Facebook Custom Audiences: A Secret Weapon for Facebook Marketers

|

One of the most useful advertising tools available on Facebook will probably turn out to be its still little-known Custom Audiences tool. Introduced in August 2012, it enables Facebook marketers to target their existing users based on Facebook ID, phone number or email address.

Facebook says that it has put its best efforts to prevent data “leaking” and to guard user’s privacy by chopping phone numbers and email addresses. It doesn’t store third party data or otherwise add that data to user profiles.

On the surface, the program will potentially scare privacy advocates. However, once you dig deeper, it’s not that scary and certainly, there are no more scary things than offline direct marketing.

Facebook Custom Audiences User Interface

Custom Audiences is a somewhat unique and interesting tool. It enables Facebook marketers to upload their contact databases and find those same users on Facebook. This allows them to arrange highly personalized and uniquely targeted campaigns. While Facebook isn’t the first to enable retargeting to a customer list, it’s usually very challenging to find people online. By contrast, Facebook says that it sees match rates of more than 50 percent and “sometimes as high as 95 percent.” This is could happen because Facebook has so many users and its area coverage is so broad.

Marketers can upload an unlimited number of lists (e.g., recent buyers, best customers, prospects) and develop creative ads for each or any of these customer or prospect segments. Custom Audience targeting can also be combined with Facebook targeting (i.e., demographic, location, interests) for extremely customized promotions and campaigns. This kind of campaign has been used by some advertisers and the results are good.

The most fascinating aspect of Facebook’s Custom Audiences feature is the way that it combines online and offline marketing simultaneously. Another appealing feature is its ability to increase the effectiveness of a campaign. Mobile users can be separately targeted as well.

Custom Audiences can be used at a basic level to help build more followers. However, it can also be used to drive regular customers or passive buyers into physical stores. It can also be used to retarget online buyers who’ve abandoned shopping carts on e-commerce sites. Its versatility and possibilities are extremely broad and very powerful, and are limited only by your imagination and creativity. For more information about Facebook for business, check out our main page at The Website Marketing Group or give us a call today on 1300 008 964.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *