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How To Create A Custom Audience On Facebook…And The 7 Audiences Every Business Needs To Create In 2022

Do you want to start using Facebook Ads more efficiently?  Are you utilizing the available data to advertise to your ideal clients?

If so, Facebook Custom Audiences are for you!  So, what exactly is a “Custom Audience”?

Well, Facebook defines a Custom Audience as: 

An ad targeting option that lets you find your existing audiences among people who are on Facebook.

You can use sources like customer lists, website or app traffic, or engagement on Facebook, to create Custom Audiences of people who already know your business.

As of December 2021, you can create up to 500 of these audiences per account.

Once you create a custom audience, they can be used as the targets in Facebook Ads.  Think about how great it would be to remind your clients of a special deal that your company has going on without sending repetitive emails each time.  

These audiences will give your company a multi-pronged approach to your marketing plan.

In this article, we are going to cover seven audiences that every business will need when they use Facebook Ads in 2022.

Facebook Audience One – Your Clients

Obviously, the best set of people to advertise to in any business is your current clients.  They already know, like and trust you.  This makes any sale easier.
In fact, it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than keep an old one, so treat them like gold!

Step 1 – Create your list

To create this audience, your first step is to create a list of your current clients with their names, emails, and phone numbers (if available).  Save this list in a .csv file.  This list should contain at least 100 people.

You shouldn’t have to create this list by hand.  Most CRMs and mail automation programs have this exact step as an option.

Step 2 – Open The Facebook Audience Tool

Once you have your list created, go to business.facebook.com.  In the menu, go to “All Tools” and select the “Audiences” option.

Once you click on “Audiences”, it will open the “Audience” tool in a new tab on your browser.  This will display any audiences that you have created already.

Step 3 – Audience Creation Wizard

Click the “Create Audience” button on the left to get started.

Audience-Home-Page

In the drop-down, select the “Custom Audience” option.

Create-Audience-Dropdown

Once “Custom Audience” is selected, this will open a new dialog box.  This box will allow you to choose the source of the custom audience.  In this case, you’ll select “Customer List” and click “Next”.

Chose-Custom-Audience

The next screen is a helpful explanation from Facebook that tells you exactly what information they will look for in your list.

Prepare-Customer-List

Click “Next” when you are done reading it.

The next screen will ask if you are using a “Custom Value” column.  This is a more advanced technique that we will be covering in future blogs.  For now, we recommend selecting “No”, accepting the terms from Facebook and clicking “Next”.

No-Customer-Value

In the next step, you can either upload the .csv file that you created of your clients, or you can copy and paste it in for Facebook.

In the example below, we uploaded our .csv file.  The file had four rows: email, first name, last name, phone number.  

Once the list is uploaded, you’ll want to name the audience something descriptive.  In the image, we named this audience “Client List for Company X”.

Upload-Audience-and-Name

Side Note: There is a button “+ Description” that you can use as well.  This gives you an additional 100 characters to describe your audience if you’d like.  We would recommend using these descriptions once you start creating a lot of audiences and need more information to keep everything organized.

Click “Next” once you have completed both steps.

Facebook will review the data and attempt to identify the columns that you entered in the .csv file (or the pasted data).  If they can identify the column, they will show the information on the “Mapped” tab.  It normally can distinguish the email and phone number easily.  If it can’t tell what the data is, it will place the information on the “Action Needed” tab.  Then, you’ll need to go to that tab and ID the columns for Facebook.

Once the columns that you want the data from are mapped, click on the “Import and Create” button.

Map-identifiers

This creates the list and gives you confirmation, as seen below:

Client-List-Created

Click “Done” and it returns you to the main audience page.

You now have a custom audience of your clients to use when running Facebook Ads.

You can also watch our step-by-step video on how to create this audience.

Facebook Audience Two – Your Prospects

The second most valuable list that your company owns is your list of prospects.  This is the list of people that you have interacted with before but haven’t quite been able to convert them to clients.  They could also be clients that you lost, but think that you could win back.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get your helpful information in front of them in a casual way?  

