Posted on by admin

A Crash Course in Custom Audiences for Your Social Media Ads


When you want to get your message in front of the right people on social media, where do you turn? 

More and more, brands and businesses are turning to social ads and custom audiences. You can do a lot of awesome, targeted messaging by focusing on the right audiences with your ads — whether you’re talking to a group of customers, a bunch of website visitors, or a list of subscribers

In this post, we’ll talk you through ways to build custom audiences and lookalike audiences on all the major social media platforms, plus share a couple ideas of how you can put these audiences to the best use.

Best wishes for some well-targeted, highly successful ads!

An introduction to custom audiences

There’s a huge amount to cover with social media ads.

Since this blog post focuses specifically on audiences, let’s start there. In general, an audience is going to be the bucket of people who will potentially see your ad. This group can be customized based on a variety of factors, which we’ll get to in a minute. 

A custom audience is a step beyond the basic demographic and psychographic audience filters. A custom audience can be based on an outside source like a set of emails or website visitors or on the social media behavior of users. 

Types of custom audiences you can build within Facebook

And then you have lookalike audiences, which take one of your custom audience and expand it to a larger group based on the qualities that the custom audience has in common. For instance, if all the people in your custom audience are interested in augmented reality, use social on a tablet, and have master’s degrees, then a lookalike audience will include people who share these attributes, too.

How to create a lookalike audience for Facebook / Instagram

As you can tell, there are many ways to slice and dice this information to build some really unique audiences. 

So let’s get dive into some of the details, starting with the biggest and most robust social advertising networks … Facebook and Instagram. 

How to Create Custom Audiences for Facebook and Instagram Ads

Advertising for both Facebook and Instagram is combined into the Facebook Ads Manager. You can run all your ads from here as well as create and manage all your audiences. 

Within Facebook, there are a handful of custom audiences that you can build. This list includes: 

1. A customer list — also known as a standard custom audiences.

This audience is based on a list of emails, phone numbers, or Facebook user IDs that Facebook can then take and match to its list of users. Typically you’ll find that Facebook can match between 60 and 70 percent of the contacts on your customer list. 

2. You can create a website custom audience.

With this audience, instead of uploading a list of customer emails or phone numbers, you build the audience based on traffic to your website. Using Facebook Pixel tracking, you can create an audience of people who have visited any specific page on your website during a set time period. 

3. You can create custom audiences based on app activity

If you happen to have a mobile app or game, you can build audiences based on the actions that people take within your product. 

4. You can use offline activity to build a Facebook audience.

This could include things like conversations that happen offline in brick-and-mortar stores or information you collect on a spreadsheet. 

5. Build an audience from Facebook and Instagram engagement

These can be based on who engages with your posts, videos, events, and profile. You can even set the timeframe of this engagement so that you’re building an audience of people who recently engaged, like in the last 90 days, or who engaged anytime in the past year. 

Strategy Ideas for Making the Most of Your Custom Audiences

Jumping quickly into the strategy of ads and audiences, we thought this nugget from a recent Jon Loomer blog post was really interesting. In the blog post, they shared that the most popular Instagram audience strategy is lumping all audience types and time windows together into one large chunk — like, everyone who engaged with your profile in the last 365 days, for instance. 

As you might guess, there is so much more you can be doing with these audiences!

Let’s take a closer look at engagement audiences for instance:
With the robust filtering of Facebook’s ads tool, you can build audiences of engagers based on a huge number of different factors like who has visited your Instagram profile, messaged you, or saved a post or an ad.

When it comes to these custom audiences, we quite liked this tip from social media today:Building “warm” audiences of people who have engaged with your content within a recent timeframe. Video in particular is a useful engagement and attention metric. So, say you create a ‘warm’ audience of people who’ve watched a certain amount of video from your page. From there, you can create a Lookalike Audience based on the warm audience, which will allow you to expand your reach to include people who share similar behaviors to that initial, warm, engaged group. 

The Jon Loomer blog has a few favorite audience tips, too, specifically around building engagement-based audiences. These include:

  • People who have engaged in any way with your brand on Instagram in the past seven days, the past 20 days, and the past 90 days.
  • People who have visited your Instagram profile in the past 30 days but who are not customers
  • and People who have viewed your Instagram Stories videos in the past seven days 

Another way to work with custom audiences is through retargeting.

