Facebook retargeting ads are very powerful because you can show different ads to users based on their actions. For example, you can re-target people who visited your checkout page but did not complete the process with discount codes.<\/p>\n
With Facebook retargeting, you can get more people to visit your local store, generate more leads from Facebook and increase sales of your eCommerce store.<\/p>\n
The main benefits of using Facebook for retargeting purposes are:<\/p>\n
- \n
- You can reach audiences who already know your brand.<\/li>\n
- You can personalize ads for each audience or even for each customer using dynamic ads.<\/li>\n
- You can retarget people who have already become customers with new product offerings.<\/li>\n
- It\u2019s a great way to reduce your customer acquisition costs (CAC) since retargeting ads cost less than any other type of paid ad.<\/li>\n
- It\u2019s a process that can be fully automated. Once you create and optimize your Facebook retargeting campaigns, you can leave them running without too much ongoing maintenance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Facebook ads can appear on all available places on Facebook and Instagram like the news feed, groups, stories, marketplace, and forums.<\/p>\n
How Does Facebook Retargeting Work?<\/h2>\n
Facebook retargeting works by giving Facebook details of the people you would like to retarget through Facebook or Instagram ads. This can be done in different ways, depending on the nature of your business.<\/p>\n
The most common ways are:<\/p>\n
By uploading your customer list on Facebook <\/strong>– This can be a list from your CRM, email software, or eCommerce platform. The list should include the name and email of customers (mandatory) and other optional information like their address or Facebook ID.<\/p>\n
Once the list is uploaded, Facebook will try and find which of your customers have Facebook accounts and show them your ads while on Facebook. The more information you can provide to Facebook, the greater will be the chances of finding a matching account.<\/p>\n
By creating custom audiences using the Facebook pixel <\/strong>– If you\u2019re goal is to retarget your website visitors then you need to install the Facebook pixel on your website. Facebook will try and match your website users with Facebook users using AI technology.<\/p>\n
The additional advantage of using the pixel is that you can create different audiences based on the actions users take on your website. Additionally, with the pixel properly configured you can track the performance of your retargeting ads.<\/p>\n
By sending data to Facebook through the Facebook SDK<\/strong> – If you want to retarget users based on their app activity then you can use the Facebook SDK to give Facebook details about the users you want to include in your retargeting campaigns.<\/p>\n
How to Create a Facebook Retargeting Campaign<\/h2>\n
These are the 5 steps to follow to start a retargeting campaign on Facebook from scratch.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Create a Facebook Business page<\/a><\/li>\n
- Add the Facebook pixel to your website<\/a><\/li>\n
- Create custom audiences<\/a><\/li>\n
- Setup conversion tracking<\/a><\/li>\n
- Create a Facebook remarketing campaign<\/a><\/li>\n
- Create remarketing ads<\/a><\/li>\n
- Monitor the performance of your remarketing ads<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
1. Create a Facebook Business page<\/h3>\n
The first step before starting a retargeting campaign on Facebook is to create a Facebook Business page<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n
Although this is not a requirement, it is highly recommended. The main reasons are:<\/p>\n
More professional: <\/strong>It\u2019s more professional to run the retargeting ads through your business profile and not your personal profile.<\/p>\n
Facebook displays the profile image of the person\/business running the ads and having your business logo on the ads is the recommended approach.<\/p>\n
Brand awareness:<\/strong> It\u2019s another opportunity to remind users that will see your ads of who you are.<\/p>\n
Establish your Facebook presence: <\/strong>Any business whether running paid ads or not should have a presence on Facebook and the best way to do that is by creating a business page.<\/p>\n
So, if you don\u2019t already have a Facebook page, go ahead and create one. The process is easy, it only takes a few minutes and it\u2019s free.<\/p>\n
2. Add the Facebook pixel to your website<\/h3>\n
The next step to getting started with retargeting is to add the Facebook pixel on your website<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n
The Facebook pixel is a piece of javascript code that allows Facebook to associate your website visits with Facebook accounts and track their actions.<\/p>\n
Even if you plan to do retargeting by uploading your existing customer lists on Facebook, you still need to have the pixel code installed to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns.<\/p>\n
3. Configure pixel events (conversion tracking)<\/h3>\n
After adding the pixel code to your site the next step is to configure events. Events are actions performed by users that you want Facebook to know about.<\/p>\n
For example, adding a product to the shopping cart, clicking a button, signing up for your newsletter, or making a purchase from your store.<\/p>\n
By default, when you add the Facebook pixel to your website, Facebook will be able to track which pages a user visited (PageView). To add other events, you need to configure them in Facebook Events Manager.<\/p>\n
Login to your Facebook Business Manager or Ads Manager and click \u201cEvents Manager\u201d from the top left menu.<\/p>\n
Facebook will show you which events are currently being tracked. To add new events, click the \u201cAdd Events\u201d button and select one of the available options.<\/p>\n
![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/facebook-events-manager-scaled.webp\")
Facebook Events Manager<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n What kind of events do you need to configure?<\/strong><\/p>\n
This depends on your Facebook remarketing strategy and what you consider as a conversion.<\/p>\n
