If you're currently advertising on Facebook, you've probably heard the announcement about their new Custom Audience feature. The announcement was a pretty big deal and had most marketers salivating over the new targeting possibilities.
In case you missed it, here's a brief overview of the Custom Audiences feature and tips on how you can use it to your advantage.
What Are Facebook Custom Audiences?
Let's say you have a current email list of all of your existing customers. You've introduced a new product that you think would be valuable to those customers, and you'd love to be able to run Facebook ads that show only to those customers. Up to this point, you didn't have a way to do this.
Now, with Facebook Custom Audiences, you now can upload your customer email list (or a list of phone numbers or Facebook User ID's) for Facebook to hash the data against its users to find matches. Pretty cool, eh?
Odds are that if you have 1,000 customer emails, they won't all be currently on Facebook. However, many of your customers might have used the same email when they bought from you as they did when (if) they signed up for Facebook. You'll probably be surprised at how many people from your customer list have the same email that match back to their Facebook account. To test this new feature out, we uploaded some of our customer lists and were seeing anywhere from 50-70% match rates. Not too shabby.
The other beautiful thing about Custom Audiences is that not only do you have a new, custom audience that you've created from your own customer data, but you can layer on any of the other Facebook Advertising targeting options on top of it. For instance, let's say you upload the emails of your current customers and found 70% of them on Facebook. Now you have a Custom Audience of these folks. You can now say that you only want to run a Facebook ad to the people in this list who include the filters of living in Seattle and not liking your fan page yet. The options for targeted marketing are pretty limitless.
Some of you might have concerns about privacy. It's important to note that Facebook will hash (or encrypt) all of the email addresses, phone numbers, or Facebook user ID's that you upload before matching it to Facebook profiles. Here's Facebook's own explanation of this:
"Facebook calculates the hash of the email addresses and phone numbers that people have given us and stores these hashes with the corresponding person. When an advertiser imports their hashed audience list into power editor, we compare it with our hashes to find all the matching user IDs. If an advertiser imports a hashed email address that we don't have, it won't match anything. Facebook won't know the original email address or phone number because it was hashed before it was uploaded."
How Can I Use Custom Audiences?
I was pretty excited after reading the Custom Audiences announcement, and I started brainstorming the countless ways to use them. Here's what I've come up with so far:
- Drive Facebook Likes: This one is pretty obvious. Now that you can mash your offline lists to Facebook profiles, you can easily set up a Custom Audience of your current customers or people who've signed up for one of your email lists (basically anyone who's had a brand impression with your company) and start serving them ads to try and get them to like your FB brand page. You'll want to make sure you select the option to only show ads to the people in this Custom Audience who don't already like your page.
- Drive Sales/Conversions: If you're a business that collects email addresses for lead gen purposes, why not upload those as a Custom Audience and then serve Facebook ads to that group? For example: if you sell products and know that your customers tend to buy product A before buying product B, upload the list of emails of all customers who've bought product A and then serve them ads promoting product B. Maybe you're a B2B business and 20% of your customers are in your mid-tier product plan. You can serve those customers ads trying to get them to upgrade to the next product tier. Maybe you're an online florist and Valentine's Day is approaching. Why not upload an email list of all your customers and then use Facebook targeting to focus on only the customers who are in relationships or married, and serve that group a Valentine's Day promotion? The possibilities are endless.
- Drive Newsletter Signups: If your company has a newsletter that you send out on a regular basis and you can pull an email list of all customers who haven't signed up for the newsletter yet, upload that group as your Custom Audience. You can then serve ads promoting your newsletter to those customers.
The potential targeting options with Custom Audiences is pretty vast, so I'm sure there are plenty of opportunities I missed. Now that we've discussed what the Custom Audiences are and some ways to use them, let's quickly talk about how to set them up.
How Do I Set Up Custom Audiences?
In order to use Facebook's Custom Audience feature, you'll have to use a 3rd party vendor (SalesForce, AdParlor, Alchemy Social, GraphEffect, Kenshoo, Nanigans, Social Moov, and Optimal) or the Facebook Power Editor. Check out the link to learn about what the Power Editor is and how to download and start using it.
Once you have it downloaded, you'll want to click on the Custom Audiences tab on the top nav and then click "create audience".
A pop-up will load asking for you to upload your Custom Audience file. Make sure your file is in CSV or TXT format, name it, and then upload it to Facebook.