This gets at the custom audience type of pixel tracking and website / profile visits. 

We’ve talked to lots of brands that start out with targeting anyone and everyone that visits their website in their retargeting campaigns. Needless to say that approach isn’t always the most effective.

Customers visit your website for lots of different reasons. They visit different pages. The pages they visit represent different buyer intents. Perhaps they’re not looking to buy your product at all. The key is to match your custom advertising audiences to those shoppers’ intents.
For example, if you’re an e-commerce brand and someone visits your website shopping for shoes, make sure that you segment those people into a custom audience labeled “shoe shoppers” or “footwear.”

Over the past year at Buffer we’ve created various audiences based on the subject matter our visitors are interested in learning about. We have a custom audience for traffic to all Facebook marketing pages, Instagram marketing, customer experience, case studies, etc. That allows us to be hyper-focused on what type of content we deliver, which helps to drive down costs.

We have a whole podcast about it if you want to check out.

How to Create Custom Audiences for Pinterest Ads

As you’ll find with all of these social networks, they’re not quite as robust with ads offerings as Facebook and Instagram. But that’s okay! There’s still plenty of customization you can do.For Pinterest, you have a few options for what to create when it comes to customer audiences.

You can build audiences

  • Based on visitors who went to your site
  • Through a customer list that you upload — like a list of emails
  • Based on people who engaged with pins that link to your website
  • With an actalike audience that behaves similarly to an existing custom audience that you’ve created
Pinterest audience options

The visitor audience is based on a Pinterest tag, very much like the Facebook pixel. The Pinterest tag is a piece of JavaScript code you can install on your website to gather conversion insights and to build audiences that you can then target, based on actions taken on your site.

The Pinterest engagement audiences are really interesting, too. For these, all you need is to confirm your domain with Pinterest, and then Pinterest will be able to check to see which Pinterest users have engaged with pins that link back to your website. So for instance, if 1,000 people had saved a pin of Buffer blog content, we could build an engagement audience based on this. 

Similar to the Facebook and Instagram engagement audiences, Pinterest gives you a handful of options to further customize this group. You can filter based on a specific URL, based on a pin category, or even based on the percentage of video that’s been viewed. 

One interesting way that e-commerce brands can use this is to create audiences that are interested in particular product categories — people who click on certain links or certain Pins. 

How to Create Custom Audiences for Twitter

With Twitter ads, you can build custom audiences based on

  • An uploaded list of contacts or customers
  • A collection of website visitors based on data you get from using a Twitter website tag
  • A list of  your mobile app users
  • A flexible audience.
Twitter audience options

The flexible audiences feature is similar in nature to some of the engagement audiences we’ve talked about before. These audiences give Twitter advertisers a way to save combinations of audiences and subsets of audiences, based on factors like recency and frequency of interactions.

How to Create Custom Audiences for LinkedIn

You can build custom audiences on LinkedIn based on a list of contacts that you upload or you can build audiences based on website data, captured using a LinkedIn tag. 

LinkedIn audience options

One interesting bit of audience customization that LinkedIn provides is with account-based audiences. Let’s say that you want to get a certain percentage of Fortune 500 companies using your product; well, you can upload this list of accounts to LinkedIn and build a custom audience that focused on the stakeholders of these companies. 

Yes, there’s a lot of interesting things you can do on LinkedIn if you’re a business selling to other businesses. Then of course Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter are all great for selling your products and services direct to consumers.

That’s right, and before we go, we’d love to leave you with just a couple more ideas for how you can use these custom audiences in unique ways. 

More Tips for Getting the Most out of Your Custom Audiences

I thought this tip from AdEspresso was pretty intriguing.They boost a lot of their content to a wide audience and then create a custom audience based on people who click that content and visit the website. This custom website audience, then, is made up of people who have already shown a lot of intent and might be more primed to start a trial.

Another exciting way to use custom audiences is to think creatively about what you share with a custom audience of existing customers. Typically you might think of ads as a way to acquire more customers. But what if you used this list as a way to keep existing customers engaged? You can build a custom audience based on people who have shopped with you in the past or used your product before, but it’s been awhile since they returned — a “sleepy” audience of sorts.