Facebook Ads help you put social proof and videos that show off your knowledge depth right in the feed of your prospects!

To make an informed purchase choice, your potential customers often need to see and hear from you many times.  In fact, a 2011 study from Google found that a buyer needs 7 hours of interaction across 11 touch points in 4 locations.  Advertising to your prospects with engaging video ads is a great way to accomplish this.

To create this custom audience, you will follow the exact same steps that you took in the “Facebook Audience One – Your Clients” section with two exceptions – instead of creating a .csv file of your clients, you will create a .csv file of your prospects.  Again, remember that this list needs to have at least 100 people.

The other difference is that you’ll need to name this audience “Prospect List for Company X” (or something similar.

Again, depending upon your CRM and/or mail automation program, you should be able to easily export this information.

Facebook Audience Three – Your Clients “Lookalike”

You’ve now made an audience that contains your clients and an audience that contains your prospects.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could find other people to advertise to who are similar to your current consumers?

You can now with a “Lookalike Audience” from Facebook.

So, what is a Lookalike Audience?

Facebook defines it as:

A lookalike audience uses an existing Custom Audience you select for its source audience. To create a lookalike audience, our system leverages information such as demographics, interests and behaviors from your source audience to find new people who share similar qualities. When you use a lookalike audience, your ad is delivered to that audience of people who are similar to (or “look like”) your existing customers.

When you create your lookalike audience, you can use a percent range to choose how closely you want your new audience to match your source audience. The size you choose depends on your goals. Smaller percentages more closely match your source audience, but larger percentages create a bigger, broader audience.

Now, let’s create a lookalike audience for your clients.

Step 1 – Open The Facebook Audience Tool

Go to business.facebook.com for your company.  In the menu, go to “All Tools” and select the “Audiences” option.

Facebook-Audiences-Option

Once you click on “Audiences”, it will open the “Audience” tool in a new tab on your browser.  This will display the 2 audiences that you have created already.

Step 2 – Select the Lookalike Audience

Click the “Create Audience” button on the left to get started.

Audience-Home-Page

In the drop-down, select the “Lookalike Audience” option.

Lookalike-Audience-Selected

Step 3 – Create the Lookalike Audience

It will ask you to select your lookalike audience.  This is where you will choose the “Client List for Company X” that you just created.

Then, you will need to choose a location for the audience.  You will want to enter the country that you are targeting.

We recommend keeping the percentage at one, as you get a more honed-in audience that is similar to your clients.

Finally, click “Create Audience” to complete the process.

Lookalike-Audience-Create

Facebook Audience Four – Your Prospects “Lookalike”

Wouldn’t it be great if you could find other people to advertise to who are similar to your current prospects as well?

Again, you can do this using the “Lookalike Audience” functionality offered by Facebook.

To create this lookalike audience, you will follow the exact same steps that you took in the “Facebook Audience Three – Your Clients Lookalike” section, with one exception – instead of selecting the “Client List for Company X”, you will select the “Prospect List for Company X”.

Following this process will give you a set of people to advertise to that are similar in many ways to your prospects! Start by getting them to know, like and trust you with videos and other helpful information.

Facebook Audience Five – People That Have Engaged With Your Page

Engagement is a key factor when you look at any paid ad or organic post on Facebook.  “Engaging” actions can include a like, a reaction, a comment and more.  It’s basically the label for when someone takes an action with your post or ad.  

It stands to reason that if someone has taken the time to engage with your content, it would make sense to put more of your paid content (with calls to action) in front of them, right?  

This is where Audience Five, the people who have engaged with your page, comes in. 

Let’s create this audience!

Step 1 – Open The Facebook Audience Tool

Go to business.facebook.com for your company.  In the menu, go to “All Tools” and select the “Audiences” option.

Facebook-Audiences-Option

Once you click on “Audiences”, it will open the “Audience” tool in a new tab on your browser.  This will display the audiences that you have created already. 

Step 2 – Select the Custom Audience Type

Click the “Create Audience” button on the left to get started.

