How to Create Facebook Video Engagement Custom Audiences

Video is big on Facebook. Not only is video popular and engaging, but Facebook prioritizes it in news feeds. If you’re utilizing videos, you need to create Facebook video engagement custom audiences.

Understand that this isn’t just about video ads. You can create organic videos or use video in ads, it doesn’t matter. But you need to take advantage of the ability to target and exclude the people who watch your videos.

Let’s discuss…

How Video Engagement Custom Audiences Work

The concept is simple: Add users to an audience based on their engagement level with one or multiple Facebook videos that you published. Then target or exclude those who engaged with those videos.

Of course, this only involves Facebook or Instagram videos (not YouTube, Vimeo, or any other platform).

You can add people to a video engagement custom audience based on the following levels of engagement:

  • 3 seconds or more
  • 10 seconds or more
  • 15 seconds-plus or completed the video (ThruPlay)
  • 25% or more
  • 50% or more
  • 75% or more
  • 95% or more

Note that it doesn’t matter whether someone watches these videos with or without sound. And it doesn’t matter whether they saw it within the news feed or clicked to get a closer look.

You can create an audience of people who performed these actions at any time during the past 1 to 365 days. These audiences are updated dynamically.

How to Create Video Engagement Custom Audiences

Go to facebook.com/ads/manager/audiences or select Audiences within your Business Manager.

Facebook Audiences

Click “Create Audience” and select “Custom Audience.”

Create Facebook Custom Audience

Now, select “Video.”

Facebook Video Engagement Custom Audience

You’ll get a screen that looks like this…

Facebook Video Engagement Custom Audience

First, select the level of engagement that is required to be added to this audience (discussed earlier).

Facebook Video Engagement Custom Audience

Next, click “Choose Videos”…

Facebook Video Engagement Custom Audience

At the top, note that you can select videos by campaign, Facebook page, Instagram business profile, or video ID. It defaults to Facebook page.

Facebook Video Engagement Custom Audience

These are videos that appeared on your Facebook page or Instagram business profile. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it was an Instagram video, for example. A Facebook video can appear on Instagram (usually as an ad).

These are merely ways to filter all of your videos to make them easier to find. For example, if you select Campaign, it will only display the videos appearing within a campaign. And you can select the specific campaign that the video is in.

Facebook Video Engagement Custom Audience

Select one or multiple videos to be included in this audience. When you’re done, click “Confirm.”

Facebook Video Engagement Custom Audience

Note that you could add another engagement rule if you want. I wouldn’t recommend this as it simply makes this audience more complicated and less flexible. I’d instead create two separate audiences that could be used either together or apart.

Facebook Video Engagement Custom Audience

Set a duration of 1 to 365 days, name your audience, add an optional description, and click to Create Audience.

Facebook Video Engagement Custom Audience

That’s it!

Targeting and Excluding People Who Watched Your Videos

Once you create these audiences, you can target and exclude them within the ad set as you normally would with custom audiences.

Facebook Video Engagement Custom Audience

Things to Consider

First, let’s talk about levels of engagement and volume. Know that if you select the 3 seconds view, that’s going to capture a very high number of people who were served the video. It includes auto-play of videos that were passed over in the feed. You may want this, but keep it in mind.

Otherwise, consider the length of the video and potential volume before selecting an engagement level. If the video is 30 minutes long and was viewed by 1,000 people, don’t expect an audience of people who watched 95% to be very big. I’m sure you’re engaging, but no one’s that engaging.

The quality of these people may not be as high as you think unless you focus on the higher ends of engagement. That said, volume for shorter videos should be relatively easy to get.

Strategies

Let’s talk through a few ways that you can use Facebook video engagement custom audiences in your own advertising strategies.

1. Related sales.

Know that Facebook Live videos are included in the inventory that can source these audiences. Host a Facebook Live webinar or tutorial on a certain topic, mentioning your product. Then remarket to those who watched the video to promote the product related to your video.

2. Video series.

Show a series of five video tutorials or promos.

  1. Target a broad group to promote Video #1; exclude those who watched Video #1
  2. Target those who watched Video #1 to promote Video #2; exclude those who watched Video #2
  3. Target those who watched Video #2 to promote Video #3; exclude those who watched Video #3
  4. Target those who watched Video #3 to promote Video #4; exclude those who watched Video #4
  5. Target those who watched Video #4 to promote Video #5; exclude those who watched Video #5

You could also use short durations, like somewhere between 3 and 7 days.

3. Higher volume exclusions.

I’m often asked how you can exclude people who already saw your ad. Technically, you can’t do this. And simply excluding people who clicked your link will only cut into a small percentage of the total people who saw it.

With video, you can leverage auto-play. Not everyone has auto-play, but a majority do. Use a video ad and exclude those who already watched 3 seconds of it.

4. Higher volume targeting.

On the flip side, maybe you want to target a large group of people who engaged with your content. Once again, volume is more difficult when it comes to clicks and pixel events. But, you could create an audience of 3 or 10-second video views to reach a larger group of people exposed to your content.

Your Turn

How are you using Facebook video engagement custom audiences?

Let me know in the comments below!