For example, if you have an eCommerce store then you need to create an event for the \u201cAdd to Cart\u201d and \u201cPurchase\u201d.<\/p>\n
If your goal is to get leads through a contact form, then you need to configure an event to fire when the user submits the form.<\/p>\n
For more information on how to set up Facebook pixel events, go through the following resources:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Facebook Partner Integration<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n
- Facebook Event Setup Guide<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
It\u2019s important not to skip this step. Event tracking is essential for campaign monitoring and optimization. Facebook AI algorithms use data from events to optimize the performance of a campaign and get more conversions at a lower cost.<\/p>\n
4. Create custom audiences<\/h3>\n
The next step is to create custom audiences. In simple terms, custom audiences are groups of people you want to target with your ads. As explained before, you can create an audience using your contacts, website traffic, or mobile app.<\/p>\n
Follow these steps to define your retargeting audiences:<\/p>\n
Login to your Facebook Business Manager or Ads Manager and select \u201cAudience\u201d from the top left menu.<\/p>\n
Click the \u201cCreate Audience\u201d button and select \u201cCustom Audience\u201d.<\/p>\n
Facebook will prompt you with options to choose your custom audience source.<\/p>\n
![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/custom-audience-source.webp\")
Facebook Custom Audience Source<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n For the purpose of this tutorial, we\u2019ll use the \u201cWebsite\u201d as the audience source. Depending on your business type, you can create an audience based on a different source.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important to note that you can use multiple custom audiences on a single retargeting campaign. For example, you can combine both customer lists and website visits in one campaign.<\/p>\n
So, for now, select \u201cWebsite\u201d and click \u201cNext\u201d.<\/p>\n
In the next screen, you can define the rules for your custom audience.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s examine what each rule does and when to use it.<\/p>\n
![\"Create](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/create-website-custom-audience.webp\")
Create Website Custom Audience<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Source: <\/strong>Select a Facebook pixel to use for this audience.<\/p>\n
Events: <\/strong>In this part, you can select people to include in your audience.<\/p>\n
When you click the \u201cEVENTS\u201d dropdown, you have four options:<\/p>\n
- \n
- All website visitors<\/li>\n
- People who visited specific web pages<\/li>\n
- Visitors by time spent<\/li>\n
- From your events<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
All website visitors<\/strong><\/h4>\n
This rule includes everyone who visits the website your pixel is installed on. It can be modified by the number of days (retention) you want FB to go back to add visitors (up to 180 days).<\/p>\n
People who visited specific web pages\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n
This rule includes people who visit specific pages on your website.<\/p>\n
The available URL conditions are:<\/p>\n
![\"Custom](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/custom-audience-conditions.webp\")
Custom Audience Conditions<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Contains <\/strong>\u2013 Here\u2019s an example of how you could use this: If you sell clothes on your website and want to create an audience of people who\u2019ve looked at summer clothes, you could have it be made up of people who visited URLs that contain \u201csummer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doesn\u2019t contain<\/strong> \u2013 Here\u2019s an example of how you could use this: If you sell tables, chairs, and drawers on your website and want to target people who\u2019ve visited your tables and chairs pages, you could create an audience made up of people who visited URLs on your website that don\u2019t contain \u201cdrawers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Equals <\/strong>\u2013 Here\u2019s an example of how you could use this: If you want to target ads to people who have visited a specific web page (maybe one that indicates strong intent to purchase like the confirmation page for signing up for product update emails), you could create an audience of people who\u2019ve visited that specific URL.<\/p>\n
When you select the People who visited specific web pages option, you can further refine any of these URL rules sections by clicking Further refine by and adding:<\/p>\n
- \n
- A Frequency rule lets you specify the number of times that someone should visit your website for inclusion\/exclusion.<\/li>\n
- A Device rule lets you specify what type of device someone has to visit your website for inclusion\/exclusion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Visitors by time spent<\/h4>\n
You can create an audience of your top 5%, 10%, or 25% visitors in terms of time spent on your website. The higher the value the more likely these people will engage with one of your retargeting ads.<\/p>\n
You can use this rule in combination with specific web pages and retention periods.<\/p>\n
![\"Visitors](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/visitors-by-time-spent.webp\")
Visitors by time spent Audience.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n For example, you can create an audience of people in the 25% percentile who visited your sales page in the last 30 days.<\/p>\n
From your events<\/h4>\n
You can use an event as the source of your custom audience.<\/p>\n
As a reminder, events (configured in Step 3) are specific actions on your website that Facebook pixel can track such as viewing a particular page (PageView), adding an item to the shopping cart (AddToCart), or completing a purchase (Purchase).<\/p>\n
What custom audiences to create?<\/strong><\/p>\n
The type of audiences to create depends on your Facebook retargeting strategy.<\/p>\n