Facebook will now mash your audience list with their user profiles to see how many match. Remember, the number of people in your original list will not match the number that Facebook returns for the Custom Audience size for two main reasons: some people will not be active users of Facebook, and some will not use the same email address or phone number that they gave your company as they do on their Facebook profile.
Once the audience has finished uploading in Facebook, you can click it and then click "create ad using audience" to set up an ad or you can click the Custom Audience tab from the ad editor.
What's Next?
The new Custom Audience feature is pretty exciting, and I'm launching some tests here at SEOmoz to see how it performs for us. We'll be testing 3 things to start:
- Driving Facebook likes
- Driving conversions (free trial signups)
- Driving newsletter signups
I'll collect data over the next couple of weeks and write a follow-up post to show how they performed for us.
I'd also love to hear from you all to see what you think about this new Custom Audience feature. Are you currently using it, or do you plan on using it in the future? If so, how will you plan on using it? Add your thoughts in the comments section below and we'll continue the discussion.
I am not using this tool but it is really good for the improving influence of facebook marketing, we can gathered relevant audience and increase our conversion rate. Thanks for giving us deep information and usability of this tool. I think this is very helpful for all who still not aware about the custom audience. I have also read that link which you share first it is really useful. I think if facebook work like this then that day is not far when facebook become strongest competitor of google.
The timing is PERFECT on this one! I'm volunteering some marketing womanpower to the symphony I play in. I'd like to 1) Grow followers, 2) Grow our email contact list, and most importantly 3) Increase attendance at our concerts.
Our next concert is happening in less than 3 weeks and I'll be testing this feature to target our mailing list for buying tickets, and segmenting a more aggressive campaign for people who like the subject matter that inspired the music (Lord of the Rings).
Super cool. Thanks for sharing, Justin!
Glad to hear you can use this right away Lauren! Keep me posted on how it performs for you.
-jv
This could also be great for dating. Just drop in the user IDs of attractive women you know and run an "I'm single" ad.
Hah...this would be a little creepy. If you already know the women, wouldn't they know you are single already? :)
Maybe they need reminding. Retention marketing.
Thank you for sharing this information with us.Its really a good feature.After reading your article, Iam very eager to try out Facebook's New Custom Audience.Thanks alot.
Don't kill me, but i am certain that most facebook PPC clicks are bots. I had targeted some campaigns so strictly, and got clicks only from Chinese kinds. Can't explain it.
I dont see the feature in the audience page . How can I activate the feature? i am from india.And is Facebook charging more for custom audience compare to intrests or same price..Please clear my doubt.And when can i expect this feature ( custom audience) Please reply
There is no charge to use this feature. I have heard it is only available in the US for now though.
I tried setting this up for our Facebook page. Was all good until I came to setting up an ad. Even though my custom audience is over 8000 (originally 15000, so just over half have an account setup using the same email) my ad says that my estimated reach is only 80! I don't have any demographic filters on either. Is this because I and our page are in the UK?? Can anyone shed any light?
Hmm...seems odd, are you sure you chose the same custom audience that you set up that had 8,000 users? If you have no other targeting parameters selected, it should have the estimated reach of close to 8,000.
Thanks for the amazing introduction of the new feature by facebook… I think this way you can leverage the customers with you even when they unsubscribe you (every email campaign have some level of un-subscription rate) and market your product without interrupting.
Thanks for this detailed information!
Glad you found it helpful!
In 10 years you could target audience:
"Target only people that have 1 sister, 1 brother, crazy wifre, with dead grandparents, that has birthday in 2 weeks or less, that got divorced 2 times, that visited XX Country once or more, and checked in @Toilet at least 3 times in last 2 weeks"
Would be great to see a follow-up post, with a case study of how well (or how poor) an imported email list performs in Facebook.
I'm working on this David. Been running a few tests here so will be posting a follow-up blog post in the next couple weeks to discuss. Stay tuned!
I really like, from my marketing perspective, being able to see this, but what about from a privacy standpoint? Where do we draw a line?
Hey Zach...facebook takes some pretty aggressive stances to make sure privacy is still in tact. When you mash your customer email list with FB users, there is no exchange of data so neither party has the full info of FB user and customer email.
