Most social audiences in our system have more profiles than contact details. Across the seven audiences we have reviewed, only 11.1% of profiles include an email address. That is not a problem if you use the list where it works best: inside your ad platform.
This playbook turns a QualifiedLead audience into three things your ad account can use: a custom audience, a lookalike audience and an exclusion list.
Why ads come first
Paid social targeting lets you reach the people in a community without messaging them directly. They see your offer in their normal feed, decide for themselves, and opt in through your form. That keeps the first contact on their terms, which is better for your brand and easier to keep compliant.
It also uses the whole list. In our Columbia University review, only 676 of 30,759 profiles had an email address, but every profile was a potential match for ad targeting.
The five steps
- Prepare the file. Export the audience and keep only the fields your ad platform accepts for matching. Remove duplicates and rows with no usable identifier.
- Upload a custom audience. Meta Custom Audiences, LinkedIn Matched Audiences and Google Customer Match all accept customer lists. Read each platform's terms first: they require you to have the right to use the data for this purpose.
- Build a lookalike. Ask the platform to find people similar to your custom audience. Start with the narrowest similarity setting, then widen it once you know your cost per lead.
- Add exclusions. Exclude existing customers and people who already converted, so you do not pay to reach them again.
- Split by market. One ad set per city or country keeps the message relevant. See Segment Before You Spend.
Which audiences suit which ad set
| Audience | Profiles | Best first use |
|---|---|---|
| HannahOlala | 234,836 | Large custom audience plus lookalike for beauty and fashion offers |
| Columbia University | 30,759 | Custom audience split by New York, New Jersey and Connecticut |
| IELTS Forecast Group | 12,735 | Custom audience for Hanoi and HCMC, lookalike for other cities |
| Keap | 8,279 | Separate US and Canada custom audiences for B2B offers |
| $100M Mastery Club | 3,651 | Seed for a lookalike of growth-focused founders |
Small lists are often more useful as lookalike seeds than as audiences on their own. Large lists can carry a campaign directly.
What to measure
- Match rate: how much of the list the platform could match. It tells you how much of the audience you are really reaching.
- Cost per lead for the custom audience versus the lookalike versus your usual targeting.
- Lead quality: how many leads from each ad set reach a sales conversation.
Next: turn the people who opt in into customers with The First 30 Days, or explore audiences for your next ad set.
