Facebook Custom & Look-a-Like Audiences, put simply

They Say

“We need a more targeted approach to our paid social, using custom and look-a-like audiences” 

What on earth are they on about? Let’s get Straight To The Point…

They Mean

You have the ability in Facebook to load a file of customers or enquirers. Normally a simple Excel file containing email addresses and telephone numbers. When you upload the list to the Facebook ad platform, Facebook will try and match the list to Facebook user profiles.

For Custom Audiences : you are matching the records on your customer file and then Facebook tells you how many were matched and that becomes a Custom Audience, that you can use for running paid campaigns that target those people matched in the Custom Audience.

For Look-a-Like Audiences: you are able to load a list of customer records (as described for Custom Audiences) but this time you have the added ability to select Look-a-Like audiences. Based on the top 1% upto the top 10% of the total Facebook Audience for your target country. This uses Facebook’s behavioral and demographic data to find the audience most like your list. 1% match would be the closest but smallest available audience and the top 10% would be the largest audience “like your list” in the country that you are targeting.

Why Should You Care?

The Facebook ad platform is immensely powerful for demographic and interest targeting options BUT it’s always comes with “wasted audience reach.” For example, if you target “people who like supercars” you will will also reach people who like super expensive cars but can’t necessarily afford one. This is a classic problem for brands trying to reach higher LSM audiences. By using Look-a-Like audiences you can use the Facebook platform to find people “most like your known” Custom Audience.

This may first feel a “little loose” but the performance of such campaigns, is often better than by using broad Interest based targeting. It also means you can potentially spend less on media and reduce wastage.

Custom Audiences are even tighter in absolute matches to your list. This is powerful for you to create very customised messages to known customer segments. You can then be super specific in your messaging (provided that your data was accurate).

So, using Custom and Look-a-Like audiences can be a powerful way on being more targeted in your paid social campaigns.

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