Learn how to launch a retargeting campaign to recover qualified prospects with this step-by-step guide.

What is a Retargeting Campaign? Why Should I Create One?

Retargeting ad campaigns allow you to recover potential customers who expressed interest in your offer by:

Visting your website
Watching your videos
Interacting with your Instagram profile
Interacting with your Facebook page.

These prospects abandoned this initial interaction without converting.

The role of retargeting is to put your business in front of these prospects, remind them of your offer, spark excitement (or FOMO), and encourage them to take action.

Adding retargeting ads to your advertising strategy improves your overall results since you're targeting qualified prospects.

It's the reason why the average CTR (Click-through-rate) for retargeting ads is 10 times higher than regular display ads.

Before Getting Started

Launching a retargeting campaign requires the following:

An active Pixel installed on your website. Guide: How Create & Install a Pixel on your Website.
A Pixel that is assigned to your connected ad account. Guide: How to assign a Pixel to an ad account.
A verified domain and aggregated events. Guide: Prepare your account for iOS 14 updates.

Video Tutorial

1. Set Offer

First, you'll need to set an offer for the campaign you want to launch.

You can:

Create a campaign with an offer
Create a campaign without an offer.

Depending on your choice, you can click the Next or Skip button.

Create Campaign with an Offer

Creating a campaign with an offer attributed enables you to:

Have the offer's assets (audiences, custom conversions, videos, page posts) automatically set in this campaign
Save new assets to this offer
Track and analyze offer's performance.

Follow the steps below to launch your campaign with an offer assigned.

Steps:

Use the search bar to type your product's name.
Scroll down to select a product from the sidebar.

Create Campaign without an Offer

To create your campaign without an offer, click on the Skip button.

2. Set Campaign

You can choose to create:

A new campaign
New ad sets in an existing ad campaign
New ads in an existing ad set.

In this guide, we'll cover creating a new campaign from scratch.

You can explore the other options here:

Creating new ad sets in an existing campaign
Creating new ads in an existing ad set.

Create a New Campaign

In the Campaign tab, click on New Campaign.
Select your campaign's objective.
On the Campaign Settings section, type your campaign a name, and optionally, enable the Campaign Budget Optimization toggle.
Choose a daily or lifetime budget for your campaign and set the amount you'd like to spend.
If you'd like to run Special Ad Categories campaigns, make sure to enable it using this toggle.

Note: Your account must be verified to run Special Ad Categories campaigns.

Tip: To use the same campaign settings in the future, click on Templates and Save current setup as a template.

3. Create Ad Sets

The Ad Sets tab is where you can create 200 ad sets in one go, without duplicating or starting over each time you want to target new audiences.

The progress bar shows you how many ad sets you created so far.

The templates drop-down allows you to save the ad sets you created as templates.

The sidebar contains the 7 steps to create your ad sets.

1. General Settings

The General Settings tab is where you set the Facebook Pixel, conversion event, schedule, and budget.

Note: The settings you’ll see in this tab depends on Campaign Budget Optimization.

Choose a Pixel from the drop-down or create a new one by clicking on New Facebook Pixel.
Choose a conversion event from the drop-down.
Optional: Enable the Start Date toggle, then enter the time and date you want your campaign to start.
Leave the Start Date toggle turned off to let your campaign run immediately.
Optional: Enable the End Date toggle, then enter the time and date you want your campaign to stop delivering.
Leave the End Date toggle turned off to let your campaign continue running until you disable it manually.

Note: Your campaign will launch at the start date of your ad account's timezone.

If you enabled Campaign Budget Optimization in the Campaign tab, you can continue to the next step.

If you didn’t, you’ll get a Budget for each ad set widget, where you can set your ad set’s daily or lifetime budget.

Click Next when you’re done.

2. Retargeting

The Retargeting tab is where you:

Select a Template.
Customize The Template.
Generate Other Variations.

1. Select a Template

The first step is selecting an audience template from the options below. You can also select an existing custom audience that you created before.

Website Visitors

This drop-down enables you to retarget qualified prospects that interacted with your website:

All Website Visitors, everyone who visited any page of your website without purchasing a product
Visitors Who Added a Product To Cart but did not purchase
Visitors Who Reached Checkout but did not purchase
Hesitating Visitors who visited your website at least twice without purchasing
Deep Browsers, the top 25% of prospects that spent the most time on your website
Visited a Page URL, prospects who visited a specific page on your website.

