I’ve already mentioned a few salient points about custom audiences on Facebook. They are people who have already interacted with you; maybe they subscribed to your newsletter or they have already bought a product from you. At any rate, they are not an unknown, faceless mass of people who may or may not respond to your ads – they know your business, have a good opinion of it and are more likely than many other Facebook users to click on your ads.
Having these custom audiences defined, you should know how to market to them in an intelligent and non-aggressive manner if you want to get the highest possible CLV (client lifetime value) from each of your online followers. The potential for friction exists, especially if you display an ad on the news feed of someone who has just made a purchase. This is why it is important to target your custom audiences according to clear behaviour metrics.
These are just a few ideas about smart ways of targeting your custom audiences and creating a good advertising mix to cover each type of audience effectively:
1. Cross-Sell or Up-Sell to Your Existing Customers
If you have a custom audience of people who recently bought from you, target them with a specific product from your catalogue which is related to what they bought or a premium product from the same range. Product bundles are also a good idea for up-selling through Facebook ads.
For instance, if you sell gaming consoles and video games, if some clients bought the console, you can target them with a Facebook ad for a bundle of video games. Or, if they bought a game, send them an ad for the console itself.
2. Unopened Emails? Send the Message in an Ad
Some people subscribe for newsletters, but after a short time stop opening them. Your email client will give you a clear report and you can extract their email addresses and create a custom audience group for them on Facebook. Then you can create ads which contain the message in the unopened newsletters, for each promotion, new product announcement and so on.
In this way, you manage two things at the same time: you recycle existing content, giving it greater value, and you increase the reach of your messages throughout your audience. And all this will cost you just a little time to adapt the email message to a Facebook ad.
3. Expand Your Reach Through Lookalike Audiences
I’ve talked about this one before, but I will do it again because this is one of the most effective ways to use your custom audiences and the analytics data you get from them. You can use these analytics and ask Facebook to identify other people, who are not your followers or contacts, and create a new group of potential clients.
Why do I go on like this about lookalike audiences? Because you are not targeting people “in the dark”, you have a high likelihood that they want and need your products and are willing to give them a try. They are already using similar products, they have a buying behaviour similar to your custom audience so they are, so to speak, pre-qualified as potential customers.
4. Remarket to Mobile Users on the Computer
Now, most people browse Facebook from their mobile and you have already persuaded a group of followers to install your mobile app. However, in the evening or during the weekend, people also spend time at their computer. You can identify the group of mobile app users and target them with a Facebook ad for a promotion that is not available through the mobile app. Or you can direct them to a landing page with lots of useful and interesting content, and include the promotion on that page. You just have to figure out how to create value and offer content adapted to a larger monitor, not the smartphone screen.
5. Convince Trial Users to Become Customers
Define a custom audience of people who downloaded or subscribed for a trial version of your products and services and did not follow through with a purchase after it expired. Use this custom group to send them targeted ads to become clients. Add up the numbers and see what type of discount you want to offer them through the Facebook ad. The reason why they did not purchase your product may be that they are waiting for a discount or a sales period before they buy.