And finally, there are some neat things you can do with custom audiences of newsletter subscribers. You can segment the list into audiences of engaged subscribers and disengaged subscribers and deliver unique content to each group. For the disengaged group in particular there’s a lot of value in re-engaging: MailChimp ran an analysis of 60 million e-commerce purchases and 40 million email addresses from retailers and found that a single inactive subscriber is still worth 32% of an active subscriber.

About the Science of Social Media

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing strategies from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 27,000+ listeners each week and rock your social media channels as a result!

Originally written Nov 4, 2019. Last updated Nov 4, 2019





Source link

1,407 Replies to “A Crash Course in Custom Audiences for Your Social Media Ads”

  12. According OTC lymphatic routine derangements РІ here are some of the symptoms suggestive on that development : Man Up Now Equally Efficient Control Associated Discomfort Duro Rehab Thickening-25 Fibrous Top Can Alone Into the open Mr. betfair casino online Jwgvig eoffyu

    Reply

  37. A lot of thanks for every one of your hard work on this web page. My mother enjoys going through research and it’s really easy to see why. Most of us know all of the powerful method you produce insightful tips and tricks by means of this web site and as well as invigorate participation from website visitors about this concern then our favorite simple princess is without question starting to learn a whole lot. Enjoy the remaining portion of the new year. You are conducting a dazzling job.

    Reply

  38. I have to show some thanks to the writer for rescuing me from this type of challenge. As a result of scouting throughout the the web and obtaining techniques that were not productive, I figured my entire life was well over. Living without the approaches to the difficulties you have resolved as a result of the blog post is a crucial case, as well as the ones that would have badly damaged my career if I hadn’t noticed the website. Your main natural talent and kindness in playing with every part was excellent. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if I hadn’t encountered such a stuff like this. I am able to at this moment look forward to my future. Thanks a lot very much for the professional and result oriented help. I will not think twice to suggest your web blog to anybody who should get counselling about this issue.

    Reply

  40. I must express some thanks to the writer for bailing me out of this type of instance. Right after scouting through the the net and getting tricks which were not beneficial, I assumed my entire life was over. Being alive without the strategies to the difficulties you’ve fixed all through the guide is a serious case, and the ones which may have adversely damaged my career if I hadn’t encountered your blog. Your primary mastery and kindness in playing with all the pieces was precious. I don’t know what I would have done if I had not come across such a point like this. I am able to at this time relish my future. Thanks for your time very much for the high quality and amazing guide. I won’t think twice to suggest your blog to any person who wants and needs guidelines about this issue.

    Reply

  41. I precisely needed to thank you very much once again. I’m not certain the things that I would’ve gone through without the type of thoughts documented by you directly on that area. This was an absolute frightful dilemma for me personally, but seeing a new specialized form you resolved that forced me to jump over fulfillment. I am grateful for your help and as well , pray you realize what a great job that you’re accomplishing educating other individuals with the aid of your site. Most probably you’ve never encountered all of us.

    Reply

  44. I’m also commenting to make you be aware of of the superb encounter our girl found checking your web page. She noticed plenty of details, which included what it is like to possess an ideal coaching mood to have other folks really easily learn about a number of problematic matters. You truly did more than people’s expected results. Thank you for delivering those valuable, trusted, edifying as well as fun tips about the topic to Ethel.

    Reply

  47. I’m also writing to make you understand of the exceptional encounter my wife’s daughter undergone browsing your site. She figured out such a lot of things, most notably how it is like to possess a wonderful coaching nature to have men and women easily completely grasp a number of grueling subject areas. You truly did more than my desires. I appreciate you for churning out such insightful, healthy, educational and even easy tips on your topic to Ethel.

    Reply

  48. I want to show appreciation to you just for rescuing me from such a trouble. As a result of surfing around through the search engines and obtaining opinions that were not beneficial, I assumed my life was done. Being alive without the strategies to the issues you have resolved as a result of your entire article is a critical case, and the kind which could have adversely affected my career if I hadn’t come across your web blog. That natural talent and kindness in playing with every aspect was tremendous. I don’t know what I would have done if I had not encountered such a step like this. I can at this point relish my future. Thanks for your time so much for this high quality and result oriented guide. I won’t be reluctant to endorse your blog post to any individual who should get counselling about this topic.

