3 Easy Steps To Remarketing On Facebook

There are over 1.86 billion monthly active Facebook users and more than half of Americans use Facebook regularly. This means that even if Facebook doesn’t seem like an appropriate advertising platform for your business (a manufacturing plant, for example), your customers are most likely somewhere on Facebook. 

One way to reach that audience is through remarketing. Facebook offers a pixel (tag or snippet of code) that you can add to your website to start tracking all visitors that arrive on your site. After that runs for a while, you’ll have a solid collection of people who have already shown interest in your brand. Facebook is able to cross-reference those website visitors with people who have profiles on Facebook. You’re able to slice and dice this audience and run advertising campaigns targeted directly at those people.

Step 1: Set Up Your Facebook Pixel and Add the Code to Your Site

To get started, go into Ads Manager and choose Pixels from the menu. Facebook walks you through the process of setting it up.

Once your pixel is generated, Facebook gives you the code and offers specific instructions on where to cut and paste this into your website code. If you’re using Google Tag Manager, there are some simple instructions on how to set that up. Otherwise, it just involves putting a snippet of code just above the </head> tag in the header of your site. 

Verify your pixel is working properly by going back into Ads Manager and navigating to the Pixels section. It should say “Active” and you will see the visitor count start to rise over time.

Step 2: Set Up Your Custom Audience

Next, you can set up a custom audience based on your remarketing list. From the same page above, you’ll see a button to “Create Audience.” From there you can define an audience for all site visitors or people who have visited specific sections or pages of your site, and you can try other combinations as well.

Step 3: Set Up Your Ad Campaign Targeting Your Custom Audience

When you’re ready to start targeting the people in your new custom audience, set up a new campaign in Ads Manager and choose your custom audience from the menu. Remember that you are advertising to people who have already showed interest in your brand and website, so tailor your message appropriately.

Facebook makes remarketing so easy that I recommend adding the pixel to your site even if you don’t have immediate plans to advertise there. It’s always good to have that audience waiting for you when you’re ready!