• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Social Media Examiner

Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

  • 🔥 Free Newsletter
  • ⭐ FREE Web3 Course
  • 🗓️ Our Events
    • Social Media Marketing World (Mar 13-15)
    • Other Industry Events
  • 💡 Society
  • ⚙️ Tools
  • 🎙️ Podcasts
    • Social Media Marketing Podcast
    • Social Media Marketing Talk Show
    • Web3 Business Podcast
    • Our YouTube Channel
  • 🎯 Partner With Us
    • Podcast Sponsorship
    • Email Sponsorship
      • Email Newsletter
      • Dedicated Email Blast
    • Event Sponsorship
      • Social Media Marketing World
    • Tools Sponsorship
  • 👋 About Us
    • Our Story
    • Articles
      • Web3
      • Instagram Marketing
      • Facebook Marketing
      • YouTube Marketing
      • LinkedIn Marketing
      • TikTok Marketing
      • Expert Interviews
  • Search
  • Social Media Marketing World10th annual. Biggest industry event. Get the recordings!IMPROVE YOUR MARKETING

    How to Use Facebook Custom Audiences for Increased Reach

    by Rocco Alberto Baldassarre / June 25, 2015

    social media how toLooking for new ways to reach people on Facebook?

    Have you explored custom audiences?

    Facebook custom audiences provide many ways to increase your chance of getting your content in front of the right people.

    In this article I'll share how to use Facebook custom audiences to increase visibility and reach.

    use facebook custom audiences for increased reach
    Discover how to use Facebook Custom Audiences for increased reach.

    Listen to this article:

    Where to subscribe: Apple Podcast | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS

    #1: Upsell Products and Services

    While Facebook is an excellent place for branding or getting sales, one of the best uses for Facebook custom audiences is to upsell.

    Create a custom audience of everyone who recently purchased a specific product or service, and then target this audience with upsells. Think of it as replicating Amazon's high-converting People Who Bought This Also Bought section.

    amazon upsell tactic
    Replicate Amazon's People Who Bought This section to upsell your products and services.

    For example, target people who recently purchased a MacAir via your website and upsell them MacAir accessories like a CD drive, airplane adapter, the Apple magic mouse and so on.

    If you offer website-related services, upsell logo overhauls and website speed improvement packages. Consultants could offer time-sensitive upgrades. Post something like, “Recently bought the starter package? Upgrade to the silver package within the next 72 hours and save 20%.”

    #2: Target Traffic Sources Individually

    Create one landing page per traffic source, and then build custom remarketing lists for each landing page. Then create campaigns based on the URL people visited.

    To do this, go to Campaigns. Then select Audiences.

    audiences in ad campaign menu
    Go to Campaigns and select Audiences.

    Then click Custom Audience.

    custom audience in create audience menu
    Scroll down to Custom Audience.

    Separate traffic sources with landing page URLs to create lookalike audiences for each platform. As a result, you can find out whether customers who came via Google are different from customers who came via Facebook, Bing, etc. Depending on your findings, you can customize ads to better address each target group.

    select website custom audience
    After you get to the Create a Custom Audience section, select Visitor Traffic.

    Once you set up one landing page per traffic source (e.g., one landing page for AdWords and one for Facebook ads), you can create a custom audience based on which page people visited.

    3 Days of World-Class Training—Zero Travel!

    Social Media Marketing World

    Travel to Social Media Marketing World off the table? Get all of the great content at a fraction of the price with an On-Demand ticket.

    That’s full access to recordings of every keynote, workshop, and session—the ones people travel thousands of miles to see. Don't wait. Get your On-Demand ticket and enjoy actionable content that you can watch anytime, anywhere.

    GET YOUR ON-DEMAND TICKET NOW
    select people who visit specific pages
    Under Website Traffic, click People Who Visit Specific Pages to customize.

    Create separate remarketing and cross-channel campaigns for each platform. For example, customize separate campaigns for people who visited your website via Facebook, via Google and via Twitter.

    #3: Refine Targeting With Audience Insights

    Audience Insights on Facebook can be used for more than just profiling people who currently like your page. For example, use Audience Insights to learn more about the characteristics of customers depending on what platform they visited prior to buying from you.

    Tools Resource Guide

    Looking for something to make your life easier?

    Discover the tools we recommend to drive engagement, save you time, and boost sales across your entire marketing funnel or business.

    Whether you need help planning content, organizing social posts, or developing your strategy, you’ll find something for every situation.

