Growing Your Email List: Mailchimp Exports Become Facebook Audiences

There is a not-so-secret secret benefit of having a quality email list. Do you know what it is?
Here are three clues:

1. Not an email
2. New audience
3. Social media

Feel like you’re missing the treasure? The secret is out. Your email list is a powerful tool to expand your digital advertising efforts, specifically through Facebook (and Instagram).

On a high level, Facebook allows you to upload a customer list (i.e., your email list) and create what is called a “lookalike audience.” Basically, Facebook takes the list you import and finds other people who are similar to the list you imported, and as a result your advertising is targeted with greater effectiveness. In other words, lookalike audiences are key to reaching new people who aren’t familiar with your business, yet are similar to your current customers.

By creating a lookalike audience, you can then run an effective campaign to find new subscribers who want to be on your email list, which will help improve the quality of your email list and digital marketing overall.

Don’t sweat. It’s easier than you think. Here are the three main steps to get started.

Step 1: Export Your List

As we’ve mentioned before, Mailchimp is a great service to utilize when starting to build an email list. If you’re establishing an email list for the first time, chances are Mailchimp will serve your needs with their free version. Depending on your business and the growth of your email list, you can always upgrade or switch to a service with more bells and whistles.

The first step to building a lookalike audience with your email list is to export your email list.

Step 2: Upload list to Facebook

After you’ve exported and saved your list, you’ll go to your Facebook Business Suite, click ‘More Tools’, then ‘Audiences.’ Once you are at the Audience page in Ads Manager, you’ll click ‘Create Audience.’ Followed by ‘Lookalike Audience’ in the dropdown menu. Import your list by selecting ‘Custom Audience’ on the ‘Create a New Source’ dropdown menu. Then you’ll select ‘Customer list’ as your source.

Step 3: Create Your Lookalike Audience

After you’ve uploaded your list, continue to go through the prompts on the page and click ‘Create Audience’. Bonus tip: most likely, a 1% audience size is sufficient for your needs. Think of it this way, you want to reach the people that are most likely to subscribe to your email list, interact with your business, and become a customer.

As you can see, there are a plethora of customization options once you have uploaded a list. You can create as many lookalike audiences as you need, trying different locations, etc. Don’t forget to regularly update your lookalike audience with new subscribers!

Be Purposeful

The ability to create lookalike audiences is a powerful tool that you don’t want left out of your digital toolbox. Utilizing lookalike audiences to find new subscribers can be a big boost to the quality of your email list, and
ultimately– your bottom line.

Do you feel like your social media efforts and digital advertising needs some attention? Maybe you have an email list, active social media accounts, but are floundering when it comes to executing a cohesive plan?

We are here to help. As indigenous people of the digital world, our digital marketing experts are ready to answer your questions and provide relief through our 24/7 Digital Hotline.