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

Social Media Examiner

Your Guide to the Marketing Jungle

  • 🔥 Free Newsletter
  • 🎙️ Podcasts
    • Social Media Marketing Podcast
    • AI Explored Podcast
    • Social Media Marketing Talk Show
    • Our YouTube Channel
  • 🌟 AI Society
  • 🗓️ Marketing Conference
  • đź‘‹ About Us
    • Marketing Events
  • Search
  • Embrace AI & MarketingGet Ongoing Training & SupportBEGIN YOUR JOURNEY NOW

    How to Retarget Content to Facebook Custom Audiences

    by Rocco Alberto Baldassarre / July 9, 2014

    social media how toHave you considered using Facebook to reach your existing customers or those who visit your website?

    Have you tried Facebook's custom audience options?

    Retargeting to the right audience is a must if you want to see more conversions from your Facebook ads.

    In this article you'll discover four Facebook custom audiences you can create to retarget your content to the most relevant Facebook audience.

    retarget your content
    Retarget content to a your audience with Facebook Custom Audiences.

    Why Retargeted Content?

    The goal of retargeted content (also known as remarketing) is to place your brand top of mind. Common strategies remarket to people who have already visited your website.

    sponsored facebook update from plated
    Updates like this can show up in your news feed if you've ever visited the Plated website.

    People rarely buy from you the first time they visit your site or see an offer. They would rather take their time, compare your pricing with competitors' and visit your site a few more times before completing that valuable sale.

    Here are four custom audiences you can use to retarget Facebook users with your content.

    #1: Website Visitors

    The most common remarketing tactic is targeting relevant ads at people who have already visited your website (usually a specific landing page).

    To create a targeted audience based on website visitors, you must have a Facebook website custom audience in place.

    Overall, retargeting website visitors is a simple concept: When someone visits a page with your custom audience code (i.e., an offsite pixel), they're added to your custom audience list in your Facebook Ads Manager.

    You can include those visitors (and the custom audience they're part of) as a target audience in a Facebook ad retargeting campaign.

    choosing an audience for ad targeting
    Custom audiences are important to Facebook retargeting campaigns.

    There may be a case where you want to retarget only a portion of the traffic that has visited a landing page on your website. No problem. You can do that by creating a personalized custom audience:

    1. Go to your Facebook Ads Manager and choose Audience.

    2. Click on Create a Custom Audience.

    AI Business Society

    Ready to Unlock AI Marketing Breakthroughs?

    If you’re like most of us, you are trying to figure out how to use AI in your marketing. Here's the solution: The AI Business Society—a new AI marketing community from your friends at Social Media Examiner.

    The AI Business Society is the place to discover how to apply AI in your work. When you join, you'll boost your productivity, unlock your creativity, and make connections with other marketers on a similar journey.

    I'M READY TO BECOME AN AI-POWERED MARKETER

    3. Under Website Traffic, select People Visiting Specific Pages.

    3. Next to the Visited field, customize the URL elements to match the pages you want to retarget.

    4. Click on Create.

    website visitor custom audience set up
    You don't have to retarget everyone who visits your website.

    After you create your personalized custom audience, it's ready to use. However, keep in mind that it may take a few hours for the new audience to have the final user count.

    #2: Facebook Fans

    Retargeting to existing Facebook fans is incredibly easy: When you set up your Facebook ad, choose to target people who are already fans of your page.

    facebook fan targeting
    Narrow your retargeting audience to include only people who are fans of your page.

    Does it seem odd to advertise to existing Facebook fans? Consider that acquiring sales from existing customers is cheaper than acquiring new leads (and many of your fans are probably customers). You can also upsell those existing customers with new or better products and services.

    Discover Proven Marketing Strategies and Tips

    Want to go even deeper with your marketing? Check out the Social Media Marketing Podcast! Publishing weekly since 2012, the Social Media Marketing Podcast helps you navigate the constantly changing marketing jungle, with expert interviews from marketing pros.

    But don’t let the name fool you. This show is about a lot more than just social media marketing. With over 600 episodes and millions of downloads each year, this show has been a trusted source for marketers for well over a decade.

    CHECK OUT THE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING PODCAST NOW

    Additionally, your fans may not be seeing all of your Facebook updates. If you retarget your most important content to them via a Facebook ad, they're more likely to see it.

    #3: Email Subscribers

    You can actually strengthen the power of your newsletter by serving Facebook ads to existing email subscribers.

    To set up this custom audience, you need an Excel file with a column that includes all of your subscriber email addresses. Once you have that, go to Audiences in your Facebook Ads Manager, click Create Audience and choose Custom Audience.

    Click on Data File Custom Audience and follow the instructions for the setup. Make sure to indicate that you're updating email addresses.

    facebook fan targeting
    Create a custom audience based on your email subscriber list.

    Retargeting to email subscribers can increase the chance of conversion exponentially. It's worth the extra effort to set it all up.

    #4: Similar Audiences

    Many of your users—whether website visitors, Facebook fans or list subscribers—have overlapping demographics, interests and behaviors. Wouldn't it be great to find more people like them? Well, you can.

    You can create a custom audience targeting people who share similar characteristics to your existing connections—people who are very likely to be interested in your products, services and content.

    The custom audiences you create to retarget to by similarity are called lookalike audiences and they expose your ads to a more vast and relevant audience.

    To create a custom audience based on similarities to website visitors, go to the Audience section of your Ads Manager and choose the custom audience installed on your website (see #1). Click Create Lookalike Audience at the bottom of the page and choose the desired audience reach.

    To create a custom audience based similarities to your current Facebook fans' personal data (e.g., behavior, interests, etc.), go to the Audience section of your Ads Manager, click Create Audience and choose Lookalike Audience from the menu.

    create audience dropdown menu
    Create a lookalike target audience to find potential Facebook fans and customers.

    Click Source and type your page name. Select the country you want to target and how similar your audience should to be to your current fans. Click Create Audience.

    creating a lookalike audience
    Choose the characteristics of your fan page lookalike target audience.

    To create a custom audience based on similarity to your current email subscribers, go to your Audience menu, click on the name of the email list you loaded in #3 and click on Create Lookalike Audience at the bottom of the page.

    Once you have your custom lookalike audiences in place, you can select each as needed depending on the goal of your Facebook ads.

    Wrapping Up

    Retargeting via Facebook ads helps you stay top of mind while they're considering their decision.

    The trick is to retarget content to a precise audience rather than a generalized audience that may or may not be interested in learning more about your business, product or service.

    Take advantage of Facebook's extensive custom audience options to capture more conversions and meet your advertising goals.

    What do you think? Have you retargeted content using Facebook custom audiences? Did you see more conversions? Leave your comments and questions below.

    AI EXPLORED

    Curious About How to Use AI?

    Our newest show, AI Explored, might be just what you're looking for. It's for marketers, creators, and entrepreneurs who want to understand how to use AI in their business.

    It's hosted by Michael Stelzner and explores this exciting new frontier in easy-to-understand terms.

    Pull up your favorite podcast app and search for AI Explored. Or click the button below for more information.

    I WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT AI

    Tags: Facebook, Facebook Ads

    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 »

    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 (43 pages, 60+ 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 →

    AI

    Next Frontier 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 16th 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 385,000 marketers!

    Simply click the button below to get the free report:

    Footer

    Your Guide to the Marketing Jungle
    Copyright © 2025 Social Media Examiner®
    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 social media marketing industry report
    • Our generative AI marketing industry report
    • Sponsorship opportunities
    • RSS