Video Watchers

This drop-down enables you to retarget prospects who viewed one or several videos on your Facebook page, depending on how much they viewed:

All Video Watchers, people who viewed at least 10 seconds of the video or videos you chose
Moderate Video Watchers, people who viewed at least 25% of the video or videos you chose
Interested Video Watchers, people who viewed at least 50% of the video or videos you chose
Super Interested Video Watchers, people who viewed at least 75% of the video or videos you chose
Obsessed Video Watchers, people who completed watching the video or videos you chose.

Facebook Page Engagement

This drop-down enables you to retarget prospects that interacted and engaged with your Facebook:

Everyone, all the people that interacted with your page
Engaged With a Page Post, people that engaged with any page post or ad on your page
Click a Call To Action Button, people that clicked a call to action button on your page
Sent a Message To Your Page, people who started a conversation with your page through Messenger
Saved Your Page or a Page Post, people who saved your entire Facebook page or page post.

Instagram Profile Engagement

This drop-down enables you to retarget prospects that interacted with your Instagram business profile:

Everyone, people who interacted with your Instagram profile
Visited Your Profile, people who visited your Instagram profile
Engaged With a Post or Ad on Your Profile, people engaged with a post or ad on your profile
Sent a Message To Your Profile, people who sent a direct message to your Instagram profile
Saved Your Profile or Post, people who saved your profile or post.

Retarget Existing Audiences

This option enables you to retarget the custom audiences saved on your ad account.

2. Customize your Template

Depending on the audience template you chose, you can use the Audience Builder to:

Include people who performed a specific action recorded on a specific Pixel.
Exclude people who performed a specific action recorded on a specific Pixel.
Refine people by time spent on your website, frequency of visits, and device type.
Set the time frame from which you want to retract Pixel data from.
Set connection type to your page or app.

The Audience Builder allows you to select the exact product, video, page post, or ad you want to include or exclude using the drop-down.

3. Generate Other Variations

Using the Add Audience Variation button, add another ad set variation following the same steps above.

3. Locations

Use locations tab to specify the geolocations of the prospects you want to target.

Steps:

In the Include section, select the living situation of your prospects from the drop-down.
Use the search bar to type the name of the locations you want to target or browse the suggestions.
Use the Exclude bar to eliminate people living in certain locations from viewing your ads.
Use the Languages section to type the name of the languages your prospects speak or browse the suggestions.

Note: Leaving the languages section on default results in targeting people who speak all languages.

To target a new set of locations, click on Add Variation and add as many variations as you want.

Click Next when you're done.

4. Age/Gender

On the Age and Gender tab, set the age groups and genders you want to target.

Steps:

Use the From drop-down to select the youngest age you want your prospects to be.
Use the To drop-down to select the oldest age you want your prospects to be.
To split test your prospects by age groups, select the age range in years. If you don’t want to split test your audience by age, leave this on default.
In the Genders drop-down, select to target only males, only females, both, or split to test your audiences by gender.
Click on the Generate button to create unique variations of the age and gender options you chose.

Note: If there’s a variation you don’t want to target, you can click the X on the corner of the variation you want to eliminate.

Click Next to continue.

5. Placements (Optional)

The Placements tab enables you to choose where your ads are displayed.

By default, your ads will have automatic placements set up.

If you want to select placement, please follow the steps below:

Un-tick the default Automatic placement box.
Tick the boxes of placements you want your ads to be shown on.
Optional: Tick the boxes to target all devices, desktop only, or mobile-only.
Optional: Tick the box to show your ads only when devices are connected to WI-FI.
Optional: Choose to target All Mobile Devices, Android devices only, or IOS devices only from the drop-down.

To add another placements’ variation, click on Add Placement Variation.

Click Next to continue.

6. Optimization

The Optimization tab enables you to set your ad sets’ optimization and delivery settings. These depend on the campaign objective you selected in the beginning.

Steps:

Choose an Optimization For Ad Delivery from the drop-down.
If you chose Conversions, select the Conversion window you want your ads to run on. Skip this step if you chose another option.
Optionally, you can set cost control to not exceed your desired maximum cost per acquisition.
Choose when you’ll get charged from the drop-down.
Pick your delivery type.

Click Next when you’re done.

4. Create Ads

The Ad Creatives tab is where you can:

Create new ad creatives from scratch
Choose ad creatives from the product
Select page posts from Facebook pages
Use ads from previous ad campaigns
Search Post ID or URL.

1. Create new ad creatives

To generate up to 20 ad creatives from scratch, please follow the steps below:

1. Facebook page

In the Pages tab, select the Facebook page you want to create your ads with. You can select multiple pages to test which Facebook page performs the best.

