Facebook Retargeting Beginner’s Guide for 2021: Key Terms & FAQ

Facebook Retargeting in 3 Simple Steps

Have you ever scrolled through your Facebook feed and saw an ad for a company whose Facebook page you just visited?

Have you noticed that ad now follows you to your Facebook stories, articles you click on, and even Instagram?

Many companies use Facebook Ads to reach out to their potential customers.

However, there is one method that streamlines ad spend while guaranteeing better results: retargeting. Here’s BRICK’s beginner walkthrough of retargeting ads on Facebook.

Table of Contents

  1. Facebook Retargeting Glossary
  2. The Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Retargeting
  3. Facebook Retargeting FAQ


Facebook Retargeting Glossary

Facebook retargeting shows your ads to people that have visited your website. It differs from conventional advertising on Facebook because it focuses on people who are already potentially interested in your product.

To retarget customers, you will need to familiarize yourself with the following terminology:

Facebook Pixel

Facebook Pixel is a string of code that can be placed on a website to track user behavior and engagement from a Facebook or Instagram ad.

Dynamic Ads

Dynamic Ads automatically generate across mobile, tablet, and desktop whenever potential customers show interest in a product. There are Dynamic Creative ads that display different combinations of your assets to your audience.

Facebook Ads Manager

Ads Manager is for creating and tracking advertisements you are running on Facebook and Instagram. It is where you will select to run a retargeting campaign with dynamic ads.  

Custom Audience

Custom audiences in Facebook are collections of your customer base defined by unique behaviors or demographics. The format is for tracking website visitors, app users, and engagement.  

Facebook Events Manager

Facebook Events Manager is where you create and track action-based events between your website and Facebook.  It is also where you will create a Facebook pixel for use in a retargeting campaign.

The Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Retargeting

After you set up a Facebook Business page and Ad Account, you will be ready to start retargeting! Here’s BRICK’s beginner guide: 

1. Create a Facebook Pixel and install the code onto your website

  • Go to your Events Manager.
  • Click Connect Data Sources and select Web.
  • Select Facebook Pixeland click Connect.
  • Enter your website URL.
  • Click Continue.

You will have three options to install the Facebook pixel. Watch the video below for easy setup if you are using WordPress on your website.

Also, here is a tutorial for connecting The Pixel to Shopify.

2. Create a Custom Audience for prospects that have visited your website

  • Select the Audiences tab in Ads Manager. 
  • Click Create Custom Audience.
  • Select the data source Website traffic.
  • When adding website users to your audience, select ANY or ALL.
    • ANY refers to people that meet any of the following criteria for actions on your website.
    • ALL refers to people that meet all the following criteria for website actions. 
    • BRICK recommends selecting ANY for your first Facebook retargeting campaign.
  • Define the criteria for website actions
    • Select All website visitors to include general traffic to your website
    • Click People who visited specific web pages to retarget visitors to individual pages of your website
    • Select Visitors by time spent to reach prospects that stayed on your website for a certain amount of time.
    • BRICK suggests selecting People who visited specific web pages for your first Facebook retargeting campaign.
  • Assign a Name for your Custom Audience ­– and you are ready to go!


Exclude Current Customers in Facebook Retargeting

Do not forget to exclude visitors that have already converted! You do not want to show ads to current customers. This retargeting mistake can negatively impact the customer experience.


Here is a video on how to exclude current customers for more precise retargeting:

3. Set up your Facebook Retargeting Campaign

  • Navigate to Facebook Ads Manager
  • Click Create under the Campaign tab.
  • Enter the following information:
    • Campaign Name
    • Campaign Details – BRICK recommends selecting Conversion.
    • Campaign Budget
  • Select your Custom Audience for retargeting
    • You can Create New Audience or Use Saved Audience.
    • Refer to Step 2 in this walkthrough for the guidelines.
  • Select Automatic Placements
  • Click Next and Create Your Ad
  • After you have reviewed your Facebook retargeting ad – click Publish!

Facebook Retargeting FAQ

Here’s BRICK’s FAQ on the best practices for Facebook retargeting.



Facebook’s algorithms are trying to put your retargeted ads in front of the best people possible. Selecting the Conversion objective tells Facebook to analyze the website visitors in your Custom Audience for prospects with a higher likelihood of returning to purchase.




Absolutely. You do not want to write retargeting copy that comes off as creepy or revealing that you track the prospects’ behavior for advertising. 




Custom Audiences are usually smaller than those for cold advertising. These audiences will be exposed to the same ads more time, potentially become too familiar and bored. You can avoid ad fatigue in retargeting by refreshing and updating Ad Creative with new content.




It is best to make your audience as large as possible. Artificial constraints on your Custom Audience can cause ad fatigue when deploying your retargeting campaign.




It depends entirely on your industry and business. Retargeting campaigns support advertising to specific off-site prospects and cold outreach advertising on Facebook. It is up to you to determine how to use them.



 TLDR? Here’s Our Key Points:

  1. Facebook Retargeting displays ads to customers that already visited your website.
  2. You need to install a Facebook Pixel code onto your website to retarget.
  3. Remember to exclude customers from your Custom Audience that have already converted.
  4. Always choose the Conversion objective to maximize retargeting ad impact.
  5. Build a large audience and upload diverse ad content to avoid creating ad fatigue from retargeting campaigns.

Contact Us