Custom audiences are a powerful tool on Facebook that allow you to target your ads to specific groups of people. By creating tailored audiences, you can ensure your ads and content are being shown to the users most likely to be interested in your business, product, or service.
How do custom audiences work?
Facebook custom audiences work by allowing you to upload lists of specific people to target, based on email addresses, phone numbers, Facebook user IDs, and other identifiers. For example, you may upload a list of emails of existing customers to create a “customers” audience to market to.
You can also create audiences based on specific actions people have taken on or off Facebook, such as visiting your website, engaging with your Facebook content, interacting with your app, and more.
By targeting your ads to a custom audience, you can ensure your messages reach the people who matter most and generate better results from your ad spend.
What are the main types of custom audiences you can create?
There are several options for creating different types of targeted custom audiences on Facebook:
Customer audiences
You can build audiences of your existing customers by uploading lists of emails, phone numbers, user IDs, and other info. This allows you to easily market to existing customers and find similar types of people on Facebook.
Engagement audiences
Engagement audiences allow you to target people who have already interacted with your business in some way. For example:
- Video viewers – People who have watched a certain % of your video
- Engaged app users – People who have used your Facebook app
- Page engagers – People who have liked, commented on or shared your Facebook Page post
- Event responses – People who marked themselves as “going” or “interested” for your event
Website audiences
You can create audiences of people who have visited your website. To do this, you’ll need to add the Facebook pixel to your site to track user visits.
Lookalike audiences
Lookalike audiences use AI to find new people on Facebook who share similarities with your existing customers. This helps you find new audiences similar to ones you already target.
Saved audiences
Saved audiences allow you to save a group of people who have taken a specific action and reuse that audience to target again later. For example, you may want to save an audience of everyone who added something to their cart on your website.
What information can I use to create a custom audience?
There are several main sources of data you can use to build a Facebook custom audience:
1. Email addresses
Uploading a list of email addresses is one of the most common ways to create a targeted audience. You can use emails from your mailing list, existing customers, newsletter subscribers, etc.
2. Phone numbers
Like emails, phone numbers allow you to target specific people by uploading a list of numbers. This works best for businesses with existing customer phone numbers.
3. Facebook User IDs
Every Facebook user has an ID number associated with their account. If you have these IDs, you can upload them to directly target specific people.
4. App user IDs
If you have a Facebook app, you can target users who have logged in by uploading the app-specific user IDs.
5. Website traffic data
Using the Facebook pixel and cookie data, you can target website visitors across Facebook. The pixel will collect data on who is visiting your site.
6. CRM data
Upload customer data from your CRM platform like names, emails, locations, etc. to target your customer base.
7. Offline event data
If you have offline event attendance data, you can target people who have attended your events by uploading that info to Facebook.
What are best practices for creating custom audiences?
Here are some top tips for creating effective custom audiences:
- Start small – Build more narrow, targeted audiences for better results vs. huge general audiences
- Organize into similar audiences – Group similar types of people into categorized audiences for easier targeting
- Keep audiences updated – Continuously update customer data so you are always targeting the most relevant people
- Review performance – Check stats on each audience to see which are performing best and optimize further
- Expand with lookalikes – Use your top performing audiences as a base for expanded lookalike audiences
- Test new audiences – Try creating and experimenting with new audience segments to uncover hidden opportunities
What mistakes should you avoid when using custom audiences?
Some common mistakes to avoid with custom audiences include:
- Uploading irrelevant data – Only upload customer data that is useful for targeting to avoid wasting budget
- Using outdated data – Frequently update your audiences to remove old, irrelevant records
- Targeting too broadly – Avoid massive audiences and instead micro-target specific segments
- Overlapping audiences – Duplicate records and audiences can cause redundant targeting and wasted spend
- Ignoring audience performance – Don’t continue targeting low-performing audiences without analyzing the data
- Forgetting about Google Analytics data like UTM links when building audience based on traffic data
Can I use 3rd party data to create custom audiences?
