In advertising, one the most important factors is being able to target the correct demographic. If you advertise to irrelevant targets, you are wasting your money. Facebook Custom Audience targeting allows you to reach the right type of personal with your online ads and the Power Editor Tool gives you the ability to make sweeping changes and better refine. In this guide, we will take basic look at Custom Audiences and the Power Editor Tool.
What are Facebook Custom Audiences?
According to Facebook, “Custom Audiences let advertisers find their existing audiences among people who are on Facebook. You can use the ads create tool or use Power Editor to create a Custom Audience.”
Facebook lets you create a variety of types of custom audiences to meet the needs of your individual ad targeting. For example, you can target people who have not already liked your page.
Probably the most important thing to point out right away is that in order to create a Custom Audience, you need to already have some data. You must have one or more of the following pieces of information to create a Custom Audience on Facebook. You will need to upload this information to get started.
- Email addresses
- Phone numbers
- Facebook user IDs
- App user IDs
- IDFAs
- If you have a website or mobile app, you can use a Facebook pixel or the Facebook SDK to reach people who’ve visted your site or have taken actions within your app with Facebook ads.
How do you Create a Custom Audience?
Luckily, creating a Custom Audience is very easy. Once you have your data (email addresses, phone numbers, etc.) save that information and get ready to upload. It is very important to point out that you should have at least 1,000 people to help ensure your ads have a decent reach. This can be hard for some small businesses. We recommend taking a look at your email contact file.
Now that you have your file, it is time to go to the Ads Manager in Facebook. Here are the steps according to Facebook.
To Create a Custom Audience in Ads Manager:
- If you’re uploading a file, create a .CSV file in Excel with a customer list you want to create a custom audiences with using email addresses. The document should have a single column of data with no heading.
- Go to your ads manager
- Select Audiences from the left side and click Create Audience
- Choose whether you’d like to upload your Custom Audience through MailChimp or a data file
- Follow the required steps to upload your Custom Audience
Using the Ads Creation Tool in Facebook
You also have the option of using the Ads Creation Tool in Facebook to create a Custom Audience. Please note, if this is the first time you are creating a Custom Audience, you need to do that in the Ads Manager as directed above. Otherwise, you can follow the steps to use the Ads Creation Tool below.
- If you’re uploading a file, create a .CSV file in Excel with a customer list you want to create a Custom Audience with. The document should have a single column of data with no heading.
- Go to ads create tool and create your ad
- Go to the Create Your Audience section and select Create New Audience
- Choose whether you’d like to upload your Custom Audience through MailChimp or a data file
- Follow the required steps to upload your Custom Audience
What is the Power Editor?
According to Facebook, “Power Editor is an advanced tool that helps businesses efficiently manage multiple campaigns and ads on Facebook. You can create, edit, manage and optimize ads, campaigns, and Page posts in bulk, across a large number of different ad accounts and Pages.”
The Power Editor can be very helpful when running multiple ads on Facebook, for multiple pages. You can access the Power Editor here (www.facebook.com/ads/manage/powereditor) or through the Ads Manager. It is important to note, the Power Editor is currently only available in the Chrome browser. Facebook has created an extensive guide on the Power Editor here.
How to Use the Power Editor to Create a Custom Audience?
Using the Power Editor is a piece of cake. Here are instructions.
- If you’re uploading a file, create a .CSV file in Excel with a customer list you want to create a custom audiences with using email addresses, phone numbers, Facebook user IDS or app user IDS. The document should have a single column of data with no heading.
- Go to Power Editor and click Download from the top right corner to download your latest data from the ad system for the accounts you specify.
- Select Audiences from the left side navigation.
- Go to the Create Audience drop-down and select Custom Audience.
- Fill in the Audience Name, Description, upload the .CSV file and select the type of info that you uploaded and select Create.
In some cases, it can take up to 30 minutes for Facebook to collect all the data and process it.
How to Use Custom Audiences to Target Ads
So now we know how to create a Custom Audience in Facebook. The next step, is targeting this new audience with an ad.