    Reply

  49. A lot of thanks for all your work on this web site. Kim take interest in conducting internet research and it is easy to understand why. A number of us learn all of the dynamic method you give both useful and interesting information by means of this web site and even improve contribution from other people on this point and our child is truly starting to learn a great deal. Have fun with the remaining portion of the new year. You have been carrying out a useful job.

    Reply

  50. My wife and i were very thrilled when Albert managed to conclude his basic research through the ideas he acquired through the site. It is now and again perplexing to simply find yourself giving for free information and facts which men and women may have been trying to sell. And we all fully grasp we’ve got you to appreciate for that. The illustrations you made, the simple blog menu, the relationships you can give support to engender – it’s got mostly astonishing, and it is aiding our son and the family reason why the subject matter is cool, which is pretty pressing. Thanks for the whole lot!

    Reply

  53. My husband and i have been really lucky that Albert managed to round up his researching through the entire ideas he was given out of your weblog. It is now and again perplexing to just choose to be giving away methods which usually some other people have been trying to sell. And we figure out we have got the blog owner to give thanks to because of that. The explanations you made, the simple site menu, the friendships you can assist to create – it’s got everything extraordinary, and it’s leading our son in addition to the family believe that that issue is interesting, and that’s extraordinarily mandatory. Thanks for all!

    Reply

  54. Thank you so much for providing individuals with an exceptionally wonderful chance to discover important secrets from this blog. It really is so pleasant and as well , packed with a great time for me and my office co-workers to search your site at minimum 3 times per week to read through the latest things you have. Not to mention, I’m actually happy with your astounding things you serve. Selected two facts in this article are unequivocally the simplest I’ve had.

    Reply

  55. I would like to express my appreciation for your kindness supporting persons who need help with this particular study. Your personal dedication to getting the message along turned out to be extremely practical and has continuously encouraged associates much like me to attain their goals. Your new insightful advice means so much to me and extremely more to my colleagues. Many thanks; from each one of us.

    Reply

  56. I am also commenting to let you be aware of of the excellent experience our princess had reading your site. She came to understand plenty of details, with the inclusion of what it’s like to possess an amazing teaching character to get certain people with no trouble gain knowledge of selected specialized matters. You undoubtedly surpassed our own expectations. Many thanks for distributing these priceless, trustworthy, revealing and as well as cool tips about this topic to Mary.

    Reply

  57. My spouse and i ended up being thankful Chris managed to finish off his basic research from your ideas he came across from your own web page. It is now and again perplexing just to choose to be giving freely strategies many people have been trying to sell. And now we see we have got you to appreciate for this. These explanations you have made, the simple website menu, the friendships you will aid to promote – it’s got mostly remarkable, and it’s making our son in addition to us reckon that that concept is cool, and that is seriously essential. Thanks for all the pieces!

    Reply

  60. A lot of thanks for your own hard work on this web site. My niece take interest in making time for research and it is easy to understand why. We know all relating to the compelling way you give both interesting and useful things by means of the website and therefore inspire response from other individuals on the subject so our favorite child is discovering a whole lot. Take pleasure in the remaining portion of the year. You’re carrying out a stunning job.

    Reply

  61. I have to express appreciation to you for bailing me out of such a incident. Because of exploring throughout the the web and meeting thoughts which are not productive, I was thinking my entire life was gone. Being alive minus the strategies to the difficulties you’ve solved through your short article is a serious case, as well as ones that might have negatively affected my entire career if I hadn’t come across your website. Your primary skills and kindness in playing with every part was very helpful. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t encountered such a thing like this. I’m able to now look ahead to my future. Thanks for your time so much for your reliable and amazing help. I won’t be reluctant to recommend the sites to any individual who needs tips on this subject matter.

    Reply

  62. Thank you so much for providing individuals with remarkably special chance to read articles and blog posts from here. It really is very pleasing and packed with a good time for me and my office friends to search your site the equivalent of 3 times a week to read through the fresh items you have. And indeed, I’m also usually astounded with all the fabulous techniques served by you. Selected 3 facts in this article are unequivocally the most beneficial I have ever had.

