Have you heard people talking about custom audiences on Facebook, and wondered what the heck it's all about?

Or have you got as far as trying to create one…..but found your list or website traffic is too small to do it?

In this article, I want to explain what a custom audience is, and show you a neat Facebook feature you can easily use to build one – even if you're just getting started or have a tiny email list!

What is a Custom Audience?

Here's how Facebook describes it:

“A Custom Audience from a customer list is a type of audience you can create made up of your existing customers. You can target ads to the audience you've created on Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network.”

The most common ways of creating a custom audience are:

1. From your email list: You upload your email list into your Ads Manager account. Facebook then matches the people on your list to the people on Facebook. You can target ads to these people.
2. From visitors to your website: this matches people who visit your website with people who are on               Facebook. To create this audience, you need to have the Facebook pixel installed on your website. You can then target your Facebook ads to any group of visitors to your site.

The problem with these options, is that you may not have sufficient visitors to your site, or emails in your list, to create a custom audience. So then what?

Custom Engagement Audiences

Facebook recently rolled out a new feature that allows you to create custom audiences from people that engage with your content on Facebook.

You can now create an audience from the people who have viewed every video you post on your Facebook business page!

What makes this exciting, is that Facebook loves video. It pushes it onto more newsfeeds than any other type of content. And, if you promote your video posts, you can quickly reach even more people for very little cost. For example, I recently promoted a Facebook Live, with each video view costing only £0.004. (Yes, you read that right!) 

So you can very quickly reach a huge audience with your videos. And then create an audience from the people who watched it! Use that audience in your Facebook ads targeting, and you can pop an ad right into the newsfeed or mobile of anyone who watched your videos.

If you're not sure how to go about creating a Facebook ad, download my handy checklist to guide you through the essential steps.

So how do I set this all up?

In the video below, I walk you through all the steps to create a custom engagement audience. Just watch and follow along, and you'll be good to go.