Facebook Extending Custom Audiences To All Advertisers, All Ad Interfaces

The social network said in a post on the Facebook for Business page that a limited number of U.S.-based advertisers will have the capability of using custom audiences from all ad interfaces Wednesday, and the feature’s global rollout will begin next week and wrap up by the end of November.

The post also offered the following overview of custom audiences:

With custom audiences, marketers can use their own contact lists to reach customers with targeted ads on Facebook. Thousands of advertisers, including more than one-half of the Ad Age 100, already use custom audiences targeting in their campaigns.

Getting started with custom audiences is simple — just upload customer email lists or a MailChimp list. Once contacts have been uploaded, you can target matched users with ads for your site, Facebook page, or mobile app.

Custom audiences is data-protective and specifically designed so that Facebook doesn’t share the private information people put on Facebook without their consent. People will continue to have the same control over the ads they see on Facebook. For more information, see here.

With custom audiences and objective-based ad buying, businesses can:

• Message existing customers with promotions or offers on Facebook. For example, a local auto dealer can reach people who bought a car one year ago with an ad for a free oil change.
• Find new customers in a specific area by excluding existing customers from campaigns. A clothing boutique might try to reach new customers in its area by excluding people who have already signed up for its mailing list.

Readers: Have you ever used custom audiences, and will this new feature prompt those of you who haven’t to try it out?

Bullseye image courtesy of Shutterstock.