According to Facebook, “If you upload a date file – emails, phone numbers, Facebook IDs, people’s App IDs, or iOS IDFAs – the list you choose will be hashed before being sent to Facebook. The system will match the encrypted data against people on Facebook, and then an audience will be built in your account with everyone that matches your list.”
Following this process, choosing a Custom Audience to target is as easy as selecting the audience during the ad creation process.
How Many Custom Audiences Can you Have and Audience Exclusion?
Facebook allows each account to have 200 Custom Audiences for your website or mobile application. For all the other Custom Audience types, you can have 500.
It is also important to note here that you can exclude Custom Audiences at any time from your ad targeting. Using Exclusion Targeting or by updating your Exclusion List in the Power Editor.
Editing your Custom Audience
Editing a Custom Audience in Facebook is as easy as editing an email list. You can remove individuals and add them at any time.
- Go to your ads manager
- Select Audiences from the left side tab
- Select Edit next to the Custom Audience you’d like to make changes to and you’ll see the option to add or remove emails from the Custom Audience
What are Lookalike Audiences?
Once you have created a Custom Audience, you receive the powerful ability to create a Lookalike Audience. A Lookalike Audience is an audience that can be generated that is similar to the Custom Audience you have created. For example, say you uploaded a list of CEO’s in San Diego to create your Custom Audience. You can then create another Lookalike Audience list that also has this same demographic.
Facebook sates, “Keep in mind that your lookalike audience will only include people from the country you specify. If your custom audience includes people from more than one country, only the qualities of people from the specified country will be used to build the lookalike audience.”
How to Create a Lookalike Audience
It is really amazing how easy this process is. Follow the steps below.
- Go to Power Editor and select the Audiences tab on the left
- Create a custom audience using a list of email addresses, phone numbers or Facebook IDs
- Select this custom audience and click Create Similar Audience
- Choose the country where you’d like to find a similar set of people and select whether you want to optimize for similarity or greater reach
- Click Create
Facebook states that it could take between 6 and 24 hours before your new audience is ready for targeting. Also, you must already have a Custom Audience to create a Lookalike Audience.
Important Terms and Notes
Similarity
When creating your Lookalike Audience, if you select “similarity” it will target the top 1% of people in the country you select. This option allows you to create the most precise Lookalike Audience.
Greater Reach
In some cases, you might want to have greater reach. This could be because your focus is too narrow or you simply need more people to advertise to in this niche. If this is the case, you can select the greater reach option when creating your Lookalike Audience. This will then target the top 5% of people in the selected country.
Build Custom Audience of Page Likes
You cannot build a Custom Audience of people who like your page already.
Countries
The country you choose when you create your Custom Audience will also be used for your Lookalike Audience. Facebook can only do one country at a time. If your data contains people from multiple countries, Facebook will select the country with the most people in it from your list.
Organic Page Posts
Lookalike Audiences can only be used for ad targeting, they cannot be used to target organic page posts.
Narrowing Down the Field
You can target specific portions of your audience
Don’t Forget About Good-Old Partner Categories
Partner Categories are important to mention here because they are all part of Facebook Audience targeting. Partner Categories are available in the Power Editor when you choose your ad targeting. Also, there is an API that offers this data to third parties.
According to Facebook, “Partner categories are a way to identify and reach the right people with the right message on Facebook, based on their activity off of Facebook. For example, you can use these targeting options to show your ads to people who are heavy buyers of health and wellness products, or who have taken actions that indicate they may be shopping for a new car.”
Partner Categories are fairly well known as a Facebook ad targeting method.
Summary of Custom Audiences, the Power Editor and Lookalike Ads
If you have the data to create a Facebook Custom Audience, it is well worth your time. This is one of the best ways to directly target people on Facebook. Even if you do not want to target that data specifically, you can use it to create Lookalike Ads, which have a strong correlation to the data you uploaded.
In the cases that you have a significant amount of data, you are running many accounts or simply want a little more “power”, the Power Editor is currently offered as an option. Ignite Visibility hopes that your Facebook advertising is a success! If you need professional help, let us know.