Social Media 3 mins read

Case Study on Facebook Similar Audience Targeting

 

WHAT IS FACEBOOK SIMILAR AUDIENCE TARGETING?

Simply, it’s a way to allow Facebook to find users who “look” like your existing customer base, without needing to manually select interest or demographic attributes. It’s also a great tactic used for prospecting campaigns, which is the strategy of marketing to “net new” users – those who either don’t know of you, and/or have not yet visited your website. Prospecting (especially through similar audience targeting) provides a quick way to scale your reach and create additional customers or clients. A point to note – the cost of prospecting is almost always higher than that of retargeting or remarketing, as it does involve educating the audience on your product or service initially, more so than straight “selling”. However, it is a crucial step in any conversion funnel and should not be overlooked! By closely managing costs in bottom-of-the-funnel channels or campaigns, the overall cost per acquisition will balance out.

HOW DO YOU CREATE A SIMILAR AUDIENCE IN FACEBOOK?

THERE ARE TWO SOURCES AVAILABLE FOR SIMILAR AUDIENCE CREATION – PIXEL DATA AND CUSTOMER DATA.

USING YOUR PIXEL.

First, make sure your pixel is placed properly on your website (or in a tag management system of your choice) and is actively reporting data. You’ll then need to go into your Audiences within the Business Manager Asset Library, and create a custom audience if you don’t already have one (custom audiences are segments you create based on certain time and action criteria – either website traffic, Facebook engagement, or encrypted customer data like email addresses). Once complete and ready, click into the custom audience and simply click “create lookalike” in the top-right Actions dropdown. With source already auto-selected, set the audience location (United States, for domestic accounts), and start with a 1% audience match – this will consist of the people MOST similar to your pixel’s data. Increasing the percentage closer to 10% will make the audience more broad and less relevant, but will increase the overall audience size.

USING CUSTOMER DATA.

This process here is almost entirely the same as above, but instead of using website activity as your source, it will be based on a customer file – either copied and pasted, or uploaded. Before using this method, you need to make sure the data (email address, city, state, name, etc.) is first-party, provided to you by the customers themselves. You CANNOT use data purchased or rented from another source.

DOES FACEBOOK SIMILAR AUDIENCE TARGETING WORK?

Short answer, yes!

Click here to view our case study for a healthcare start-up client.

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About the author

Alexa Parker launched Crimson Park Digital in 2018 with an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for digital marketing. With nearly ten years in the industry, she's been fortunate to learn from the best mentors, work on inspiring campaigns, and fine-tune her craft. Now, along with my team, she provides expertise to clients across the country and enjoys every day of it.