There are a few common reasons why you may be unable to create a custom audience on Facebook:
Your ad account needs to be enabled for custom audiences
Not all Facebook ad accounts are automatically enabled to create custom audiences. You’ll need to request access to this feature in Ads Manager before you can create a custom audience.
To enable custom audiences:
- Go to Ads Manager
- In the left column, click Audiences
- Click Create Audience at the top
- Select Custom Audience and follow the prompts to request access
Once your request has been reviewed and approved by Facebook (usually within 24 hours), you’ll be able to create custom audiences.
Your custom audience doesn’t meet the minimum size requirements
Facebook requires custom audiences to have a minimum size to function properly:
- USA: 100 people minimum
- All other countries: 50 people minimum
If your custom audience is below these thresholds, you’ll receive an error when trying to create it. To fix this:
- Add more customer data to your list until it meets the minimum size requirements
- Combine multiple smaller audiences into one larger audience that meets the requirements
You’re using prohibited or unqualified data
Facebook restricts certain types of data from being used to create custom audiences. Make sure your customer data does not include any prohibited information such as:
- Email addresses you acquired without the user’s consent
- Sensitive personal information like financial or medical data
- Data from data brokers, data resellers, or public databases
Facebook also requires customer data used for custom audiences to be properly formatted. Common formatting issues include:
- Invalid email addresses without an @ symbol
- Incomplete mailing addresses without a city, state, or postal code
- Incorrectly formatted phone numbers that aren’t 10 digits
Clean up any improperly formatted data in your list and remove any prohibited data. Then try creating your custom audience again.
Your Facebook business account is in the Special Ad Category
If your Facebook ad account is categorized under certain special ad categories like dating or political, you may be restricted from creating custom audiences based on email addresses and phone numbers. However, you can still create custom audiences from:
- Facebook engagement such as video views, lead form submissions, etc
- Website visitors from Facebook pixels or the Facebook SDK
- App activity using Facebook pixels or the Facebook SDK
- Customer lists uploaded via the Facebook API
So you have options to build targeted custom audiences, even if you can’t directly use emails or phones.
Your custom audience hasn’t finished syncing
After uploading your customer data, it can take up to 24 hours for Facebook to process and sync everything on their end. Until the sync finishes, your new custom audience may show an error or be unavailable when you try to use it.
Be patient and try again later once the sync completes, and your new custom audience should be ready to use.
You have an active campaign using the custom audience
Facebook prevents you from deleting or modifying a custom audience that is actively being used in a campaign. You’ll need to pause or delete any campaigns targeting the audience before you can make changes to it.
If trying to modify a custom audience, duplicate it first. Make your changes to the duplicate version, then pause/delete campaigns targeting the original. Once no active campaigns are using the original audience, you can delete it.
You reached the maximum custom audience limit
Facebook limits ad accounts to having a maximum of 300,000 custom audiences. If you’ve already hit that limit, you’ll need to delete existing audiences before you can create any new ones.
Consider consolidating multiple niche audiences into broader ones to free up space. You can also create audiences at the ad set level rather than audience level, which does not count towards your audience limit.
You have an outstanding balance on your Facebook ads account
If your Facebook ads account has an overdue balance, Facebook limits your ability to edit existing campaigns or create new ones. This includes creating and managing custom audiences.
To restore full access, you’ll need to pay off your outstanding advertising balance. Add funds to your Facebook ads account via the payments section of Ads Manager.
Your Facebook account is disabled or memorialized
You must have an active personal Facebook profile in good standing to manage Facebook ads and custom audiences. If your personal account is disabled or memorialized, you’ll lose access to advertising features.
Submit an appeal request to Facebook to reactive a disabled account. For memorialized accounts, you will need a new Facebook profile to manage ads.
You’re using a restricted ad account
Some Facebook ad accounts may be classified as “restricted”, which limits your ability to create and edit custom audiences.
This restriction commonly happens after policy violations, unusual account activity, or submitting prohibited content in ads or audiences. You’ll need to appeal the restriction and have Facebook remove it before custom audience access is restored.
Conclusion
Trouble creating a Facebook custom audience typically boils down to one of these common issues:
- Lacking custom audience permissions
- Audience size below minimum requirements
- Prohibited or unqualified customer data
- Special ad category restrictions
- Sync not finished processing
- Actively used in a campaign
- Hit maximum audience limit
- Unpaid ad account balance
- Disabled or memorialized Facebook account
- Restricted ad account status
By checking for and addressing any of these problems, you should be able to successfully create custom audiences to reach your target customers and drive results from Facebook ads.
| Common Custom Audience Issues | Solutions |
|---|---|
| Lacking custom audience permissions | Request access in Ads Manager |
| Audience size below minimum requirements | Add more customer data to meet minimums |
| Prohibited or unqualified customer data | Remove any prohibited data and fix formatting issues |
| Special ad category restrictions | Use other sources like Facebook engagement to build audience |
| Sync not finished processing | Wait for sync to complete |
| Actively used in a campaign | Pause or delete campaigns using the audience |
| Hit maximum audience limit | Delete unused audiences or consolidate into broader groups |
| Unpaid ad account balance | Pay off outstanding advertising balance |
| Disabled or memorialized Facebook account | Appeal disabled account or create a new profile |
| Restricted ad account status | Appeal restriction to have it removed |
With a properly configured ad account, clean and valid customer data, and no restrictions in place, you should be able to successfully build customized audiences for your Facebook ad campaigns.
Utilizing targeted custom audiences is crucial to improving ad relevance, reach, engagement, conversion rates, and ROI from Facebook advertising. Put in the work to properly set up and troubleshoot your custom audiences, and you’ll unlock huge benefits for connecting with your best customers.