In May 2021, Apple released their iOS 14 update that impacted how we receive conversion events from the Facebook pixel.

The all-mighty fruit tech also began to require that apps inside their App Store show a prompt to users that allows the user to prohibit certain data “tracking” – which is great when it comes to the consent of users.

But for us as marketers, it has been a rough road. Trying to learn the best ways to navigate these changes and run effective ad campaigns while supporting the efforts of consent for more ethical marketing.

For smaller biz owners, this was an even harder hit. With less resources to put toward figuring this out, it made us feel, yet again, like running social media ad campaigns was like throwing money out the window.

BUT we may have hit a turning point, and the key to could be sitting in your email list!

Email Lists & Facebook Ads

Yep, you knew I’d go here. How could I not as an email marketing expert?

Marketing experts are learning through continued testing that Lookalike Audiences modeled directly from email lists are beginning to stabilize after the May 2021 Apple iOS 14 update. And campaigns are beginning to outperform previous lookalike audiences gained from the Facebook pixel data. 

We’re being told that it’s a good idea to refresh previous Lookalike Audiences that may have been created prior to May 2021.

How does it work?

It seems that Facebook is beginning to optimize these ads and put them in front of people who are more likely to take the same type of actions that our email subscribers took to initially get on our email lists!

This is great news, even for us small-potatoes biz owners. 

So don’t wait – hop into your Ads Account and start utilizing your email subscriber data now to create lookalike audiences before all of that data is lost. If you saw my previous blog, the Apple iOS 15 updates will change our email data access starting September 2021. 

By creating these audiences now, we can get ahead of the next round of changes. Don’t wait! Use that email list to your advantage ASAP and start building Lookalike Audiences. 

How to set up a lookalike audience from your email list

1. First, download a CSV file from your email service provider of your email list. (Note: if you are targeting a specific segment of your email list, make sure to only download a CSV of that segment from your email list.)
2. In Facebook Ads Manager, go to your Audiences Dashboard and click “Create Audience.”
3. You’ll see a drop-down menu. Select “Custom Audience,” because you’ll create your audience based on your email list, not based on a Facebook audience.
4. Next, click “Customer File” in the box that pops up. This is where you upload your CSV file.
5. Now, Facebook has your email list data. You can specifically select the identifiers that will assist the FB algorithm to create the lookalike audience. Remember, the more identifiers you have, the more targeted your lookalike audience will be.
6. Click “Upload and Create,” then click “Next Steps” and select “Create a Lookalike Audience.”
7. You should now be able to see your email audience in the “source” field. 
8. The last step is choosing the country/countries you want your audience to come from, the audience size, and voila! You. Are. Done.

As always, Facebook has tutorials and job aids to help walk you through these steps. You can find those here!