Advertisers have been able to create Facebook Custom Audiences using customer files, website activity and app activity for some time now. Maybe you’ve tried this a few times and had success.
But have you tried to target people who have engaged with your content on Facebook?
With a little setup, this new ad option allows you to be seen in front of those who are already familiar to your Facebook presence. Let’s see how you can tap into this opportunity for your business.
With engagement options with Facebook Custom Audiences, you can target those who have responded to your:
Video Engagement
You can create a Custom Audience of people who have spent time watching your videos on Facebook, choosing between people who have watched one or more of your Facebook videos for:
- At least 3 seconds
- At least 10 seconds
- At least 25% of your video
- At least 50% of your video
- At least 75% of your video
- At least 95% of your video
- At least 100% of your video
You can create these audiences for any duration from 1 to 365 days.
Lead Ad Engagement
You can create a Facebook Custom Audience of people who have opened a specific form in your lead ads. You can further refine your audience based on the action they took after they opened it, by choosing:
- Anyone who opened this form
- People who opened but didn’t submit form
- People who opened and submitted form
You can create these audiences for any duration from 1 to 90 days.
Canvas Engagement
You can create a Custom Audience of people who have opened one of your Canvas on Facebook, choosing between:
- People who opened this Canvas
- People who clicked any links in this Canvas
You can create these audiences for any duration from 1 to 365 days.
Page Engagement
Last, but certainly not least, you can create a Custom Audience of people who have interacted with your Page on Facebook or Messenger. You can target:
- Anyone who visited your Page – This includes anyone who visited your Page, regardless of the actions they took.
- People who engaged with any post or ad – This includes only the people who have engaged with a Page post or ad. Engagement includes reactions, shares, comments, link clicks or carousel swipes.
- People who clicked any call-to-action button – This includes only the people who clicked any available call-to-action button on your Page. For example, “Contact Us” or “Shop Now”.
- People who sent a message to your Page – This includes only the people who send a message to your Page.
- People who saved your Page or any post – This includes only the people who saved your Page or a post on your Page.
You can create these audiences for any duration from 1 to 365 days.
These targeting options include all possible engagements within the chosen duration. Unfortunately, you can’t target engagement on a specific post, ad, button or message.
Different Ways You Can Use These Audiences
You can use these audiences singularly or you can combine some of these audiences to increase the potential reach of your ads.
You can also manipulate the duration of these audiences based on how recently the engagement has occurred.
It’s reasonable to assume that those people who engaged with your Page recently would be more likely to respond favorably to your advertising than someone who engaged with your Page many months ago. Therefore, if your audience size is sufficient, you could choose to develop Custom Audiences containing those people who have engaged with your business on Facebook within the past day to keep the engagement going or by promoting content that will move them closer to the point of purchasing from your business.
You can either include or exclude any of these above audiences or audience combinations in the ads that you run on Instagram or Facebook. You can also combine them with other Custom Audiences as well. For example, you can target your most highly engaged audiences, but exclude an email list and/or website traffic audience that contains those who have already purchased the product you are promoting.
You can also further refine these audiences by layering in additional targeting options, such as location, age, gender, language, demographics, interests and behaviors. To ensure you are only targeting your most engaged “Page Fans,” you may also choose to layer in only those people who Like your Page within connections.
If the audience is too small to use, you may consider creating a Lookalike Audience of people who are like those who engaged with your Page on Facebook.
Potential Issues With Targeting Your Most Engaged Audiences
A common problem for many businesses, when choosing these “Engagement on Facebook” Custom Audiences, is that the audience is either too small to use or it can be quickly exhausted due to the relatively low number of people in these audiences when compared to some of the other targeting options.
Another issue with Engagement on Facebook Custom Audiences is that they are dynamic. That means that they will continually refreshed as more people engage and people will be removed from your audience after the set period unless they engage again.
That’s why continually building an engaged Facebook audience is so important.
So too is investing time (and budget) into developing and sharing highly engaging content to ensure your audience remains highly engaged over time so that you can continue to use these audiences for advertising targeting over time.
Do keep in mind that ads aren’t a one-way form of communication. People will respond to your ads — so be sure you have a social media management tool like Agorapulse to allow you to easily capture and respond to all the comments you’ll get on your ads.
Why You Should Use Engagement on Facebook Custom Audiences
People are more likely to do business with those people and businesses that they know, like and trust.
Your most engaged audiences on Facebook are likely to already be at the point of trust and are therefore a great audience to target when you are trying to get people to opt-in or purchase from your business.
So if you haven’t started using “Engagement on Facebook” Custom Audiences as a target audience for your Facebook or Instagram Ads as yet, you should!