    Reply

  63. Thanks so much for providing individuals with such a superb opportunity to read articles and blog posts from here. It is usually very awesome and also packed with amusement for me personally and my office fellow workers to search your blog at a minimum 3 times in one week to see the new things you have. And definitely, I am just always pleased with all the extraordinary concepts served by you. Selected 4 ideas in this post are certainly the very best we’ve ever had.

    Reply

  64. I’m also writing to let you be aware of of the remarkable experience my friend’s child undergone studying your site. She noticed too many details, most notably what it is like to possess a marvelous coaching mood to get men and women clearly have an understanding of a number of problematic topics. You actually surpassed our own expected results. Many thanks for presenting such precious, healthy, informative and in addition unique thoughts on the topic to Tanya.

    Reply

  68. A lot of thanks for each of your effort on this site. My aunt really loves carrying out investigation and it’s simple to grasp why. My spouse and i know all relating to the compelling mode you offer helpful steps via this web site and therefore recommend participation from other individuals about this area and my child is now discovering a lot. Take pleasure in the remaining portion of the new year. You’re carrying out a dazzling job.

    Reply

  69. I precisely desired to thank you very much once again. I am not sure the things that I would have tried in the absence of the entire recommendations shown by you on such theme. Entirely was a very daunting scenario for me, nevertheless finding out the well-written approach you treated that forced me to jump with joy. I’m happier for this information and as well , believe you find out what a great job you are always undertaking instructing the rest through your web page. I am certain you’ve never met any of us.

    Reply

  75. I intended to put you this very little word to finally thank you very much yet again for these unique opinions you have discussed in this article. It was simply wonderfully open-handed with you to grant without restraint what exactly numerous people would’ve marketed as an ebook in order to make some cash on their own, precisely given that you could have done it in the event you desired. These techniques as well worked to provide a easy way to be aware that some people have a similar dream much like mine to understand a little more on the topic of this matter. I am certain there are millions of more enjoyable sessions up front for people who looked over your blog.

    Reply

  76. I wish to voice my affection for your generosity in support of visitors who have the need for assistance with that subject. Your very own dedication to passing the solution all-around had been particularly beneficial and have usually permitted guys and women much like me to achieve their pursuits. The valuable suggestions can mean this much a person like me and additionally to my mates. Thanks a ton; from all of us.

    Reply

  82. I together with my buddies came examining the good strategies from your web site and immediately I had an awful suspicion I had not thanked the blog owner for them. All the young boys were definitely totally thrilled to learn them and have simply been taking pleasure in these things. Thanks for genuinely really accommodating and also for going for this form of really good themes most people are really desperate to understand about. Our own honest apologies for not expressing gratitude to you sooner.

    Reply

  83. I just wanted to type a brief remark to appreciate you for some of the stunning tricks you are giving here. My incredibly long internet lookup has at the end been rewarded with extremely good suggestions to write about with my good friends. I would declare that most of us site visitors are undoubtedly fortunate to dwell in a really good site with many outstanding individuals with very helpful strategies. I feel rather privileged to have come across your website and look forward to many more brilliant times reading here. Thank you again for everything.

    Reply

  84. I want to point out my love for your kind-heartedness supporting visitors who actually need help on the idea. Your special dedication to getting the message up and down was pretty valuable and has always helped regular people like me to attain their pursuits. Your new helpful guidelines signifies much a person like me and additionally to my mates. Thank you; from all of us.

    Reply

  88. I want to voice my appreciation for your kindness for all those that absolutely need guidance on your concept. Your personal dedication to passing the solution all around appeared to be quite interesting and has usually enabled workers like me to realize their goals. Your own interesting suggestions can mean much to me and especially to my fellow workers. With thanks; from all of us.

    Reply

  93. My spouse and i have been so thrilled when Raymond managed to conclude his web research because of the ideas he gained out of your site. It’s not at all simplistic just to choose to be giving away procedures which often the others have been making money from. And we also take into account we have the writer to be grateful to because of that. The main illustrations you’ve made, the straightforward website menu, the friendships you help to engender – it is many astounding, and it’s facilitating our son in addition to our family believe that the article is brilliant, and that’s pretty important. Many thanks for the whole lot!

