What is a saved audience?

When you run ads on social media, you want to show them to the right people. A saved audience is like a pre-set list of instructions for who should see your ads. Instead of picking all the details every time you create a new ad, you set up a saved audience once. Then, you can simply choose that saved audience for any future ad campaigns.

Think of it as creating a template for your ideal customer. You tell the social media platform things like their age, where they live, what they are interested in, and what kind of jobs they have. Once you save these details, that audience is ready to go whenever you need it for an ad. This feature is common on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Why saved audiences matter

Saved audiences are a powerful tool for marketing teams because they bring several important benefits:

• Saves time and effort: Without saved audiences, you would have to manually enter all the targeting criteria for every single ad campaign. This can be time-consuming and lead to mistakes. With a saved audience, you pick it once and move on.
• Ensures consistency: When you use the same saved audience across multiple campaigns, you ensure that all your ads are reaching the same type of person. This helps your brand message stay consistent and reinforces your targeting strategy.
• Improves organization: By naming your saved audiences clearly (e.g., "Local Coffee Lovers - Age 25-45"), you can easily keep track of who you are trying to reach with different ad sets. This makes managing many campaigns much simpler.
• Facilitates testing: Saved audiences make it easy to test different groups of people. You can create a few slightly different saved audiences and run identical ads to them to see which group responds best.

How to create and use a saved audience

Creating a saved audience usually involves a few simple steps within the ad manager of your chosen social media platform.

Choosing your audience criteria

You will typically define your audience using a combination of the following:

• Demographics: This includes basic information like age, gender, education level, job title, and relationship status.
• Locations: You can target people by country, state, city, zip code, or even a specific radius around an address.
• Interests: Platforms often let you target people based on pages they have liked, topics they follow, or activities they engage in online. For example, someone interested in "gardening" or "sustainable living."
• Behaviors: This might include things like purchase behavior, device usage, or travel habits, depending on what data the platform collects.

As you add these criteria, the platform will usually show you an estimated audience size. This helps you make sure your audience is not too small (meaning not enough people will see your ad) or too large (meaning your ad might not be specific enough).

Reusing your saved audience

Once you have set up and named your saved audience, it will be available in a list. When you create a new ad campaign, you simply select it from this list instead of building a new audience from scratch. This makes launching new campaigns much faster and more efficient.

Best practices for saved audiences

To get the most out of saved audiences, consider these tips:

Test and learn

Do not assume your first saved audience is perfect. Run campaigns, look at the results (like clicks, conversions, and cost), and be ready to make changes. You might find that a slightly different age range or a new interest group performs better.

Keep it organized

Give your saved audiences clear, descriptive names. For example, "Warm Audience - Blog Readers" or "Prospects - Small Business Owners, US." This helps you and your team quickly identify the right audience for each campaign.

Saved audiences are a foundational tool for efficient social media advertising. They empower marketing teams to quickly deploy targeted campaigns, ensure consistent messaging, and save valuable time. By thoughtfully defining, testing, and refining your saved audiences, you can significantly improve the effectiveness of your social media ad spend and reach the right people with your message.