What is a Facebook Custom Audience and how can they grow online stores?

**Definition:**A Facebook Custom Audience is a targeted advertising service that allows businesses to import user email addresses for retargeting on the social media platform. Custom Audiences are an effective way for online businesses to interact with relevant users across multiple channels.

Custom Audiences are essentially a matching system, pairing one mode of contact with that person's Facebook Profile. In most cases, businesses can expect 30 to 70 percent of their contacts to have matching profiles on the platform. Custom Audiences are one of the most highly-targeted forms of marketing, making them increasingly popular with ecommerce stores who want to keep their brand top-of-mind with interested consumers.

Benefits of using Facebook Custom Audiences

Relevance is important when selling to an audience

One of the greatest advantages of Facebook advertising is the vast array of targeting options available to companies, particularly ecommerce stores. These filters help brands increase the relevance of their ad messages by targeting audiences that are most likely to respond. The more relevant the advertising is, the greater the return on investment.

Custom Audiences allow companies to target contextual advertisements directly at consumers who have recently visited their websites, enticing people to purchase while the products are still fresh in their minds.

Not all website visitors buy on their first visit

Some visitors will abandon their shopping carts on your website. This is a common challenge for all ecommerce stores, but Custom Audiences allows your brand to reach them again in an environment where people are relaxed and enjoying themselves. This is a great opportunity to experiment with different ad messages and see which ones convert.

Sometimes, users will respond to a reminder about the features and benefits of your products. Other times they may be more interested in warranty information or a limited-time offer. By analyzing the ads that get the greatest response on Facebook, you may also discover improvements that will boost the conversion rate on your website.

Customized messages based on user interest

Using Custom Audiences, companies can micro-target people who visited specific pages on their websites. For instance, a garden supply retailer can track visitors who viewed a page about a new tomato planter and send them targeted messages on Facebook about that specific product, increasing the likelihood of a sales conversion.

Brands can also use Custom Audiences to block users from specific offers as well. If you have a record of website subscribers who have already purchased the advertised product, you can adjust the campaign parameters to avoid targeting those people.

Sales upgrades

Custom Audiences is not only great for acquiring new customers, it can also help companies earn repeat business from their current subscriber base.

When your brand maintains multiple lists of email subscribers, separated by their purchase histories, you can alert people to new upgrades or enhancements to products they've already bought. By reaching customers on two fronts - email marketing and Facebook Custom Audiences - brands can be sure of reaching a highly qualified audience that is more likely to make a purchase.

Businesses that use Facebook advertising are already familiar with the advanced targeting and analytics tools it offers. Custom Audiences takes their investment to a whole new level of efficiency by finding the people who already like the brand and delivering compelling offers to them. This exciting feature can help reduce shopping cart abandonment and tighten the lines of communication with people that matter most to your business, maximizing the impact of every advertising dollar you spend.