    Reply

  94. I wish to get across my gratitude for your kind-heartedness supporting men and women who need help with that question. Your very own dedication to getting the message across appeared to be incredibly good and has constantly helped workers much like me to attain their aims. The valuable tips and hints indicates so much a person like me and a whole lot more to my mates. Regards; from each one of us.

    Reply

  95. I simply desired to say thanks once more. I am not sure the things I could possibly have achieved without the entire suggestions discussed by you concerning my problem. It had become a real frightful dilemma in my view, however , being able to see your specialized manner you dealt with the issue made me to jump for contentment. Now i am happy for the help as well as expect you realize what a great job you happen to be accomplishing instructing the mediocre ones via your web blog. I’m certain you have never got to know all of us.

    Reply

  96. I just wanted to type a small message to be able to thank you for all the remarkable instructions you are giving on this website. My rather long internet research has finally been honored with professional tips to share with my good friends. I would suppose that we visitors are extremely blessed to live in a great site with very many wonderful professionals with good concepts. I feel very much blessed to have seen your web site and look forward to many more fun minutes reading here. Thanks once more for everything.

    Reply

  104. I want to convey my appreciation for your kindness supporting those people who have the need for guidance on this particular area of interest. Your very own commitment to getting the message up and down has been extraordinarily powerful and has usually empowered guys and women like me to get to their ambitions. Your own interesting suggestions implies this much to me and further more to my fellow workers. With thanks; from everyone of us.

    Reply

  105. I simply wished to thank you so much all over again. I’m not certain what I might have taken care of in the absence of the tactics discussed by you relating to such industry. Certainly was an absolute intimidating difficulty for me, nevertheless being able to view your professional tactic you dealt with the issue made me to jump for happiness. Now i’m thankful for the assistance and hope you realize what a powerful job you happen to be putting in training many people through the use of your web site. I am certain you’ve never encountered all of us.

    Reply

  106. I wish to get across my gratitude for your kindness in support of individuals that need guidance on the matter. Your very own dedication to passing the solution across ended up being amazingly advantageous and has consistently permitted many people much like me to arrive at their targets. Your own helpful information implies a great deal to me and far more to my peers. Thank you; from everyone of us.

    Reply

  112. I want to get across my admiration for your kind-heartedness supporting men and women who have the need for guidance on this one question. Your special dedication to getting the solution all over became really significant and have really helped guys and women like me to attain their pursuits. The useful information denotes so much to me and somewhat more to my mates. Warm regards; from each one of us.

    Reply

  113. Thanks so much for providing individuals with remarkably wonderful chance to discover important secrets from this website. It is often so pleasant plus full of a good time for me personally and my office colleagues to visit your blog at least 3 times in a week to read through the newest items you will have. And definitely, I am also actually fascinated with the excellent suggestions you serve. Certain 2 areas in this article are certainly the most impressive we’ve ever had.

    Reply

  114. A lot of thanks for each of your efforts on this web page. Kim really loves carrying out internet research and it is easy to understand why. A number of us know all about the lively medium you deliver rewarding strategies via the blog and strongly encourage response from other people about this content then our own princess is now understanding a whole lot. Enjoy the rest of the new year. You’re the one performing a remarkable job.

    Reply

  115. Needed to put you a very little observation to thank you so much yet again about the nice tips you have featured in this article. This is shockingly generous with you to offer extensively all a few people would’ve made available for an electronic book to generate some bucks for their own end, and in particular seeing that you might have done it in the event you considered necessary. These concepts in addition served as a good way to fully grasp some people have a similar zeal the same as my own to find out a lot more on the topic of this issue. I know there are lots of more fun opportunities ahead for individuals that look into your site.

    Reply

  410. Taxi moto line
    128 Rue la Boétie
    75008 Paris
    +33 6 51 612 712  

    Taxi moto paris

    Unquestionably believe that which you stated. Your favorite justification seemed to be on the net the simplest thing to be aware of.
    I say to you, I definitely get irked while people think about worries that they plainly don’t know
    about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and defined out the whole thing without having side effect ,
    people can take a signal. Will likely be back to get more.

    Thanks

    Reply