To use the Facebook Ads Manager to find out how many of your customers use Facebook, you will be taken through the following sequence in the Ads Manager:
- Add a customer list.
- Edit data mapping.
- Perform a hashed upload and creation of an audience.
- Create a look-alike audience.
- Export your email lists.
Your goal is to find out how many of your customers use Facebook. This process starts with exporting an email list from your current customer database or Customer Relations Management (CRM) tool and uploading it to Facebook’s Ad tool.
You need only a single column (CSV or text) of emails. No other data is required. You can even remove the header row. After you export the data, you should save it to your hard drive.
Worried about security? Don’t worry about Facebook stealing your emails. When you upload your list, the data is hashed in the browser (you have to use Chrome). This means that Facebook won’t have access to any email that’s not associated with a Facebook user.
- Log in to your Facebook Ads account.
Don’t worry; you don’t have to pay for anything. This exercise uses Facebook Ads only as a research tool.
When you log in to your account, navigate to Facebook’s Ad Creation page and click the Close button at the bottom of the page. From there, you can access the main Ads Manager menu.
- Click the Ads Manager menu and then click the Audiences link in the pop-up window.
- Select Create a Custom Audience from the Reach the People Who Matter to You screen.
Again, you’re not buying a Facebook Ad. You’re simply preparing to upload your customer file.
- Select Customer File and choose Add Customers from Your Own File or copy and paste data.
A pop-up menu appears with a place to drag and drop your own file or to copy and paste it.
- Enter the name of your list and a description, select the I Agree to the Facebook Custom Audiences Terms box, and click Next.
A screen appears that previews your data and allows you to edit data mapping.
- Make any changes you want and then click Upload & Create.
Facebook begins hashing and creating your data.
- Get your answer.
When Facebook finishes hashing the data, you can quickly see how many Facebook users are in your email list by returning to Facebook’s Audience Management page and clicking the name of the custom audience you just created to see the number of email users on your email list.
The number of Facebook users on your email list appears on the right side. The original file had 6,000 emails, 3,800 of whose senders have Facebook accounts.
Discovering the number of customers who use Facebook.