Facebook now lets all advertisers target people who visited their site or used their mobile app

Facebook today launched new features to help marketers reach people across devices and encourage them to take action. Custom Audiences now allows businesses to deliver targeted messages to people who have visited their website or mobile app, and certain News Feed ads have gained the option to feature enhanced call-to-action buttons.

Facebook first announced the new Custom Audiences feature in October, although it was limited to a number of test partners. The company promised to roll it out globally “in the coming months” and three months later, it is delivering.

Here’s how it works. A business places the Facebook remarketing pixel on their website, or the Facebook or third-party SDK in their mobile app, and then build Custom Audiences based on the actions people take while visiting their site or mobile app. Once done, the business can deliver ads to these users based on these actions.

You can see the new custom audiences above on the left. On the right is an example of marketers creating a Page post ad driving traffic to their desktop or mobile website and getting an option to add a call-to-action button in the lower right-hand corner of the ad. Marketers can choose from five types of buttons: Shop Now, Learn More, Sign Up, Book Now, or Download.

Facebook offers two examples of how businesses could use these features (available from Power Editor, Ads Manager, through PMDs, and via the API):

• A travel website with the remarketing pixel could use Custom Audiences to reach a group of people — say, people that searched for flights but never made a reservation — with a targeted message in News Feed: Come back for 10% off your next flight reservation.
• A retailer could build retargeting campaigns by installing the Facebook or third-party SDK in their mobile app and target people on mobile or desktop, encouraging them to come back and purchase the items left in their shopping cart.

Facebook is once again pulling the information located on other properties where its plugins reside back to its main service, to the benefit of revenue-generating advertisers. Since the company takes a cut, it is essentially growing its bottom line.

See also – Facebook redesigns its ad buying and reporting tools to help businesses meet ‘objectives’ and Facebook is tweaking its News Feed ads algorithm to consider user feedback, including what you report or hide

Top Image Credit: Manjunath Kiran/Getty Images