For many small businesses, Facebook ads are a necessary evil. Even if you post quality content and provide quality interactions for your customer base, there’s still a good shot your page won’t grow without getting it in front of new eyeballs.
Thankfully, Facebook is making it easier to custom target which people see your ads. In particular, you can target ads directly to your own customer base or people who have provided an email or phone number over the years.
It’s a simple process that takes six steps.
- First, you need to download your data list. For instance, I went into a client’s Constant Contact list and downloaded 1,476 email registrations. All you need is the email addresses. No column headers, no names, etc.
- From there, Go to Ads Manager on Facebook and click the “Audiences” tab.
- Once in Audiences, click on “Create a Custom Audience.”
- That will generate a pop-up asking what type of data you have. In my particular example, I’m working with a data file. So I clicked that.
- Now I need to upload the file. I named it and told Facebook I’m uploading an email list. I selected the correct file and hit “Create Audience.”
- Facebook does the rest from there. In a few seconds (or minutes, depending on your list size), you’ll have a new audience. You’ll notice our list of 1,476 email addresses resulted in 900 Facebook accounts.
Now that you have a custom audience, you can create an ad and pick that audience to see your ads. Obviously, you have a greater shot of success with a larger email list.
