Did you know that you can now retarget your Instagram community via Facebook Custom Audiences?
Earlier this year, Facebook started testing out Instagram retargeting, and they’ve now rolled out the new feature worldwide.
If you’ve not yet used Facebook Custom Audiences for Instagram, this post will walk you through all the different options for Instagram audience retargeting, and how you can use them to advantage.
What are Facebook Custom Audiences?
Facebook Custom Audiences are groups of people who:
- you already know
- have engaged with your Facebook or Instagram pages or ads
- have visited or engaged with your app or website
- or have interacted with your business or store through offline channels
Once you’ve established these lists, you can then target them with your Facebook and Instagram ads.
What is Retargeting?
Retargeting, is the process of targeting your online ads to reach people who’ve already visited your website, engaged with your social media posts and ads, or are already in your database as a lead or customer.
There are three simple ways you can retarget your Instagram audience by creating Custom Audiences:
1. Retarget People Who Watched Your Instagram Videos
After the latest Facebook Custom Audiences update, you can now create a list of people who have:
- viewed at least 3 seconds of your Instagram videos
- viewed at least 10 seconds of your Instagram videos
- watched 25% of your Instagram video
- watched 50% of your Instagram video
- watched 75% of your Instagram video
- watched 95% of your Instagram video
To create these Custom Audiences, simply log into your Business Manager or Facebook Ad Manager account. Find the audiences tab and click on “Create New Custom Audience”.
Afterwards, you want to click on the “Engagement” option at the bottom.
Next, the video retargeting option is the first one you will see.
Once you select it, you’ll need to pick your preferred watched/viewed time, targeting and the particular Instagram video(s) whose viewers you will want to retarget.
2. Retarget Instagram Users Who Engaged With Your Lead Generation Ads
Similar to Facebook lead form retargeting lists, you can now create and retarget Instagram users who:
- Opened your Instagram lead generation forms
- Opened and submitted an Instagram lead generation form
- Opened but did not submit your lead form on Instagram
The process is similar to how you create an Instagram video retargeing list – however, you need to remember, that if you want to retarget only Instagram leads, you need to select the lead forms that you’ve only used in Instagram ads.
3. Retarget Users Who Engaged With Your Instagram Profile, Posts Or Ads
The last retargeting opportunities you’ll find under the “Instagram business profile” section are:
Here are the types of Instagram retargeting lists you can create:
- Everyone who engaged with your Instagram page, posts and ads – Lets you create a list with all people who have engaged with your profile, posts or paid advertisement on Instagram
- People who visited your Instagram business profile – Lets you create a retargeting list with everyone who viewed your Instagram profile
- People who engaged with your posts or ads on Instagram – Creates a retargeting audience with all people who engaged with your posts or ads. Engagement includes likes, comments, saves, carousel swipes, tapping call-to-action buttons or sharing a post or ad using direct message
- People who sent you an Instagram message – Will create a retargeting list with people who sent a direct message to your Instagram business profile
- People who have saved any of your Instagram posts or ads – A very specific audience will be created, with only the people who decided to “save” any of your paid and organic posts on Instagram;
Next Steps
Now that you’ve created your Instagram retargeting audiences, you can access them in your Assets library under the “Audiences” tab.
Tip: If you want to also target people similar to those who engaged with your Instagram page, posts and ads, you can create Lookalike Audiences.
If you want to use your Instagram retargeting audiences in future ads, you can find and select them in the ‘Audiences’ section whenever you create a new ad set.
But that’s not all you can do with your Instagram custom audiences…
Get Insights On The People Who Engage With You Instagram Profile, Posts and Ads
If you’re frustrated or discouraged by the limited audience insights data that Instagram provides, then you should definitely keep reading.
Facebook’s Audience Insights is one of the most overlooked and often forgotten Facebook tools, and many forget that you can get a ton of demographic and behavior data by analyzing Custom Audiences.
Now that you’ve created an Instagram retargeting Custom Audience, you can use it to discover priceless information on who exactly the people who engage with your Instagram profile are. You can get insights into where they’re located, their income levels, their online behavior, interests and a lot more.
There’s a heap of potential here, from both a retargeting and analytical perspective. If you haven’t investigated yet, take a look at the new audience options and see what you find.