Audience-Home-Page

In the drop-down, select the “Custom Audience” option.

Create-Audience-Dropdown

Once “Custom Audience” is selected, this will open a new dialog box.  This box will allow you to choose the source of the custom audience.  In this case, you’ll select “Facebook Page” and click “Next”.

Step 3 – Select the Criteria

Make sure that your Facebook page is selected, as shown below.

Then, choose the option “Everyone who engaged with your Page” with a retention of 180 days.  Some companies will recommend a year, but 180 days is the maximum that we recommend. 

Add a descriptive name for this audience, like “People who have engaged with my page”.  Facebook also gives you a “Description” field if you want to expand on the title.  You may want to put the retention amount in here for reference.

Create-Audience-Engage

Once all your fields are filled out, click on the “Create Audience” button.

Facebook will create the audience, then give you a confirmation message.  Click “Done” and you’ll be returned to the main “Audience” page.

Facebook Audience Six – People That Have Been On Your Website Via The Facebook Pixel

Showing ads to people that have been on your website already is the core tenet of what marketers call “Remarketing”.  This is essential for a successful marketing plan.

In fact, studies show that only 3% of buyers are ready to act at any given time.  This is why remarketing is so important.  It allows you to put your business in front of potential buyers multiple times so you can progress the relationship by building trust.

One way to know who has visited your website is via the Facebook Pixel.  This is a tracking cookie provided by Facebook.  If you don’t have your Facebook Pixel installed, follow these instructions from Facebook to successfully set it up.

Now, there are a few exceptions to this rule.  

Due to a privacy debate between Apple and Facebook,  the people typically not tracked are on iOS devices.  They actually have to opt-in to being tracked via the app.  Less than 10% of these users have done so.

The other exception is that a person could have assorted browser privacy settings on, which would disallow tracking on their computer.  

Despite these exceptions, you can still have a decently sized audience based on the data from the Facebook Pixel.

Let’s create this audience!

Step 1 – Open The Facebook Audience Tool

Go to business.facebook.com for your company.  In the menu, go to “All Tools” and select the “Audiences” option.

Facebook-Audiences-Option

Once you click on “Audiences”, it will open the “Audience” tool in a new tab on your browser.  This will display the audiences that you have created already.

Step 2 – Select the Custom Audience Type

Click the “Create Audience” button on the left to get started.

Audience-Home-Page

In the drop-down, select the “Custom Audience” option.

Create-Audience-Dropdown

Once “Custom Audience” is selected, this will open a new dialog box.  This box will allow you to choose the source of the custom audience.  In this case, you’ll select “Website” and click “Next”.

Create-Pixel-audience-select-website

Step 3 – Select the Custom Audience Pixel Criteria

You’ll be given a selection of the Pixels that you have access to.  Choose the Pixel that is installed on your website.

Under “Events”, you have a few choices.  You can choose people that have been on any page of your website.  You can also specify exact pages or URLs that contain certain words.  Another option is selecting users by time spent.

In this example, we are just going to target anyone that has visited our website before.

Again, you can select the “Retention”, which is how far back in time you want the list to remember people.  We recommend anywhere between 30-180 days, depending upon what your business does.  With higher-priced items and services, a longer retention may help you convince the people that take a while to research.

Obviously, we can get more detailed in the targeting by adding more criteria with the “Include More People” button, but we will cover that in future articles.

Fill in your “Audience Name” and the “Description”, then click the “Create Audience” button.

Create-Pixel-Audience-Select-Criteria

Facebook will create the audience and give you a confirmation message.  Click “Done” to complete the process.

Facebook Audience Seven – People That Have Watched Specific Facebook Videos

This audience will help you pick up some of the people that you lost to the iOS security updates.  Because you can’t track them with the Pixel, you need to have a way to track them on Facebook.

“Video Watches” is the perfect stat for this!  Facebook tracks who watches every video that you advertise and for how long they watch.

