The Internet Marketing Driver

  • GSQi Home
  • About Glenn Gabe
  • SEO Services
    • Algorithm Update Recovery
    • Technical SEO Audits
    • Website Redesigns and Site Migrations
    • SEO Training
  • Blog
  • Contact GSQi

How to Combine Custom Audiences in Facebook Ads to Enhance Your Targeting [Tutorial]

February 15, 2013 By Glenn Gabe 2 Comments

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
15 Shares

Custom Audiences in Facebook

Facebook recently released a powerful new option for advertisers called Custom Audiences.  Using custom audiences, advertisers can leverage their current in-house list of customers for targeting ads.  By uploading a list of emails, phone numbers, or UID’s, you can create a custom audience that can be used for targeting Facebook campaigns.

In my opinion, this was a brilliant move by Facebook.  It brings a unique targeting capability to the social network, and can be extremely useful on several levels.  For example, are you launching a new product?  Then use your custom audience to make sure your current customers know about the new product by reaching them on Facebook.  Know that a certain group of customers are interested in a given category of products?  Then use a custom audience to target just those customers with specific ads, copy, and calls to action.  The sky is the limit with regard to ideas for targeting your current set of customers, and I’ve been using custom audiences more and more recently.

Using Segmentation to Move Beyond Your One In-house Email List
A business can easily export its in-house email list and upload it to Facebook to create a custom audience.  It’s relatively straight-forward to do so, and you can accomplish this via Power Editor.  Once Facebook processes your list, it’s available to use when targeting an audience.  But, you shouldn’t stop there…  You can slice and dice your in-house email list and upload several files (if you have criteria for segmenting your list).

For example, do you know which customers are interested in which categories you sell?  Break those out.  Do you know which customers are tied to which purchases?  Sure you do, break those out too.  Once you do, you’ll have several targeted lists of emails that you can combine to hone your targeting.  And who doesn’t like that idea?

Combining Custom Audiences
When using Remarketing in AdWords, there is something called custom combinations.  When advertisers create a custom combination, they can create a remarketing audience that includes one audience, but excludes another.  That’s extremely powerful and provides a lot of flexibility for businesses trying to reach their customers via retargeting efforts.  Well, combining custom audiences in Facebook Ads enables you to do the same thing.

Here’s a simple hypothetical situation.  Let’s say you sold amazing new earphones that are invisible to the naked eye.  You already blasted an email out to your current customers and received some orders.  If your full email list was uploaded to Facebook as a custom audience (which should be done anyway), then you could create a second audience that includes customers that already purchased the new earphones.

Then, when you create a new campaign targeting your in-house email list (promoting your new earphones), you can exclude the list of customers that already purchased them.  This saves you from looking foolish, cuts down on wasted impressions, wasted clicks, and wasted budget.  Yes, that’s a simple example, but shows the power of creating custom combinations in Facebook.

How To Use Custom Combinations with Facebook Ads
Let’s quickly walk through how to set this up in Facebook.  Below, I’m going to explain how to first create a custom audience, and then how to upload and use a second audience (that can be used to hone your targeting).  Let’s create a custom combination using custom audiences in Facebook:

1. Export a straight list of customer emails as a .csv file.

Exporting a CSV of emails to create a custom audience.

 

2. Launch Power Editor and click the “Custom Audiences” Tab.
Note, if you’ve never used Power Editor, set that up now, download all of your campaigns, and then revisit this tutorial.

Custom Audience Tab in Facebook Ads

 

3. Click the “Create Audience” button and enter the name, description, and choose the type of list. 
For this list, click the “Emails” radio button.  You should also click “Choose File” button to locate the csv file we just created in the previous step.

The Custom Audience Dialog Box in Facebook Ads

 

4. Click “Create” and Facebook will upload your list and create your custom audience. 
Note, it could take a few hours for Facebook to process the file.  That depends on your list.  Remember, Facebook is going to scan the emails and try and match them up to current Facebook users.

 

5. Wait for Facebook to process your custom audience.
The status for the custom audience will say, “Waiting” while Facebook is processing the file.  That will change to “Ready” when the audience is ready to go.
You should also see the audience size (based on the users that Facebook could match up).

Custom Audience Status Message

 

6. Repeat the process in steps 1-5 to create a second custom audience (the hypothetical list of customers that already purchased our killer new earphones).
Make sure you give the new custom audience a descriptive name like “customers-invisible-earphones”.

 

7. Create a new campaign that will be used to target your current customers that have not purchased your new earphones yet.
Simply use the standard process for setting up a new Facebook campaign.

Creating a New Facebook Campaign

 

8. Select your custom audience.

When you create a new ad within your new campaign, you can hop down to the “Audience” tab.  You can click the button labeled “Use Existing Audience”.  Then select your full in-house email list.  That’s the first custom audience we created.

Use Existing Audience in Facebook Ads

 

9. Now select the custom audience to exclude.

Next, click the “Advanced Options” tab under “Audience”.  You will see an option for “Excluded Audiences”.   You can start typing the name of the custom audience containing customers that already purchased your earphones (the second custom audience we created).  The audience name should auto-populate when you start typing.  After selecting the audience, you should see the “Estimated Reach” number drop, based on excluding the new list.

Combining Custom Audiences to Enhance Targeting

 

10. That’s it, you have now used a custom combination to hone your targeting using Custom Audiences!
Your ads will now only be displayed to customers on your email list that have not purchased your new earphones yet.

Summary – Combine Audiences for Power
As I explained earlier, using custom audiences is a new and powerful way to reach a targeted audience on Facebook.   It combines the power of a current, in-house email list with the flexibility and intelligence of segmenting your audience.  Don’t look foolish, don’t waste clicks, and don’t waste budget.  Use custom combinations to slice and dice your current customer list.  Now go ahead.  Set up your campaign now.  :)

GG

 

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
15 Shares

Filed Under: facebook, social-advertising, tools

Connect with Glenn Gabe today!

Latest Blog Posts

  • Google’s December 2020 Broad Core Algorithm Update Part 2: Three Case Studies That Underscore The Complexity and Nuance of Broad Core Updates
  • Google’s December 2020 Broad Core Algorithm Update: Analysis, Observations, Tremors and Reversals, and More Key Points for Site Owners [Part 1 of 2]
  • Exit The Black Hole Of Web Story Tracking – How To Track User Progress In Web Stories Via Event Tracking In Google Analytics
  • Image Packs in Google Web Search – A reason you might be seeing high impressions and rankings in GSC but insanely low click-through rate (CTR)
  • Google’s “Found on the Web” Mobile SERP Feature – A Knowledge Graph and Carousel Frankenstein That’s Hard To Ignore
  • Image Migrations and Lost Signals – How long before images lose signals after a flawed url migration?
  • Web Stories Powered by AMP – 12 Tips and Recommendations For Creating Your First Story
  • Visualizing The SEO Engagement Trap – How To Use Behavior Flow In Google Analytics To View User Frustration [Case Study]
  • The May 2020 Google Core Update – 4 Case Studies That Emphasize The Complexity Of Broad Core Algorithm Updates
  • How To Remove An Image From Google Search Using The Outdated Content Tool (When The Image Was Published On Another Site)

Web Stories

  • Google’s Disqus Indexing Bug
  • Google’s New Page Experience Signal

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • GSQi Home
  • About Glenn Gabe
  • SEO Services
  • Blog
  • Contact GSQi
Copyright © 2021 G-Squared Interactive LLC. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

The Internet Marketing Driver
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

3rd Party Cookies

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

This site also uses pixels from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn so we publish content that reaches you on those social networks.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!