5 Ways to Use Facebook’s Custom Audiences

AudienceIf you follow the social media news stream, you’ve probably heard about this newish social media advertising feature released by Facebook. Facebook’s Custom Audiences has web marketers pretty darn excited because it allows you to target outside the constraints of the network’s user data. This means that you can now use your customer and prospect lists (by email address or phone number) to target your Facebook advertising. Pretty cool, huh? Email address targeting may be a safer bet for most as not every user shares their phone number with Facebook.

Using Custom Audiences to Target Prospects and Customers

This new feature allows you to target in creative ways, beyond simply uploading your customer email list to market a specific promotion and increase Likes.

  1. Run Facebook Advertising Campaigns that Target Prospects Based on Their Interactions with Your Brand
    Have a list of prospects that recently viewed your webinar or downloaded your whitepaper? Create a custom audience using this list and continue to engage with them on Facebook by promoting similar resources or new products. And If they haven’t like you on Facebook yet, you have another opportunity to gain their following.
  2. Retailers: Target Customers Based on Purchase Behavior
    Retailers can also segment out customers based on purchase data to create a custom audience and promote specific products or special offers to this segment. Do you have customers who haven’t interacted with your brand for awhile? Turn them into a custom audience and reconnect with them on Facebook with a special promotion customized to re-engage.
  3. Target Your Customers’ Friends
    Yes, you can already target friends of fans, but this enables you to target friends of users that you know are more deeply connected to your brand. Maybe they have already heard of you by word of mouth. Here’s your opportunity to reinforce and make a connection.
  4. Increase Newsletter Signups
    Having a tough time getting all of your customers to sign up for your monthly newsletter? Segment out customers who haven’t opted in yet and run an ad campaign that promotes your newsletter.
  5. Drive Booth Visitors (and ROI) During Events
    If you’re sponsoring or attending a big event, increasing your number of booth visitors is very important. Create a custom audience of local customers and prospects and run an ad with incentives, booth information and a call to action that encourages them to visit you.

Of course, not all of your customers or email subscribers are going to be on Facebook or will have used the same email address to sign up for Facebook. But chances are good that a you will be able to target a healthy portion of your uploaded list. Facebook also allows you to layer on their other targeting options after you’ve created a custom audience. So the possibilities for targeting are pretty vast if you’re up for it.

Have you used Facebook’s Custom Audiences yet? If so, have you used them to target in creative ways?

Photo credit: mish_garcia

 

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