Custom Audiences using Facebook’s Power Editor
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Custom Audiences using Facebook’s Power Editor

3rd December 2012

Earlier this year I was speaking on a Panel with Will Critchlow at A4U Expo London “you-are-the-weakest-link-goodbye“. It was chaired by James Ray of Forward 3D and one of the points Will raised was that if you had an email database you could actually import the list of emails into Facebook and then target the applicable Facebook accounts for those email addresses with ads.

I liked this idea and so as soon as I was back in the office I started a little research into how this could be done… However I found very little information. Of course there was details about how you can import a list of custom email addresses for you Facebook Page and send out a message, but in my experience this has not worked so well.

My Next Step, I called the UK team of Facebook Directly, apart from trying to sell me something they advised that targeting ads to custom email addresses couldn’t be done. They did advise this might be something available in the US but it wasn’t currently available in the UK.

You are the weekest Link Good Bye Invite Email Contacts

#FAIL

However it was! After some deeper research I found that there is a little tool not known by many called “Power Editor”. The Facebook Power Editor is a Google Chrome Extension which basically is the equivalent to the downloadable “Adwords Editor” for Google Search.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/facebook-power-editor/djicncbfodbeijpfpjjojkfhgbpjnlih

Overview of Facebook Power Editor Tool

This Facebook tool has generally been designed to mange larger campaigns with ability to copy into excel, it has more detailed stats and gives you the ability to edit multiple adverts quickly.

Facebook Power Editor

But back to my original observation can you create a “Custom Audiences”?

Potential Scenario

One of my clients does a lot of lead generation from email marketing. So I put together  a plan which is currently being tested. (I will post the results in a few weeks on to this article). Basically they will be launching a new product and would like to get exposure from the email addresses of potential customers.

My Plan was:

  1. Email the Database
  2. Target Email addresses with Facebook ads
  3. Create Re-Targeting (Re-marketing) Campaign using Google Adwords, so the prospects who visit the site but do not buy continue the offer and product  at the forefront of their minds.

Marketing Process

Creating a Custom Audience

So this article is really about showing you how to create a custom audience, I’d then love to hear your feedback on how this process has worked for you.

  • Install Power Editor
  • Click on the Button “Custom Audiences”.

custom audience button

  • Click Create Audience – You can import :
    • Email Addresses (Your email database)
    • UID (If you know the Facebook ID’s
    • Phone Numbers (If you have been carrying out an SMS campaign)

custom audience selection

  • Once you have created the audience “Power Editor” will detail the size of the Audience available which have Facebook Accounts.

custom audience selected

  •  Finally you can then target the audience using Power Editor, however if you go back into the traditional Facebook Advertising interface you will now see the additional targeting option of “custom Audience.”

custom audience infacebook

Conclusion

I’m trialing this out at the moment, I really think it’s a positive way to target your potential customers through a Multi channel approach. Again I would love some other people to trial this out and let me know there feedback,  or if you are one step ahead let me know what you thought the pro’s and con’s were.

My strategy of using a Multi Channel Approach only seems to be reinforced with Facebook themselves looking into re-targeting with the “Facebook Exchange” Project, interesting time ahead.

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Neil Walker started working as an SEO in 2002 and rose to become Group CTO for Swedish Marketing Agency “Online Group” in 2010 he moved to consulting with agencies, in-house teams and PR companies. In 2014 he formalised this work and founded Made Notable Ltd a boutique digital consultancy based...
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