Yes, you can use third-party data from data partners and list providers to create custom audiences. However, there are some restrictions around using third-party data:
- The data must be properly licensed and have opt-in consent where required
- Sensitive data like medical info or financial account numbers is not allowed
- The data must only be used for custom audiences, not sold or reused elsewhere
- Audiences from data partners must be created through Facebook’s platform, not uploaded directly
Some common sources of compliant third-party data include:
- Online and offline purchase data
- Product registration data
- App install and usage data
- Website visitors
- Magazine or newsletter subscribers
- Consumer surveys
- Loyalty program members
Using properly sourced supplemental data from partners allows you to build more robust audiences that integrate with your own first-party data.
Can I integrate custom audiences with my CRM platform or marketing automation software?
Yes, Facebook offers integrations that allow you to connect your custom audiences with popular CRM and marketing automation platforms. Some examples include:
- HubSpot – Sync Facebook ad accounts, upload contacts, and integrate campaign reporting automatically.
- Mailchimp – Build audiences from your Mailchimp lists and share Facebook data back to your contacts and reports.
- Marketo – Automate the process of sharing audiences and ads between Facebook and Marketo for optimized targeting.
- Zoho – Connect Zoho CRM contacts and campaigns with Facebook Audiences for complete customer targeting.
- Adobe Experience Cloud – Share audiences across Adobe Analytics, Advertising Cloud, and Marketo Engage with Facebook.
Automating audience sharing through platforms you already use saves time, reduces errors, and improves results.
| CRM Platform | Key Integration Features |
|---|---|
| HubSpot | Sync ad accounts, upload contacts, share campaign data |
| Mailchimp | Build audiences from lists, share Facebook data |
| Marketo | Automate audience and ad sharing |
| Zoho | Connect contacts and campaigns |
| Adobe Experience Cloud | Share audiences across platforms |
How can I track the performance of my custom audiences?
Facebook provides data and insights within Ads Manager that allow you to monitor how well your custom audiences are performing. Metrics to track include:
- Reach – The number of unique people who saw your ads.
- Frequency – How many times your ads were served to each person.
- Clicks – The number of clicks your ads received.
- Cost Per Click (CPC) – The average cost each time someone clicked your ad.
- Relevance Score – The rating of how relevant your ads and targeting are.
- Conversions – Any desired actions from your ads (sign-ups, purchases, etc).
Analyze these metrics to see your best and worst performing audiences. You can further optimize your audiences and ads accordingly.
Should I use broad or narrow audiences?
In most cases, more narrow and targeted audiences tend to perform better than extremely broad general audiences. Try to find a balance with your audience size:
- Very narrow audiences (
- Very broad audiences (> 1,000,000) will have a lot of irrelevant people, wasting your budget.
- Aim for a mid-size audience large enough to have traction but targeted enough to be relevant.
Test both broad and narrow approaches to see what works best for your business goals and audience data.
How often should I update my custom audiences?
You’ll want to update your custom audiences on a regular basis to keep the data current, relevant, and performing well. Some guidelines include:
- Customer email/contact data – Update weekly or monthly
- App user IDs – Update monthly or quarterly
- Website traffic – Update monthly or every 3 months
- Lookalike audiences – Recreate every 6-12 months using latest source audience
Check your audience metrics and optimize the refresh frequency as needed. The goal is to maintain up-to-date targeting without impacting campaign performance.
Should I create single or multiple ad sets for each custom audience?
Facebook recommends testing each custom audience as a unique ad set with its own budget and creative. This allows you to fully optimize based on individual audience behavior. However, you may try combining multiple similar custom audiences into single ad sets to simplify management or reach spending minimums.
Benefits of single ad set per audience
- More optimization of creative, placements, and budget for each audience
- Easy reporting and analysis on each audience
- Prevents overlapping or duplicating target groups
Benefits of multiple audiences per ad set
- Less ad sets to manage
- Reach minimum spend requirements
- Cheaper CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions)
Test different audience structures and groupings to find what performs best.
Conclusion
Facebook’s custom audiences feature provides enormous targeting potential to reach your ideal customers and prospects. By uploading customer data, leveraging online/offline activities, and monitoring performance, you can achieve outstanding results.
Focus on creating clearly defined, relevant audiences at an optimal size. Continuously refine them over time based on data. Integrate custom audiences into your overall marketing strategy, and they will become a powerful driver of sales, leads, and growth for your business.