Most people who visit a store do not buy the first time. Retargeting shows them an ad afterwards, while they still remember you. On Meta this needs a Custom Audience built from your pixel, and AdWhispr builds it from the chat. This guide follows Cloud Linen, an online bedding brand.
What you need
- A Meta ad account connected to AdWhispr.
- A Meta pixel installed on your website and recording visits. The audience is built from the pixel's PageView events, so a pixel that has never fired produces an empty audience.
- The ad account must have accepted Meta's Custom Audience terms once. If it has not, the first audience creation returns a link to accept them; accept, then ask again.
Build the website-visitors audience
Say who you want to reach and how far back. The lookback window can be 1 to 180 days (30 by default). Add "excluding people who already bought" to leave out anyone whose Purchase event fired in the last 180 days, so you stop paying to reach existing customers.
Build a retargeting audience of my website visitors from the last 30 days, excluding people who already bought.
Created "Website Visitors 30d (excl. purchasers) - AdWhispr" in act_1234567890. It costs nothing on its own; Meta fills it over the next few hours from your pixel's traffic. When it has filled, launch an ad to it.
Audience creation is a single step: no preview, because it spends nothing. Meta needs some hours to populate it.
Pick the window to match your buying cycle. A 7-day audience is small and hot; a 90-day audience is bigger and cooler. Bedding is a considered purchase, so 30 days is a sensible start.
Add a lookalike (optional)
A lookalike is new people who behave like an existing audience. Seed it from your visitors audience, or better, from an audience of purchasers if you have one in the account. Similarity runs from 1% (closest match, smallest) to 10% (broadest), in a country you name (United States by default).
Create a 1% lookalike of that audience in the United States.
Created "Lookalike (US, 1%) - Website Visitors 30d" seeded from your visitors audience. Meta will fill it over the next hours.
Use the lookalike for prospecting (people who have never visited) and the visitors audience for retargeting. They are different ads with different messages.
Launch the retargeting ad
Target the audience by name in a launch. Retargeting copy should assume the person already knows you: remind, reassure, offer.
Launch my image "Linen sale reminder" to the Website Visitors 30d audience at 20 a day, traffic objective. Primary text: "Still thinking about it? Your linen duvet is 20% off until Sunday, with free returns for 100 nights."
Preview: campaign "Linen sale reminder", audience "Website Visitors 30d (excl. purchasers) - AdWhispr", 20.00 a day, single-image ad, link cloudlinen.com. All ages (default), all genders (default). Create it paused?
If the pixel already records purchases, use the sales objective instead of traffic so the ad set optimizes for buyers within the audience.
Your account's older Custom Audiences can be targeted the same way; ask the chat to list the account's audiences.
Read the results
After a few days, ask for the campaign's performance. Retargeting audiences are small, so expect fewer impressions and a higher click rate and conversion rate than a cold audience. Watch frequency: when a small audience has seen the ad many times, results fade, and it is time to refresh the creative or widen the window.
Frequently asked questions
Does creating an audience cost anything?
No. An audience spends nothing by itself. Spend starts only when you launch an ad to it and resume that campaign.
Why is my audience empty?
Either the pixel is not installed or has not fired, or Meta has not finished filling it yet. Give it a few hours, and check the pixel in Meta Events Manager.
Can I exclude people who already bought?
Yes. Ask for the audience "excluding people who already bought" and anyone with a Purchase event in the last 180 days is left out.
Can I do this on TikTok?
Existing TikTok custom audiences in your account can be targeted in a launch. Building new ones from chat is Meta-only today.