How to enable advanced targeting on Facebook and Instagram

You will learn

Learn how to enable advanced targeting on Facebook and Instagram. Advanced targeting strategies can engage your customers creatively, targeting them on multiple channels.

• Learn how to re-engage lapsed VIPs on Facebook and Instagram
• Use A/B testing to identify your best-performing sign-up forms
• Retarget customers who have not responded to your abandoned cart or welcome emails
• Launch a cross-sell campaign on Facebook and Instagram
• Target lapsed subscribers with a Facebook winback campaign

Before you begin

The advanced targeting strategies in this guide leverage your Meta Ads integration. If you have not already integrated Meta Ads with your Klaviyo account, follow these instructions to enable your integration.

Re-engaging VIPs who have lapsed

If customers who were once on your VIP list haven’t engaged with your brand recently, you can target them on a different platform to bring them back to your brand. There is a chance your emails might be going to their spam folder, so you should target them on Facebook or Instagram to increase the chances your message is heard.

Create an unengaged VIP segment

1. First, you’ll need to define your audience. Create a segment of customers who have spent a significant amount of money at your store. One way to identify a big spender is to use Historic customer lifetime value, which measures past spending rather than predicted future spending.
2. If your account is not yet large enough to pull meaningful predictive analytics data, consider using another available metric such as Revenue.
   

3. Further define your unengaged VIPs by identifying users who have not opened an email in the last several months. Change the values within this segment based on your business model, price of goods, and how often you send out emails.

Next, you’ll create a Meta custom audience with the customers in this segment.

Create a Meta campaign

1. After you’ve created the segment of your lapsed VIPs, sync this segment with a Meta audience.
2. Create a Meta campaign to target your unengaged VIPs.
3. Ads should direct a profile to your site with a unique UTM tag. You’ll use this UTM tag for targeting in the next step.
4. Customize your messaging with some eye-catching content based on your segment’s interests. Remind them about what an awesome brand you are and/or offer them an incentive, such as a discount for their next purchase.
   

Create a UTM-targeted sign-up form

1. Next, create a sign-up form tailored to your unengaged VIPs who respond to the Meta campaign. Surface the sign-up form only to customers who land on the URL with the unique UTM, as described in the previous section.
2. In the sign-up form editor, open Targeting & display behavior > Targeting. Under URLs, select Only show on certain URLs, choose Containing, and enter the unique tracking parameter from your ad’s link.
3. For example, enter utm_vip to show the form on URLs containing that value.

Under Audience, select Show to all audience members so the form can reach people arriving from your ad, including existing subscribers. Keep the URL rule enabled to restrict the form to your campaign links.

1. You’ll want to drive these customers to sign up for an email-only discount message. This is one way of driving customers to re-engage with you by email.

Create a re-engagement flow

1. Create a new list for re-engaged VIPs. In the form editor, select the email sign-up button and set List to Submit to this list.
2. Create a list-triggered re-engagement flow for that list, and add the email-exclusive offer. Set the email to Live.
3. Publish the sign-up form, then start your Meta campaign.

If the list uses double opt-in, customers must confirm their subscription before joining the list and entering the flow.

1. This gives your unengaged VIPs a way to re-engage by email. Form submissions add them to the list selected in the form, not automatically to your main list.
2. You can also use an email-only discount method for customers who have purchased but are not yet email subscribers.

A/B testing a form

You can A/B test a sign-up form directly in Klaviyo. Alternatively, use Meta’s A/B testing feature to compare 2 separately published Klaviyo forms targeted to different tracking links, as described below.

1. You’ll start by creating 2 unique UTM links that will direct your customers from your Meta ads.
2. Then, create a Meta ad, and split your Meta audience into 2. Each audience will be identical except they’ll be directed to 2 different URL destinations. Customers will click through to the same site, but the UTMs will be different. This will allow you to target each unique URL with a different UTM-targeted sign-up form.
3. For example, when people are directed from Facebook to URL A, you’ll surface UTM-targeted Sign-up Form A. When people are directed from Facebook to URL B, you’ll surface UTM-targeted Sign-up Form B.
4. You can then analyze the performance of each UTM-targeted form to determine which performs better.