Obviously privacy issues are becoming more and more of a topic with how many ways advertisers have to target consumers. But, if someone is truly concerned with privacy, they don't have to join Facebook or Like things on FB. By saying I want to take part in a social network, I'm giving them the right to use my information to let advertisers serve targeted ads to me. I typically take the point of view that I would rather have targeted ads shown to me that at least are taking to mind my personal interests and demographic info than to see ads that have no relevance to me. At the end of the day, you're going to be shown ads, it just will vary from highly targeted ads to ads that don't related to you at all.
Does anyone know whether Custom Audience will allow us to create Sponsored Posts, i.e. effectively getting a message out to friends and fans of our customers as well as the customers?
Indeed custom audiences, is a very promising concept. Finally Facebook after starting their own IPO they decided to use the Social Graph correct and give enormous power with their custom audiences add on. We use it, we are doing a great business with that and finally Facebook came with a gorgeous project for their future and also future of their clients and marketers.
Hi,
Can we target ads to friends of people who are in my Custom Audience list ? I am unable to find a way to do so.
I am going to look for more information to complement the knowledge that you have given us, it is very interesting thank you very much
I'd be really interested to see Linkedin do a similiar custom audiences advertising. Would be a lot more inline with our customer base.
When are you posting the results? I'm about to start testing with custom audiences, would be cool to see how your tests turned out!
Hey EKP...we had to delay some of our tests due to some large internal projects we're working on. I'll hopefully be able to post them in the next 2 or 3 months. Sorry for the delay!
-jv
I am a little late to the party, but I hope someone can advise. For the first time I loaded a test list of contacts. I loaded 100 emails. It says my audience size is 113. Am I reading this incorrectly? What does that mean?
Also, how do I find more info on my audience? Age, location, etc.
Thanks for any help you can give this newbie.
Would like to see the follow-up to this.
I can see the points made by seo_f2012 and Deb, but there are other factors to consider. So you have someone's email, but do you know how they use their email?
For example:
There are other reasons to use Facebook ads, but that's probably better left as a separate topic.
Why would you run Facebook ads when you can just e-mail the targets directly? The chances of them seeing a FB ad are much, much, much smaller than them seeing an e-mail from you.
It's like me having your e-mail address but instead of simply emailing you, I decide instead to run an FB ad where the chance of you seeing the ad are incredibly small.
The point is that you can do both now. Some consumers will filter out emails to spam folders or will give you a bogus email address. By finding the customers who have given you a legit email address and then being able to run ads to them on FB, you now can add all the layers of FB demographic and interest targeting on top of that. You probably don't have all of that info with your own personal email list unless you are asking your email subscribers to give you personal info. Even then, I doubt it compares to how much info you can get on a FB user.
So, there are definite advantages of being able to run highly targeted facebook ads to your customers verses just sending them emails.
-jv
Without any doubt that Face Book is now rolling the real features which will be vital aspects of online marketing and also Face Book is now planning to compete Google for their Adwords Business. Face Book Paid Marketing will surely a great option to now those who want to market their product within social crowd. No doubt that Face Book Paid Marketing will be crucial subject to small business enterprises to gain their revenue from Social Crowd.
Now, its time to some different platform for specially small business enterprises!
Thanks for the heads up. Just uploaded my email list and will start developing some ecommerce campaigns for the upcoming Christmas season. Good stuff.
Awesome! Keep me posted on how it performs. Would love to hear more stories on how these custom audiences are working for advertisers.
-jv
Okay Justin, It'll be the great potential to companies like us.. B2B ad B2C as well, by the way I have one doubt here.. I have supposed 10000 existing customers Ids, and out of them 30% don't have FB and 10% use another email id for FB. So how can I reach them? Again what'll be the privacy for them? Any way when it'll available in INDIA
Regards,Manoj
Hey...so it sounds like you have 10,000 customer emails and 30% of them aren't on FB and 10% use another email ID for FB right? Unfortunately, there isn't a way to reach this 30%. FB can only match their users with your customer emails so if there isn't a match for some, you're out of luck.
On the bright side, having 70% of your customers matched to their FB profiles is pretty high so start advertising to that group.
I'm not sure when this will be available in India. I'll try to find out.
-jv
Great post Justin!!! This is amazing features from facebook and I think now people are more like to create and run their PPC campaign in facebook rather than Google. This feature will reduce the cost and applying with more targeted audience so you have great chance to get more ROI.
