How To Create Facebook Video Viewer Custom Audiences

Want to know how to create Facebook video viewer custom audiences?

It really is a fantastic feature and a bit of a secret weapon for us elite Facebook advertisers.

It’s not that no one knows about this of course.

There are plenty of people singing it’s praises.

But very few Facebook advertisers are taking advantage of it.

Being able to advertise to people that have already watched your videos on Facebook is awesome.

It’s where “branding” meets direct response.

Nothing generates goodwill with prospects better than educational videos.

(If you’re not promoting videos on Facebook I would very strongly recommend you start asap)

But you can’t measure goodwill on a balance sheet.

By creating video viewer custom audiences, you’re able to retarget these people with direct offers…

And cash in (literally) on the goodwill that your videos have generated.

So how do you create Facebook video viewer custom audiences…

(NOTE: Want to know how to create and launch a full Facebook advertising sales funnel within 30 days that profitably generates leads and sales for your business? Then check out our 30-Day Facebook Advertising Launch Plan)

Facebook Video Viewer Custom Audiences 

The first thing you need to do is go into Ads Manager.

And then select Audiences:

Then click on Create Audience and select Custom Audience from the drop-down menu:

That will bring up this window:

Then select Engagement on Facebook at the bottom:

Now you obviously want to select Video at the top.

And you’ll see this:

Here you’ve got a few decisions to make.

The first one is how engaged you want this video viewer custom audience to be.

If you click into the first text-field, these options will appear:

The best option here depends on how many video views you’ve had and how many people you want in your custom audience.

The lower the percentage of video watched, the larger the audience will be and vice versa.

If you’ve just had a couple thousand views then you’ll need to select the 3 or 10 second options.

Whereas if you’ve had 100,000 plus then you can create a decent sized custom audience from 95% video viewers.

With a large number of video viewers it’s generally best to select a higher percentage.

People that have watched a higher percentage of your video are more engaged with your company and your content. And because of that, they’re far more likely to take the next step, whatever that is for your business.

If, for example, you want to retarget your video viewers with a campaign that promotes a lead magnet…

Your 95% video viewers are more likely to opt in for that lead magnet than 10 second video viewers – but of course there are less of them.

There is also nothing stopping you from testing a few different options and seeing which performs best. In fact, that’s something I would recommend.

As a general guideline, we usually use 25% video viewers for mass market businesses that are trying to generate a lot of opt ins or a lot of sales.

And we use 75% video viewers for service businesses with a high average customer value that only work with a limited number of clients.

However, this is something we test for every client.

For the purposes of this blog post, let’s go with 25% video viewers:

Now you need to choose which video or videos you want to use.

If you have multiple videos that are similar, then it might be easier to create one custom audience for all of them, as opposed to lots of smaller ones.

I’m going to select our video: Why You’re Wasting Your Time With Facebook

(Yes, the title is controversial and that really helps with engagement. This video has had 130,000 views and counting)

The next thing you need decide is how long you want to keep people in this audience for, after they have watched your video.

Once again you’re choosing between two options.

Do you want a larger audience? Or a more engaged audience?

The longer this time window is, the larger your audience will be. But it will also be less engaged.

A prospect that watched your video 6 months ago is not as excited about your products and services as someone who watched it 2 days ago.

The best option here also depends on what you selected previously.

For example – with a 95% video viewer custom audience, you can keep people in your custom audience for longer because they are more engaged.

The maximum length of time Facebook will allow is 365 days but I think that’s nearly always too long.

If you’re retargeting video viewers with a lead magnet campaign I would try 90 or 60 days.

With a free consultation retargeting campaign, you can afford to keep people in your custom audience a bit longer – 120 or 180 days.

I’m going to go with 90 days:

Then give your new Facebook video viewer custom audience a name:

Select Create Audience and you’ll see this:

As you can see it will take around 30 minutes or so for Facebook to prepare your video viewer custom audience.

In the meantime select Next:

Here Facebook is asking if you want to use the custom audience you have just created in a campaign or as a source audience to create a lookalike audience.

Just select Done for now (you can do both of these later on).

(NOTE: Want to know how to create and launch a full Facebook advertising sales funnel within 30 days that profitably generates leads and sales for your business? Then check out our 30-Day Facebook Advertising Launch Plan)

When your audience is ready, it will look something like this:

And now you can use it as a targeting option in your campaigns.

The next time you create an ad set (this screenshot is within Power Editor) you can select your Facebook video viewer custom audience here:

And that’s it.

Only takes a couple of minutes when you know how to create a video viewer custom audience.

They are incredibly effective and we rely on them all the time to achieve great results.

I’d love to know what you’re going to use Facebook video viewer custom audiences for. A lead magnet campaign?

Let me know in the comments section below.