Social Media Advertising: How To Win With Custom Audiences

Social media advertising without custom audiences means your targeting is too broad, too narrow, or just not accurate. Today, we’ll talk about why you should be using custom audiences on every major social media platform.

What are custom audiences?

Make a list of customers, website visitors, app users, and people who engage with you on social media. It’s possible to add this list to your social platform to advertise as effectively as possible.

How do you use custom audiences in social media advertising?

Most platforms have some form of custom audience, though some call it by a different name. Facebook and Instagram made the phrase “custom audiences” popular, and TikTok also uses the term.

Snapchat refers to them as Snap Audience Match (SAM) Audiences. Twitter calls them tailored audiences. LinkedIn calls them matched audiences, and Pinterest calls it audience-targeting.

Why should you use custom audiences?

Anyone who’s already opted in to your sales funnel is an ideal prospect. Send social ads to this list and you’ll likely get a lower cost per click and a better response rate.

An eMarketer study shows people spend about 4 hours a day looking at their devices. Flurry says people spend most of this time browsing social media. Why not reach your audience where they spend their time?

What kind of data do you need to create a custom audience?

You want to match people on your pre-existing list with their social media profiles. Mobile ad IDs are the best way to do this. Apple phones call them “IDFA,” and Android uses “AAID”.

Don’t have these IDs? Phone numbers, email addresses, companies, or job titles are also helpful. Not all of these are mandatory. Each social platform has minimum requirements. More data just means more matches and more successful campaigns.

What else do you need to consider when creating custom audiences?

Take privacy seriously. Make sure the people on your list have permitted you to use their info for marketing.

Checking this box isn’t very difficult. Website visitors must agree to your GDPR policy to keep viewing your site. People opt in when they give you their email address or phone number. App users agree to your terms when they installed your app. Terms usually include permission to advertise.

Also, choose the right audience size. Most social platforms require a minimum of 1000 people. While the typical ad campaign targets an audience of about 5000, you can choose an audience that is smaller or larger than this.

Clean, accurate data is also important. For instance, most data comes in CSV or TXT files. Follow the rules of separating your data items with the right delimiter (quotes, spaces, line breaks, etc.), and make sure first and last names are in separate columns.

Clean data means more matches, which gives you a more profitable audience.

Most social platforms allow you to build look-alike audiences. Once you upload your list, the platform will find other people with the same demographic info and interests. This increases your audience size, which is a big plus. Targeting these additional people may slightly decrease your conversion rate, but it will certainly increase your brand awareness, which is very valuable in itself.

What does each social media platform require? How does uploading your list work? And why is retargeting so good?

If you want the answers to these and more questions, check out the full blog on our website: https://firstdirectmarketing.com/custom-audiences/

If you want to know how we can help YOU make use of custom audiences, give us a call at 402-403-0004.