Ohhh............ Google.. day by day Facebook become more and more smarter... :) over all it will good for Internet marketing experts and for eCommerce business as second powerful option is now available for marketing.
Waiting for Facebook Search Engine... :)
Glad you enjoyed it! I don't think FB will be giving a real run for its money yet but it's moving closer. The core issue that I still see is that most users on FB still don't treat FB as a search engine. When they are on FB they are typically in a "break" type of mode where they are trying to have a bit of respite from their daily activities and want to see what family and friends are up to.
These added targeting features help us to better capture the audience on FB who might be willing to click on ads but it's still a pretty different audience and user behavior comparing FB users to Google Search users.
Just my 2 cents.
-jv
Agree with you Justin, but If FB develop it's own search engine then I think up to some amount we will take some advantage of it's and Google will get some competition :) what you say... and in one of the interview Mark zuckerberg given indication for same thing
www.sbwire.com/press-releases/facebook-owner-mark-zuckerberg-seriously-considering-facebook-search-engine-reports-nukeboostcom-166834.htm
This has serious potential for companies that do both B2B and B2C. Thanks for the explanation!
No problem. Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for the post Justin! I'm definitely excited to try out custom audiences on Facebook.
Thanks Tom! Keep me posted on how it performs for you.
-jv
Awesome but, sigh, not rolled out outside the US yet. We're still waiting for Facebook check-in deals here in Mexico.
Bummer. I'm not sure when it will be available outside the US.
-jv
We are waiting too in India
I am not using it ( i don't advertise in Facebook) but it is a real useful think no doubt. Waiting for the follow up post to see the result of your weeks observation. I also believe that this custom audience will help in B2B campaign. Thanks dear.
No prob. Stay tuned for our own results.
The feature of targeting your email list is incredible; I did not even know about it. A few weeks ago Facebook actually called me to see if I'd be interested in going over some of their new advertising features, but I quickly dismissed them because all past attempts at advertising on Facebook had not worked for us. Now I'm starting to regret not listening to what they had to say.
Well at least now you know about it and can decide on if you want to use it or not.
I agree - facebook's PPC features are far more precise than google's!!
Great explanation for a great tool. Cool for Facebook that they never stop upgrading, this is a great way to maximize advertising strategy.
Can you explain more about the privacy issues. I'm not sure what you mean by hash or encrypt the email addresses. Does Facebook then own the email list of people who were not on Facebook (but on our list)?
What can they do with the information that their current users who are our customers...can they sell this list?
Thanks,
Dan
P.S. great post.
Hey Dan...here's some more info from Facebook's site:
Facebook never receives your customer list. The list of emails or phone numbers is hashed on your own computer in power editor, and only the hashed data is sent to Facebook’s servers. The hashes are used to make the match, and then they are all discarded whether they matched or not. Facebook doesn’t use the data for any other purpose.
In this way, Facebook is able to find your ideal audiences for you without either company’s data leaving its respective servers.
So, FB won't do anything with the information and definitely cannot sell the list. They just match your data to their users but they aren't actually able to see your email lists, phone numbers, or FB user id's.
Make sense?
-jv
Meaning there's sort of an intermediary between you and Facebook. The power editor sees the e-mail addresses but doesn't store them in any way, and Facebook never sees the e-mail addresses at all.
Hi,
I dont see the feature in the power editor yet. How can I activate the feature?
Thanks!
Are you in the US? You should see it in the Power Editor if so.
Facebook does a nice job offering demographic targeting
Hey Justin, great explanation for a great tool. This is something that I will be using in the future and I will likely refer to this post numerous times. This is a great way to target specific users using data we already have. Thank you.
Glad you found it helpful George! Keep me posted on the results when you start using this.
-jv
Just launched in Southern California and will be using this for all of our potential clients down there. Thanks for this great actionable post!
No problem Jon. Keep us posted on your results.
Great initiative. But still have a lingering doubt about it. Facebook wants us to have the list of email ids to be able to use this awesome feature, right? But if I have the emails ids already, why on earth I will go for facebook ad? I can easily send them mails mentioning the launch of a new service or a discount package. I am well aware of the engagement thing but still I am not convinced that it is a great idea. It appears to be a new form of remarketing and people do have some doubts about its effectiveness.
Any feedback will be appreciated.