Create a video, or set of videos, that ONLY your ideal client would watch.  Make it very specific to the problems/pain points that they have, then advertise it with a goal of “Video Views” to a broad audience in your service area.  We suggest running these ads at $5-$10 per day.  At the end of 2 weeks, you should have an excellent set of people to retarget.

Let’s create the last audience!

Step 1 – Open The Facebook Audience Tool

Go to business.facebook.com for your company.  In the menu, go to “All Tools” and select the “Audiences” option.

Facebook-Audiences-Option

Once you click on “Audiences”, it will open the “Audience” tool in a new tab on your browser.  This will display the audiences that you have created already. 

Step 2 – Select the Custom Audience Type

Click the “Create Audience” button on the left to get started.

Audience-Home-Page

In the drop-down, select the “Custom Audience” option.

Create-Audience-Dropdown

Once “Custom Audience” is selected, this will open a new dialog box.  This box will allow you to choose the source of the custom audience.  In this case, you’ll select “Video” and click “Next”.

Create-Pixel-audience-select-video

Step 3 – Select the Custom Audience Criteria

In this next step, you’ll need to choose what percentage or length of time people must spend watching your video.  25% tends to be a good metric to choose.  No one is going to watch over one-fourth of a video about something that they aren’t really interested in.  

So, in the dropdown, select the “People who have watched 25% of your video” option.  Again, we recommend the Retention between 30-180 days.  

Add the “Audience Name” and “Description” as well.

Create-Video-Watcher-Audience

The last step is to choose the video (or set of videos) that you used to target your ideal client.  Click the “Choose videos” link.

You can select videos from your Facebook page or your Facebook ads.  To see all of your videos, you will need to change the “Video Source” dropdown in the upper left.

Select the videos that you used to target your ideal client.  They should show in the right side-column once selected.

Choose-Videos

Once you have your videos chosen, click “Confirm”.

This takes you back to the “Create Video Engagement Custom Audience” screen, where you have filled out everything else.  Click the “Create Audience” button.

Facebook will create the audience, then give you a confirmation message.  Click “Done” and you’ll be returned to the main “Audience” page.

Go Get Started Creating Your New Facebook Audiences For 2022

You now have everything you need in this guide to create the best audiences for your business to advertise to in 2022!  Don’t settle for less than stellar Facebook Ads results.

Want some help?

If you have any questions about the information in this blog or need help getting started, contact IFTS today for a free consultation.  Call 412-715-6266 or send an email to si@iftsdesign.com.

Let’s Use Instagram to Market Your Business

Have you been looking at all of the social media platforms and wondering…

Why should I use Instagram to grow my local business?

If so, this article is for you!

Instagram is more than just another social media network; it can be an extremely effective marketing tool for small companies.


With over one billion users checking their feeds on a regular basis, Instagram is an excellent choice for anybody trying to increase their visibility and web presence.  Not only that, but most people spend almost an hour every day on this platform.

So, why Instagram?

Reason 1 – It’s Easier Than Ever To Run A Successful Ad Campaign For Your Business On Instagram

Most companies use advertising to promote their goods and services.  Instagram allows them to do it in a very targeted manner. To avoid “shooting blanks” with generic advertisements, you can target the exact right demographic as a local company owner.

Get your business in front of the individuals who are most likely to make a purchase by using Instagram to your advantage. To take advantage of Instagram’s fast sales funnel, create a business profile now.

Reason 2 – Instagram Allows You To Keep In Touch With Your Followers

It’s critical to establish a personal connection with your audience, and Instagram gives you the opportunity to do just that.

Telling a compelling tale is a terrific approach to connect with your audience in today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world. It’s time to get with the times and take advantage of the benefits Instagram has to offer in terms of connecting with your audience.

Give your clients and prospects a behind-the-scenes look at your company with short videos or images.  Let them put a face to your company’s name!

Reason 3 – Instagram Is A Great Way To Get To Know Your Consumers

Instagram gives you the ability to grow your audience naturally. As a result, you won’t have to spend money on advertising to expand your audience.

