Audiences are created according to the data, provided by or gathered thanks to users.
The data can be:
- Email-address
- Phone number
- First name/Last name
- Country, state/region, city
- Date of Birth, Age
- Postal code
- Gender
- Mobile IDs (GAID/IDFA)
- Facebook IDs.
It is necessary to prepare a .csv file containing the data, based on one or the combination of parameters listed above, for upload.
File format is a table where the first row contains the column headers, and each new line represents a user who has the appropriate attributes (columns).
Step-by-step instruction on how to upload audiences to Facebook is given below.
Step 1. Data preparation
Prepare the list of information about the audience, based on the available users data.
Let’s say, we have a list of mobile ad IDs for Android-based smartphones (GAID).
We transform it into a table with only one column where every new ID will start from a new line.
It will look like this:
We may also need to create audience based on different data types, for example, first name, last name, email addresses, phone numbers, etc.
In this case, every new attribute will take its own column in the table, like this:
Please, note, that every column has a name corresponding to the data type specified therein.
This is an optional requirement and you can skip the line but we strongly recommend you to write correct names for each column in your table, as Facebook will, according to these names, automatically identify the data type, specified in the column.
If the data types are not specified in the table, you will have to compare and define it manually during upload.
You might have already noticed that fields “email” and “phone” are repeated 3 times in our table.
Facebook allows to use up to 3 columns containing emails and phone numbers, other parameters are available for use only once.
For more information on fields naming and limitations, visit the official Facebook website.
Prepare your data in a proper manner and proceed to the next step
Step 2. Upload the data
Once you have prepared the data, it is necessary to upload it to Facebook.
To do so, select “Audiences”>“Create audience”>“Custom audience”
As your file is ready for upload, choose the first item “Customer file”
Then choose a necessary file on your PC and click “Upload file” in an appeared window.
Type a name and click “Next”.
You will be prompted to configure your mapping data with data types on Facebook.
This is where the column names, which we’ve added earlier, become useful.
If Facebook fails to define names, you will see the following:
You are asked to specify the necessary data type in the selected column or the entire column will not be processed and taken into account when creating an audience.
Verify the mapping of the columns, correct the errors and click “Upload & Create”.
Then the process of uploading data to the server begins.
This may take some time depending on the file size.
If everything is correct, you will see the following window:
Congrats! Your Audience has been successfully created and will soon be ready for use.