In this tutorial, our goal is to show ads to people that visited our website in the past 90 days but did not make a purchase.<\/p>\n
So, to make this happen we need to create two audiences:<\/p>\n
1. The \u201cAll Website Visits – 90 Days\u201d – this audience will include people that visited any page on our website for the last 90 days. This is how the rules for this audience look:<\/p>\n
![\"All](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/all-website-visits-audience.webp\")
All Website Visits Audience<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n 2. The \u201cAll Buyers (Event) – 90 Days\u201d – this audience will include all people that purchased a product from our website for the last 90 days. This is how the rules for this audience look:<\/p>\n
![\"All](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/all-buyers-audience.webp\")
All Buyers Audience<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n 5. Create a Facebook remarketing campaign<\/h3>\n
After creating your custom audiences, the next step is to set up your remarketing campaigns on Facebook.<\/p>\n
Follow these steps:<\/p>\n
Go to Facebook Ads Manager.<\/p>\n
Click the \u201c+ Create\u201d button to create a new campaign.<\/p>\n
![\"FB](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/campaign-objective-option.webp\")
Facebook Campaign Objective<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Select \u201cConversions\u201d as the campaign objective and click \u201cContinue\u201d.<\/p>\n
Click on the \u201cCampaign\u201d option to provide a name for your campaign and set your daily budget.<\/p>\n
Click on the \u201cAdset\u201d option and configure the following settings:<\/p>\n
Conversion Event: <\/strong>Make sure that this is set to \u201cPurchase\u201d or any other event that has a monetary value.<\/p>\n
Audience: <\/strong>This is the part to define who you want to see your ads. We\u2019ll use the audiences created in Step 4.<\/p>\n
Click the \u201cSearch existing audiences\u201d box and select the \u201cAll Website Visits – 90 Days\u201d audience.<\/p>\n
Click the \u201cExclude\u201d button and select the \u201cAll Buyers (Event) – 90 Days\u201d audience.<\/p>\n
Your screen should look similar to this:<\/p>\n
![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/retargeting-audience-adset.webp\")
Facebook Retargeting Audience Setup<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The reason we are excluding the \u201cAll Buyers – 90 Days\u201d audience is to show our retargeting ads to people that have not yet completed a purchase. There is no reason to retarget people that already converted.<\/p>\n
Locations:<\/strong> Only set a specific location if you\u2019re targeting people living in a specific country or region. If you\u2019re operating globally, do not set a location.<\/p>\n
Leave the rest of the options in their default values and proceed to the next step to create your ads.<\/p>\n
6. Create remarketing ads<\/h3>\n
The final step before starting your Facebook retargeting campaigns is to create your ads.<\/p>\n
Ad creation is an important step because if your ads are not interesting enough, you won\u2019t get enough clicks and this minimizes your chances of running profitable Facebook campaigns.<\/p>\n
Facebook Remarketing Ads Tips<\/h4>\n
While I cannot tell you exactly what to show in your ads (this depends on the type of products or services you want to promote), I will give you some tips to make your ads more effective.<\/p>\n
Provide multiple options for primary text: <\/strong>The primary text is shown on the top of your ad. Add a couple of lines and use the preview option to make sure that the important text is shown on the ad without breaks.<\/p>\n
Use the \u201cAdd Options\u201d button to provide up to 5 different primary texts for the same ad. Facebook will perform tests and choose the best-performing option.<\/p>\n
Keep your headlines short: <\/strong>Use headlines to highlight the benefits of your offering. Use the \u201cAdd Options\u201d button to provide for a couple of different headlines.<\/p>\n
Provide an ad description:<\/strong> This is optional but recommended. The description is shown below the headline. Add no more than a line of text.<\/p>\n
This is how the different ad elements appear on Facebook Ads.<\/p>\n
![\"Example](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/facebook-retargeting-ad.webp\")
Example of a Facebook Retargeting Ad<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Remind users about the benefits of your product or service:<\/strong> When creating the visuals for your ads concentrate more on your product\u2019s advantages and benefits from the purchase like \u2018XX Money Back Guarantee,\u2019 \u2018Free Updates,\u2019 \u2018Lifetime Access, \u2018 Personal Support,\u2019 etc.<\/p>\n
Create at least 3 ads per ad set:<\/strong>\u00a0 For each adset try to have AT LEAST three active ads at any given time. This will help Facebook optimize the campaigns around the ads that perform better, and users will not see the same ads in their Feed.<\/p>\n
Have at least one image ad per ad set: <\/strong>While Video ads (or ads with movement) tend to perform better, it\u2019s recommended to have an image ad active all the time. This will \u2018help\u2019 the Facebook algorithm show your ads in cases video ads are not shown (for example, to users on a slow internet connection).<\/p>\n
Use 10-second video ads: <\/strong>We found out that 10-second video ads are more efficient than longer videos. You can use Facebook\u2019s Video creation tool (you can find this in the AD CREATIVE section when editing Ads) to easily create ads with movement using one of their ready-made templates.<\/p>\n
Preview your ads using the Preview tool:<\/strong> Before publishing an ad, make sure that you check how it will look on all placements using the Preview Tool. This is important if you have more than one placement enabled. Different placements show images\/videos and text differently, and you should check and fix any issues,<\/p>\n
- Facebook Event Setup Guide<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Add the Facebook pixel to your website<\/a><\/li>\n
- Create a Facebook Business page<\/a><\/li>\n
![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/reporting-columns.png\")