You may get to know and interact with your Instagram followers on a regular basis. Use the platform to spark conversations and ask your followers to participate. As a result of this, companies can keep tabs on mentions of their brand and learn more about what consumers are saying about their products and services.  

Get your clients’ opinions and find out what they really think of your brand!

Reason 4 – Instagram Can Help Increase Your Sales

Your ultimate marketing goal should be to expand your audience and increase your revenues at the same time. You’ll have a better chance of reaching your objectives if you’re present where your consumers are.

Think about it: With 500 million daily active users, you have a chance to connect with your potential consumers and motivate them to make a purchase on Instagram from you every day!

Reason 5 – Keep Tabs On Your Competitors Using Instagram

If your competitors use Instagram to market their business, you should too!

Keeping an eye on your competitors is easier if you’re on social media. Discovering the growth strategies of your rivals may teach you about industry best practices and aid in the development of your own unique marketing plan to attract new clients.

Make sure not to copy, but to learn from their lessons.

Do You Need Help Marketing Your Business On Instagram?

IFTS has helped a lot of companies boost their sales using Instagram and other social media platforms.  Let us help you too!  Call 412.715.6266 or email si@iftsdesign.com to get started!

An Unexpected Twist – Using Pinterest to Market Your Local Business

Have you thought about using Pinterest to market your local business?

Or, have you tried using Pinterest to no avail?

Local companies need to start using Pinterest to their advantage! It’s not just for DIY projects or party ideas anymore.

This social media powerhouse has the ability to make a marketing campaign a success because of its 440+ million active members.  Targeting moms?  80% of US moms are on Pinterest!

Find out how you can utilize Pinterest to boost your company’s bottom line and reach more clients by reading on…

First, Create A Profile In Pinterest That POPS!

Creating and optimizing a corporate Pinterest account is possible despite the fact that personal accounts on Pinterest are minimal.

Be sure to register your account on Pinterest as a business.

Fill in your data and personalize your account to make your business stand out. Before continuing, be sure to add and validate your website address.  This way, you also get a backlink for SEO purposes.

Create Your Pinterest Boards & Start Pinning

When it comes to Pinterest success, establishing and personalizing your boards is the first step towards success. Brainstorm your clients’ interests and create boards that would attract their searches.

Sharing and organizing your material on Pinterest is all about managing your pins and boards. You want to curate content that you think your customers and prospects would love. The sooner you have your boards up and running, the sooner you can start pinning your material regularly.

Make The Most Of Pinterest’s Aesthetic Appeal By Focusing On High-Quality Images

Visually showcasing your products/services and your brand is an important part of Pinterest marketing success.

You can get the most out of your Pinterest account if you provide high-quality Pins and updates that your followers will like. Impressing your audience is the best way to transform this social media platform into a valuable friend.

Don’t Forget That Pinterest Is A SOCIAL Platform

Genuine human connections are the cornerstone of establishing trust with your customers. Engage with your followers if you want people to engage with your Pins.

On Pinterest, you can quickly “socialize” by following other companies in your niche (or complementary niches) and like/re-pin content that is relevant to your industry. Engage with your audience on a regular basis by posting to discussion boards and participating in polls whenever feasible.

Get Ahead Of Your Competition Using Pinterest Marketing

Make sure your Pinterest marketing approach has a solid foundation if you want to outshine the competition.

What sort of content performs best on the platform may be learned via Pinterest Analytics. Look at the most popular Pins and make adjustments to them to see if you can get better results.  Try using jargon that your clients would expect of someone “in the know” about your niche.

Increase The Number Of People Who See Your Best Pins On Pinterest By Promoting Them

Joining Pinterest and using it to promote your company is a smart move! However, if you’re serious about increasing your company’s visibility, you should think about running a Pinterest marketing campaign.

It’s possible that Pinterest is a great fit for your business if you’re wanting to expand your reach and connect with new clients. 

Want To Get Started Using Pinterest To Market Your Business?

Contact IFTS now at 412-715-6266 to learn how to use Pinterest to build up your local company right away!