Facebook Video Views Custom Audiences Explained [in 2021]

Written by: ROIhacks.com
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One of the best ways to use the engagement data of your Facebook or Instagram users is to make a custom audience from your Video Viewers. This can include people who watched just 3 seconds of your videos or users who watched your complete video on Facebook or Instagram from beginning to end.

In this guide, we will explain anything you have to know about Facebook Video Views Custom Audiences:

  • The step by step process of creating FB Custom Audiences from Facebook or Instagram Video Views
  • Types of Video Viewers Custom Audiences you can create
  • How to leverage Facebook Video Views Custom Audiences?
  • Why are Engagement Custom Audiences are great and other types of Custom Audiences you could take advantage of.

If you have any questions regarding Facebook Video Views Custom Audiences that we have not answered in the article, be sure to check out our Frequently Asked Questions at the end of this article as well.

How to create a Custom Audience From Facebook video views?

The process of generating Video Views Custom Audiences from Facebook or Instagram videos is actually pretty straightforward. Here are the steps you have to go through:

  1. Go to the Audiences page in your Facebook Business Manager
  2. In the upper left corner, click on Create Audience then on Custom Audience

Create Custom Audience Button in Business Manager

3. A window will pop up where you have to choose the Custom Audience from the source “Video”

Choose Video As Custom Audience Source

4. Now in this new window, you can exactly specify the video sources and the time frame you want the users to stay in the audience

Setting up Video Engagement Custom Audience

5. First, you can choose the condition that will apply to the viewers of the videos (see your options in the next paragraph). You can also apply multiple criteria for the same audience

6. Next, by clicking on Choose video, you can pick which Instagram or Facebook videos you want to include in your Custom Audience

7. You can keep users in your Video Views Custom Audience up to 365 days (this is significantly higher than the 180 days you have at Website Custom Audiences created from Facebook Pixel data). 

7. Last but not least, give a descriptive name to the Facebook Video Views Custom Audience and add a description optionally

8. Make sure you chose the right videos and applies the right conditions then click on Create Audience

Types of Facebook Video Views Custom Audiences you can create

You can both use Facebook and Instagram videos views to use them as a Video View Custom Audience source. It doesn’t matter if it was a video posted organically to your feed or a video that was only used in a recent FB or IG video ad.

You can apply the following conditions to include Facebook video viewers to your Custom Audience:

  • People who viewed at least 3 seconds of your Facebook  video
  • People who viewed at least 10 seconds of your Facebook  video
  • People who either completed or viewed at least 15 seconds of your Facebook video (also called ThruPlay)
  • People who have watched 25% of your Facebook video
  • People who have watched 50% of your FB video
  • Users who have watched 75% of your Facebook video
  • Users who have watched 95 % of your FB video

As we said, you can combine these conditions, so you can create a custom audience from people who watched 10 seconds of these videos or 25% of the same videos.

You can apply the same conditions to make Custom Audiences from Instagram video views whether they were posted in an organic post or as an Instagram ad:

  • People who viewed at least 3 seconds of your IG video
  • People who viewed at least 10 seconds of your Instagram video
  • People who either completed or viewed at least 15 seconds of your IG video (also called ThruPlay)
  • People who have watched 25% of your Instagram video
  • People who have watched 50% of your Instagram video
  • Users who have watched 75% of your IG video
  • Users who have watched 95 % of your Instagram video

Leverage Facebook and Instagram Video Views Custom Audiences

Once your Video Views Custom Audiences have been created you can use them as Custom Audiences in Facebook campaigns right away. (although Facebook might need several hours to populate the Custom Audience with all users that meet the conditions.)

Retargeting campaigns from Facebook Videos Viewers

So let’s say, you want to retarget users who watched one of your Facebook or Instagram videos that introduced your products to cold audiences.

In this case, you have to place the Custom Audiences you have created from users who watched at least 10 seconds of these videos into the ad set level of the FB campaign creation process. This way, only these users will be able to see your ads in that retargeting campaigns if you don’t add other audiences.

Here is a video that shows some examples:

Lookalike Audiences from Facebook Videos Viewers

The second way how you can start leveraging the huge power of custom audiences is by creating Facebook Video Views Lookalike Audiences. FB Video Views LAAs are actually the best way to start with lookalike audiences as obviously it is way quicker to create an LAA from video views as from purchase conversions. 

It is important to choose the criteria wisely that define the Video Views Custom Audiences. If you want to make Lookalike Audiences from your Video Views, the more watch time the users have, the better the Video Lookalike Audience will be (as that means that the users were more engaged with your video hence your product). So the best thing you can do is to make separate lookalike audiences and based on their performance you can stop the ones that are showing poor performance.

If you want to get more information on how Facebook Lookalike Audiences work and how to create Lookalike Audiences step by step, check out the following articles.

Other Facebook Engagement Custom Audiences

Creating Facebook Custom Audiences from user engagement on Instagram and Facebook is the easiest way to retarget users or make Facebook Lookalike Audiences as we have seen with Video Viewers Custom Audience.

Unlike with Website Custom Audience where a great Facebook Pixel setup is necessary, or with Custom Audiences from Customer lists, where you have to create then upload user and customer lists manually, you don’t need any additional setup for creating Engagement Custom Audiences.

Besides creating a custom audience from your Facebook and Instagram video viewers, you can create the Custom Audiences from people who engaged with other types of Instagram and Facebook content.

We also have separate guides on how to create each of these Engagement Facebook Custom Audiences. You can check them out by clicking on the following links:

  • Custom Audiences from Instagram business page engagers 
  • Custom Audiences from people who opened or submitted one of your FB Lead forms
  • Custom Audiences from people  who interacted with one of your Facebook events
  • Custom Audiences from people who opened on of your Instant Experience on FB or IG
  • Custom Audiences from people who follow or have interacted with your Facebook page
  • Custom Audiences from people who interacted with one of your products in a Facebook or Instagram Shopping experience
  • Custom Audiences from people who interacted with the on-Facebook listings from your catalog 

Frequently Asked Questions – Facebook Video Views Custom Audiences

How do I retarget someone who watched one of my Facebook or Instagram videos?

You can retarget them easily if you create a Custom Audience from people who watched a certain percent of seconds of specific videos and then that custom audience as a targeted audience in your ad set level settings.

What is the easiest way for small sites to start a campaign that focuses on Lookalike Audiences?

The easiest way to start taking advantage of the power of Facebook LAAs, is to create a lookalike audience from people who viewed your videos either on Facebook or Instagram. It is obviously easier to collect 500 users who watched specific videos than to collect 500 users who purchased from you.

Obviously, the quality of the audience will not be as valuable as a Purchaser LAA, but you can try experimenting with it and test if it brings you better results than a cold interest based targeting.

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