    FIND YOUR NEXT FAVORITE TOOL
    audience insights in campaign menu
    Go to Campaigns and then Audience Insights.

    Then, create one custom audience per platform.

    custom audience menu
    Create a custom audience for each platform.

    Next, use Audience Insights to learn more about your visitors. You will be able to create customer profiles, find additional targeting and come up with new split testing options by using that information.

    The information you retrieve for each custom audience looks like every other Audience Insights screen (except of course the information will be about your custom audience).

    custom audience insights
    View Audience Insights for each custom audience to learn more about your visitors so you can create more tailored Facebook ads.

    The concept of learning more about people based on traffic sources can even be taken a step further by separating the campaign type. For instance, create custom audiences with people who visit your website through a Google or remarketing audience, as well as people who bought from you. The latter requires the installation of a conversion pixel.

    #4: Target Visitor Behavior

    Create custom ads and landing pages based on visitor behavior. Target behavioral patterns, such as what people bought and what pages they visited.

    power editor in campaign menu
    Go to Campaigns, and then scroll down to Power Editor.

    Start with your custom audience, and narrow it down by interest and behavior.

    edit audience in power editor
    Under Power Editor, go to Edit Audience.

    Fill out the audience with as many specifics as you like. For instance, target all customers who bought from you, reside in the U.S., travel frequently, often buy online and are interested in sports.

    narrow audience in power editor
    Make each custom audience as specific as necessary.

    Strategic split testing of behaviors and interests for custom audiences is easily overlooked. Most interests are surprisingly similar to behaviors and the other way around, so split testing can also mean swapping them.

    Let's say you're targeting “Fishing” as an interest. Fishing also exists as a behavior.

    interest targeting
    Fishing is an interest, as well as a behavior, so you can split test it in a variety of ways.

    There are different ways to split test this. For instance, select Fishing as both interest and behavior. Then test it against Fishing as an interest without any behavior targeting. Then split test those two against Fishing as a behavior without any interest. Next, find complementary topics to target such as Hunting if that fits your target group.

    When you target and test visitor behavior in different ways, you learn more about your audience and can tailor your marketing accordingly.

    Over to You

    With ever-increasing competition on Facebook, you can never know too many ways to get your ads in front of the right audience. However, the platform has improved over time and now offers more ways to target your ads than ever. Try these tips to get your content out there, narrow your target audiences on Facebook and find new potential customers.

    Remember to continually test custom audiences and adjust your ad sets accordingly.

    What you do think? Have you tried custom audiences to increase reach and conversions? What changes in relevance score and conversion rates did you notice? What strategies or tactics have worked best for you? Please share your recommendations and thoughts in the comments below.

    how to use facebook custom audiences for increased reach
    Tips for using Facebook Custom Audiences for increased reach.

    Get Your FREE Course: Web3 for Beginners

    Web 3 for Beginners

    Curious about Web3, but don't know where to start or who to trust?

    Introducing Web3 for Beginners, a course taught by Michael Stelzner, the founder of Social Media Examiner.

    Learn the basics of Web3 and apply it to your business with this FREE comprehensive course.


    CLICK HERE TO GET FREE ACCESS

    Tags: Facebook

    About the authorRocco Alberto Baldassarre

    Founder and CEO of Zebra Advertisement, a SEM consulting firm. Rocco consults companies that spend up to US$5M in ad spend per day and speaks 3 languages.
    Other posts by Rocco Alberto Baldassarre Âť

    Get Social Media Examiner’s Future Articles in Your Inbox!

    Get our latest articles delivered to your email inbox and get the FREE Social Media Marketing Industry Report (39 pages, 50+ charts)!

    Industry Report Cover

    Worth Exploring:

    Facebook

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Instagram

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    YouTube

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Linkedin

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Web3

    Marketing Help Explore More →

    Social Media Marketing Industry Report

    Get Free Report →

    Social Marketing Trends

    The data you've been missing!

    Need a new plan? Discover how marketers plan to change their social activities in the 14th annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report. It reveals what marketers have planned for their social activities, content marketing, and more! Get this free report now and never miss another great article from us. Join more than 400,000 marketers!

    Enter your email to get
    our free report:


    Footer

    Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
    Copyright © 2023 Social Media ExaminerÂŽ
    All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy.

    Helpful Links

    • About us
    • Our content via email
    • Our podcasts
    • Our YouTube channel
    • Our live show
    • Our industry report
    • Sponsorship opportunities
    • RSS
    • Accessibility