Create unique links for the CTA

1. First, create 2 unique links to be featured in your Meta ads.
2. Each URL should link to the same page but use a different tracking value. For example:
   https://www.klaviyo.com/?utm_content=A
   https://www.klaviyo.com/?utm_content=B
   Replace the example domain with your own website.

Create a Meta target audience

1. Next, create a Meta audience.
2. Keep the audience criteria the same for both versions of the test. You can use a custom audience synced from Klaviyo.

A/B test a Meta ad

1. Use Meta’s instructions for creating an A/B test in Ads Manager to prepare your test. Schedule it to start after both Klaviyo forms are live. The test shows each version to a separate group of people.

2. When you create the test variant, make the ad identical to the original with only the URL destination varying.

Create 2 UTM-targeted sign-up forms

1. Next, head over to Klaviyo to create 2 different Klaviyo sign-up forms.
2. The forms should be identical except for the section you’re A/B testing.
3. Here are some examples of variables you might test:
   • Discount vs. non-discount
   • 2 different discount values
   • 2 different calls to action
   • 2 different welcome messages
4. In each form’s editor, open Targeting & display behavior > Targeting. Under URLs, select Only show on certain URLs and choose Containing. Enter utm_content=A for Form A and utm_content=B for Form B, matching the links in your ads.
5. Set both forms live before your scheduled Meta test begins. We recommend running the campaign for about 2 weeks to collect enough data to analyze.

Monitor sign-up form performance

1. Use Klaviyo analytics to review each form’s performance.
2. Based on your results, refine and iterate your forms to increase ad conversions.
3. Learn more in our article on sign-up form analytics.

Third-party retargeting

Use Meta Ads to complement the customer journey. Meta Ads can be used on both Facebook and Instagram, so consider targeting customers on both of these platforms. Create a segment of customers for each of the following scenarios (Abandoned Cart and Welcome Series) and target them on Facebook and/or Instagram. Remember that you can retarget customers who are suppressed with Meta ads without it impacting your email deliverability.

Abandoned cart

Abandoned cart emails can be highly effective, but sometimes a person needs an extra nudge to convert. Retarget customers who have received an abandoned cart email but have not yet purchased. For example, create a segment of customers who received an abandoned cart email in the last 3 days and have placed an order 0 times.

Welcome series

The first 14 days after a customer subscribes is a critical time to get your customers to convert. Encourage your newest subscribers to purchase by retargeting them on Facebook or Instagram. A Facebook Ad campaign can run in conjunction with a welcome flow (via email).

1. Below is a segment of customers who have been added to the newsletter list in the last 14 days but have never placed an order:
   

2. Sync this segment of customers to a Meta audience for advanced targeting.
3. Consider creating a complementary lookalike audience as well.

Cross-sell

Targeting customers with Facebook and Instagram ads is a great way to encourage customers to buy a complementary product that they may also be interested in.

1. Create a segment of customers who bought from X category but not Y category. See example below:
   

2. Sync this segment of customers to a Meta audience for advanced targeting. Consider creating a complementary lookalike audience as well.

Winback

Another key social media strategy is to remind your unengaged customers of your brand on Facebook and Instagram. This strategy is similar in concept to retargeting lapsed VIPs, but instead, we’re targeting any former customer that is no longer engaging with your brand. It is especially helpful to target lapsed customers via Facebook Ad because retargeting on Facebook will not affect your email deliverability, and you may still target contacts who are suppressed from receiving Klaviyo emails on Facebook.

1. Create a segment of customers that have purchased before but not in the last 6 months.
   

2. Sync this segment of customers to a Meta audience for advanced targeting. Consider creating a complementary lookalike audience as well.

Outcome

You've learned how to enable advanced targeting strategies on Facebook and Instagram.

Additional resources