How do I use different Facebook audience types?

Introduction 

Facebook Ad Audiences offers three different audience types, each serving a specific purpose in your advertising strategy. 

Step 1: Understand the audience types 

1. Targeting: Displays your ad directly to Facebook users who match your contact search 

1. Best for: Re-engaging existing supporters or communicating with specific segments 

2. Example use: Targeting lapsed donors with renewal campaigns 

2. Lookalike: Uses your contacts as a model to find similar Facebook users 

1. Best for: Acquisition campaigns and expanding your reach 

2. Example use: Finding new potential donors who share characteristics with your best supporters 

3. Suppression: Excludes users in your search from seeing your ad 

1. Best for: Preventing ad fatigue or inappropriate messaging 

2. Example use: Excluding current donors from acquisition campaigns 

Step 2: Create a Targeting audience 

1. Follow the standard audience creation process 

2. Select "Targeting" as your audience type 

3. Use a saved search that contains contacts you want to reach directly 

4. Best practice: Use exclusions to remove segments that shouldn't see this particular message 

Step 3: Create a Lookalike audience 

1. Follow the standard audience creation process 

2. Select "Lookalike" as your audience type 

3. Use a saved search of your most valuable supporters as the base 

4. For best results, include at least several hundred contacts in your base audience 

Step 4: Create a Suppression audience 

1. Follow the standard audience creation process 

2. Select "Suppression" as your audience type 

3. Use a saved search containing contacts you want to exclude 

4. Apply this audience when creating your ad campaign in Facebook 

What else do you need help with?  Understanding Facebook Ad Audiences  How do I create a Facebook ad audience? 

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