The Little-Known Hack That Will Transform How You Create Facebook Custom Audiences

Do you want to generate more customers with your Facebook ads and posts?

Duh. Stupid question. Who doesn’t want more customers?

But there’s a problem.

Facebook advertising is getting harder. There’s no doubt about it. Ads cost more, attention spans are falling and competition is stiffer than ever.

Sometimes it feels like Facebook’s algorithm was created to be your worst nightmare, hell-bent on pushing your content to the bottom of everyone’s feed!

So what’s the solution?

I’ve been using a little-known strategy to gain thousands of customers. It’s allowed me to inexpensively generate and convert eager new leads for a B2B startup.

And you can use it too. It’s a super-easy way to boost engagement, clicks and sales by leveraging the power of LinkedIn to build a powerful custom audience.

You can use this tactic in three ways:

1. Generate new hyper-engaged leads.
2. Build interest with specific accounts by targeting C-Suite execs.
3. Find new employees with recruitment ads.

The process has three parts:

1. Use your own Linkedin profile (or create a fake account) and start connecting people with the relevant industry experience, job title, interests etc.
2. Download your connections from Linkedin.
3. Use them to create a Facebook custom audience and deliver highly-targeted ads.

Sound simple enough? Once you start using this tactic, I guarantee you will be amazed at the results. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s dive in.

Step #1: Create your account

The first step is to decide whether you want to use your own account or create fake accounts.

If you’re just getting started, my advice is to test-drive this tactic with your own account first. Once you’re confident you can start thinking about scaling up with fake accounts.

I suggest using UpWork to hire a VA. They will create your accounts for you and start adding connections. You can search by industry, connections, companies and even interests.

There’s no great complexity to this process. Just remember to create a profile that looks real. Include a good photo and a convincing bio. That way, there’s little chance of you getting banned.

Step #2: Download your contact list from Linkedin

LinkedIn has a very open data policy. You can download a neat little file containing all the information they have about you and your contacts.

Most people don’t know this because the feature is a little hidden.

Let’s start by getting all that scrumptious data for you to use:

1. Click on the My Network tab at the top of your LinkedIn homepage. Or follow this link.
2. Find the Your connections area on the left-hand side of the page and click on See all.

3. From there hit Manage synced and imported contacts (top right) and Export contacts (bottom right under Advanced actions).

4. Now it’s time to download all your lovely data. Select Connections and hit Request archive.

5. You will receive an email with all the data Linkedin has about your connections. It can take 5–10 minutes depending on the number of connections you have.

6. Once the file is ready, open up your email, download and unzip. Find and open the .csv file called connections. You will see a list with the following data:

Ok, now it’s time for the good stuff.

When people sign up for Linkedin, they often use the same email address associated with their Facebook account (and vice versa). So we can use our LinkedIn email addresses to find relevant profiles on Facebook.

Step#3: Create your custom audience

Now you’re ready to create your custom audience. Let’s start by uploading your data:

1. Head over to Facebook Business Manager and navigate to the Audiences dashboard. You can follow this link.
2. Open the Create Audience dropdown and select Custom Audience. From there, select Customer File and Add customers from your own file or copy and paste data. You should see the screen below:

3. Next upload your .csv file from Linkedin. Give your audience a memorable name and click Next. You’ll see the following screen:

4. Facebook will automatically assign email addresses. You just need to confirm the first and last names. Click on the Do Not Upload dropdown and select First Name for the first column and Last Name for the second. Just like this:

5. Click on Upload and let Facebook work its magic.

This process might take a while (1–15 minutes) depending on the size of your list.

Once it’s ready, it’s time to get your creative juices flowing and create some relevant ads for your new custom audience.

Pro Tip: If you are working at a company with multiple employees, you can create one big list of all their contacts on LinkedIn and segment based on job titles. This is especially useful if you’re targeting a certain department.

Conclusion

Well done on getting this far!

This tactic can provide you with a real competitive advantage. Other marketers simply aren’t aware of it.

I used it to help grow one of Sweden’s hottest startups.

Just imagine sitting back at your desk and watching the new leads roll in, secure in the knowledge that you have an asset that none of your competitors even know about.

You have a custom audience filled with exactly the right people.

What’s more, you know you can build new audiences whenever you need to. Just tell your VA to rinse and repeat!

Sounds good doesn’t it? Now, time to head over to LinkedIn.