in any add-ons such as anti-virus software. With Custom Audiences you can find these people on Facebook and promote your ad for anti-virus software directly to them. You know they have a new computer and a need for the software, and are therefore likely to click on the ad and make a purchase.
This approach can also work for potential customers, who may be interested in your brand but are yet to make a purchase. Sending them an ad promoting discounts on first purchases can turn them into paying customers.
You can also use Custom Audiences to increase newsletter signups. Gone are the days when you wasted valuable time wandering the net looking for potential recipients; now you can have access to a database of customers and send them an ad via Facebook promoting your newsletter. As you already have a relationship with these people they will be more inclined to register their details with you.
Custom Audiences also works the other way; maybe you are after new customers and don’t want to waste your money advertising to existing ones. You can upload your current customer list and use it as an ‘exclude audience list’ when setting up your ad campaign. This ensures that only people you are trying to convert into customers will receive the ad, increasing your chances of expanding your customer base.
Getting started
All you need is your audience list, which can be in the form of email addresses, mobile phone numbers or Facebook user IDs, obtained through your customers or newsletter subscribers.
Go to Ads Manager, click ‘create audience’ and upload your list. Facebook does the rest. It will take your list and match it up with the profiles that have the same details. That’s it! You have your Custom Audience list. Now you can select this list as the target when creating your ad.
Be aware, however, that your Custom Audience list may be smaller than your original list; some customers may not have a Facebook account, or their account may be under a different email address.
Note the ‘Website’ option in the screenshot above. This is another fantastic targeting opportunity. For those who have already used Google’s Remarketing feature you will understand the benefits. Choose to create an audience here and you can target your Facebook advertising to previous visitors of your website.
A step-by-step guide to creating your Custom Audiences list is available on the Facebook how-to page.
Custom Audiences in action
To see the real impact Custom Audiences can have on sales and conversion rates, have a look at this case study:
JackThreads is a members-only, online shopping club specialising in men’s streetwear. This company had two goals; to acquire new members and to increase sales amongst existing members through relevant advertising.
JackThreads used standard Facebook advertising to acquire new members, sending out ads promoting special deals to males between the ages of 18 and 30 interested in hip hop and rap. They used the Custom Audiences targeting tool to reach existing members and increase the chances of these people purchasing products. JackThreads divided their customer email database into types of products purchased and level of engagement, then uploaded it to Facebook. This segmentation allowed JackThreads to promote deals and products that were most relevant to their customers.
By using the Custom Audiences tool, JackThreads saw a 72% match rate between their customer email database and Facebook members. Imagine trying to sift through the millions of Facebook users all by yourself to get that 72%. Also, by combining Custom Audiences with traditional Facebook ads, JackThreads saw a 6X return on advertising spend. It’s amazing what targeting the right people from the start can do for a company.
Check out the full JackThreads case study.
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