Creating a custom audience on Facebook using an email list is a great way to target your existing contacts and customers. With a custom audience, you can serve relevant ads and content to people who are already familiar with your brand. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to create a custom audience on Facebook using an email list.
Why Create a Custom Audience on Facebook?
There are several benefits to creating a custom audience on Facebook:
- Target your ads and posts to specific people who are likely to be interested
- Remarket to existing customers to drive repeat sales
- Lower advertising costs since you are targeting a relevant audience
- Improve engagement and click-through rates on ads
- Build lookalike audiences to reach new customers similar to your existing contacts
In short, custom audiences allow you to maximize the impact of your Facebook campaigns and serve highly relevant content to people who are already connected to your brand in some way.
Step 1: Prepare Your Email List
The first step is to compile the email list you want to use for your Facebook custom audience. There are a few requirements for your list:
- It must only contain email addresses – no other information
- It can contain a maximum of 15,000 email addresses
- The contacts must have given you permission to reach out to them
- The list should be in .txt, .csv, or Excel file format
Make sure your email list only contains properly formatted email addresses. You may want to clean your list by removing any invalid or duplicate emails. Having a focused list of high-quality contacts ensures your custom audience will be targeted and relevant.
Step 2: Upload Your Email List
Once your email list is ready, you can upload it to Facebook. Here’s how:
- Go to the Audiences section under “More Tools” in Facebook Ads Manager
- Click the “+ Create Audience” button and choose “Custom Audience”
- Select “Customer File” as the source and click continue
- Give your audience a name and click “Upload File” to add your email list
- Check the status to make sure your list uploads and processes correctly
It may take some time for Facebook to process and match your uploaded email list. You’ll see match rates after the processing is complete – ideally you want at least a 50% match rate or higher.
Step 3: Look at Audience Insights
Once your custom audience from emails is created, you can preview key details and insights under the Audience Details section:
- Audience size – number of matched contacts from your list
- Estimated reach – how many Facebook users you can potentially reach with this audience
- Demographics – gender, age ranges, locations, languages, interests, and other traits of the audience
These insights help you understand your custom audience better so you can serve them relevant messaging and creative in the next steps.
Step 4: Create Ads for Your Audience
Now you’re ready to create Facebook ads and target them specifically to your email custom audience. As you set up your ad campaigns, follow these tips:
- Select the custom audience under “Detailed Targeting”
- Customize ad creative and copy to appeal specifically to this audience
- Focus on relevant products or offers based on what you know about these contacts
- Set an appropriate bid and budget for this hyper-targeted group
- Continually refine messaging based on performance
Your custom audience gives you the advantage of advertising to warmer leads who already know your brand. Keep your ads and offers aligned with their interests.
Step 5: Analyze Performance and Optimize
Measure the performance of your Facebook campaigns targeted to the custom audience. Look at metrics like:
- Reach and frequency
- Click-through rate
- Engagement rate
- Conversion rate
- Cost per result
Based on the results, you can optimize your audience, creative, and offers to improve your Facebook ad performance. You may also choose to create lookalike audiences modeled after your successful custom audience for further targeting.
Troubleshooting Tips
Here are some troubleshooting tips in case you run into any issues setting up your custom audience from emails:
- If your match rate is low, check for formatting issues, invalid emails, or duplicates in your list.
- If you can’t see your audience in ad targeting, try re-uploading the list or making sure your ad account has the right access.
- If your audience size is much lower than expected, your list may have too many invalid contacts. Try cleaning it up and re-uploading.
- If you make any changes to your list, allow time for Facebook to reprocess the updated file.
With some optimization, you can get your email custom audience working effectively to drive great results from your Facebook ad campaigns.
FAQs
Can I create multiple custom audiences?
Yes, you can create multiple custom audiences in Facebook Ads Manager. You could have separate audiences based on different email lists, different customer segments, different levels of engagement with your brand, etc.
Does my email list need consent to upload?
You should only upload an email list where all the contacts have provided clear consent to receive marketing communications from you. Make sure your list complies with email marketing regulations like CAN-SPAM.
Is there a limit to custom audience size?
Yes, each individual custom audience file can contain a maximum of 15,000 email addresses. However, you can create unlimited custom audiences in your ad account.
Can I use other identifiers besides email?
Yes, you can create custom audiences using phone numbers, Facebook User IDs, mobile advertising IDs, and more. However, email lists tend to have the highest match rates.
How much do custom audiences cost?
There is no additional cost to create custom audiences – it is free to upload your contacts. You will pay standard Facebook advertising fees when promoting ads to your audience.
Conclusion
Creating customized audiences is a powerful Facebook Ads tactic that produces excellent results. By following the steps outlined here, you can successfully upload your email lists, analyze your audience, create targeted campaigns, and optimize your performance over time. Custom audiences give you an added level of personalization and relevance that drives higher ROI from your Facebook ad spend.