2. Ad copy

Then, in the Copy tab, click on the + button to add multiple text variations to split test. You can save them as a template to reuse later, by clicking on Templates and Save current setup as a template.

Click on the Media tab when you're done.

3. Media

Now, in the Media tab, you can select:

All Media tab to use images and videos from products and previous ads
Current product tab to use creatives from the product you launched your campaign with
Upload tab to import images and videos from your laptop.

Click on the URL tab when you're done.

4. URL

Next, on to the URL tab where you can add the URL of the web page you want your ads to redirect to. You can add multiple URLs to split different web pages.

Note: if you launched your campaign with a product, its URL will automatically set as the default redirecting URL for your ads. Make sure to edit the display link to your preference.

Click on the CTA tab when you're done.

5. CTA

On the CTA tab, choose the call to action button you want your ads to display.

The list of CTA's visible depends on the campaign objective selected. You can also add multiple ones to split the test.

Click on the Description tab when you're done.

6. Description

The Description tab where you’ll add the headline and description that will appear in your ads. Again, you can add multiple ones to split test.

Click on the Create tab when you're done.

7. Create

Finally, on the Create tab, you can preview your ad variations on different placements, and enable the ads you want to use in your campaign.

2. Choose ad creatives from the product

From the left sidebar, click on Product's Creatives.
Select the page posts you want to use as ads by enabling them with this toggle.
You can also click on the View on Facebook button to preview the page post before selecting it.

Note: the page posts selected must have a redirecting URL and call to action button.

Finally, once you're done selecting the page posts you want to use as ads, click on the Next button to proceed to the review tab of your ad creation workflow.

3. Choose page posts from Facebook pages

Click on Pages in the left sidebar.
Choose the Facebook page you want to select your creatives from. You can choose one page or multiple ones for split testing.
Select the post you want to use in your ads and switch its toggle on. You can choose one post or multiple ones to split test which one works best.

If you selected multiple Facebook pages, you can still choose one post or multiple ones from each page.

Finally, click Next and continue to the Review tab.

4. Choose ads from previous ad campaigns

In the left sidebar, select Ad campaigns.
Click Choose a campaign. Here you can choose the campaign you want to use ads from.
Select the ad set of your choice.
You'll find all the existing posts you have in the ad set you selected. Now, enable the post you want to use in your new ads. You can choose one or multiple posts to split test which one works best.

Finally, once you're done, click Next and continue to the Review tab.

5. Search Post ID or URL

Click on Post Id or URL in the sidebar.
Choose Post Id or Post URL.
If you choose Post Id, select the Facebook page your post is from. Right under, enter your post ID and hit Search.
If you choose Post URL, you can proceed to enter your post URL right away and hit Search.
Click the Search button to display your post.
Enable post using the toggle.

Click Next and continue to the Review tab.

5. Review Campaign

The review tab is where you can double-check your campaign details, such as:

Campaign name, objective, spending limit, and Campaign Budget Optimization status
Ad set variations, budget settings, calculate their potential reach, and make sure that all your variations are exactly what you want them to be before launching
Ad variations and enable the ones you want to use.

Click Next when you're done reviewing your campaign.

6. Launch

The launch tab is where you:

Choose Campaign Structure
Name Your Ad Sets (optional)
Enable Google Analytics Tagging (optional)
Enable Created Campaign (optional).

1. Choose Campaign Structure

Automatically set up your campaign structure as:

All ads inside each ad set variation, to allow Facebook to automatically optimize your ad delivery
Each ad variation inside a separate ad set, to force Facebook to spend all the ad set’s budget on each ad.

2. Name Ad Sets

To name your ad sets, please follow these steps:

Choose to leave the values on default or change them to include information you care about from the drop-down.
Choose your preferred spacing character.

Now, the app will generate your ad sets' names based on the values you selected.

3. Enable Google Analytics Tagging

Enabling Google Analytics UTM tagging allows you to accurately track your ad campaign's performance beyond Facebook's Pixel events and get advanced insights on your prospects' behavior.

Just enable the UTM tags toggle to tag your ads automatically.

4. Enable Created Campaign

Now all that's left is to launch the ad campaign.

Tick Enable Created Campaign to enable your campaign as soon as it's created.

If you’d like to go in and review things one more time before launching then make sure it’s ticked off.

Click Launch to launch your campaign.

To keep up with your task's creation status, make sure to go to the History tab from the sidebar.