The beauty of Facebook from a marketing standpoint is that no matter what type of business you operate, there’s an audience on there for you. What’s more, Facebook offers a wide variety of ad targeting options, which allows you to precisely define your ideal audience so you can more effectively reach them. One such option is Custom Audiences.
If you’re not yet familiar, Facebook’s Custom Audience feature enables you to compile lists of users who have interacted with your brand in some way, such as existing customers, web visitors, blog readers, etc. All you have to do is provide a list of emails, phone numbers or user IDs and Facebook will automatically generate a custom audience for you. You can then reach and engage with these audiences through targeted Facebook ads.
Here are a handful of ways you can leverage this awesome feature for your business.
Target those who aren’t opening your emails.
It doesn’t matter how great your email newsletters are. They won’t do anything for you if your recipients aren’t bothering to open them. With the Custom Audience feature, you can upload a list of all of your subscribers who aren’t opening your emails and then target them on Facebook using a customized ad campaign. This way you can reach them where they are and deliver your message more effectively.
Engage with your LinkedIn connections.
Now you can take the connections you’ve made on LinkedIn and target them using Facebook Ads. Simply download a list of your contacts, along with their email addresses, and then use that list to create a custom audience for Facebook. This is an effective way to drive more of your LinkedIn connections to your website and persuade them to try your products or services, make a purchase or even just subscribe to your blog.
Convert trials into sales.
If you offer free trials of your products or services, the Custom Audience feature will allow you to target those users with a specific ad campaign designed to nurture and convert them into paying customers. For instance, you could create ads offering a special discount or other incentive for new customers or subscribers. Since the list you’ll be targeting is full of people who have already experienced what you have to offer, the chances of them taking advantage of your special discount is much higher.
Target based on traffic source.
You can create custom audiences based on which page on your website people visited. This is great if you have multiple landing pages that you’re testing or ones that are designed for different segments of your audience. By creating a list for each landing page, you can then piggyback on your efforts by developing Facebook ad campaigns that match each of those landing pages, further nurturing your leads.
Retarget lost sales.
Retargeting is the practice of showing targeted ads to individuals who have visited your site but didn’t complete a purchase. This is highly effective because the audience you’re targeting has already shown an interest in what you have to offer and is therefore more likely to buy when presented with another opportunity. Facebook allows you to install a remarketing code on your site which tracks pages viewed and automatically triggers related ads to appear when that person visits Facebook.
You can compound on this by creating custom audiences made up of people who haven’t visited your site in a while, people who have read your blog, customers who have bought from you but may be likely to come back for repeat business, prospects who have abandoned their shopping carts and individuals who have completed specific actions on your site.
Facebook presents tremendous opportunity for businesses of every size and industry to reach, engage and nurture prospective customers. By utilizing custom audiences, you can further improve your ability to connect and convert the right people at the right time to boost your bottom line.