Ad audiences and targeting

Targeting choices in an ad set

An empty list means everyone, not no one. If you leave every choice empty, the ad set can reach everyone on Sikhami.

When you fill in more than one choice, a person must match all of them. For example, Exams set to NEET and States set to Bihar reaches people preparing for NEET who are in Bihar.

When you set an age, people who have not added their date of birth are not reached, because Sikhami does not know their age.

Advantage+ audience: turn it on to treat your choices as a suggestion. Sikhami may then also show the ads to people outside them when they are likely to respond. Custom audiences you include or exclude still apply.

The audience size meter

While you change the audience, the Audience size box shows a range of how many people your choices can reach (for example Fewer than 1,000, or 12,000 – 15,000), a bar from Narrow to Broad, and the estimated number of people you could reach each day.

The number is worked out from a sample of learners, so it is an estimate. Below 10,000 people the box says your audience is narrow: the auction has few people to choose from, which can raise costs and leave budget unspent. If it says the size cannot be estimated right now, you can still save and publish.

Custom audiences

Open the Ads Manager, choose Audiences, then pick a type from Create audience….

Engagement audience

1. 1In People who, choose one of: People who follow you; People who watched your clips; People who engaged with your posts (liked, commented, saved, shared or reposted); People who bought from you; People enrolled in your courses; People who clicked your ads; People who submitted your lead forms; People who watched your video ads.
2. 2In In the last (days), choose how far back to look, from 1 to 180 days. People drop out once it has been longer than this.
3. 3Give it an Audience name and choose Create audience.

Followers, clips, posts, sales and courses are those of the ad account's owner (the person who created the account). Ad clicks, lead forms and video ad views are those of this ad account's ads.

Customer list

1. 1Give the list an Audience name.
2. 2In The list contains, choose Emails and phone numbers, Emails only or Phone numbers only.
3. 3Choose a CSV or text file (up to 20 MB), or paste the contacts into the box. Any layout works: every cell that looks like an email or a phone number is used. A 10-digit number is treated as an Indian number (+91).
4. 4Check the count the screen shows of emails and phone numbers found, and of entries it could not read.
5. 5Tick the box I have permission to use these contacts for advertising (DPDP Act 2023).
6. 6Choose Hash and upload. When matching is done you see the match rate.

Your list never leaves your device in readable form. Each email and phone number is turned into a one-way code (called a SHA-256 hash) on your device, only the codes are sent, and Sikhami throws the codes away as soon as they have been matched to accounts. You see a rounded match rate, never who matched.

Only upload contacts of people who agreed that you may use their details for advertising. The DPDP Act 2023 is India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act. To add more contacts later, choose Add contacts on the list's row and choose Hash and add.

Lookalike audience

1. 1In Source audience, choose an engagement audience or a customer list. It works best from 1,000 people or more.
2. 2Move the Audience size slider: 1 percent of learners finds the people most like your source; up to 10 percent finds more people who are less alike.
3. 3Add a name if you like, and choose Create lookalike.

A lookalike is built from exams, subjects, levels, states, languages, interests, age and gender. People already in the source audience, and the people on your ad account, are left out. You cannot make a lookalike from a saved audience or from another lookalike.

Saved audience

A saved audience stores targeting choices under a name. Make one on the Audiences page, or choose Save as audience inside an ad set. In any ad set, use Load a saved audience… to copy the choices in. Loading copies them once; editing the saved audience later does not change ad sets that already loaded it.

Use custom audiences in an ad set

• Include custom audiences: the ad set reaches only people who are in at least one of them.
• Exclude custom audiences: the ad set never reaches people in any of them. For example, exclude people enrolled in your courses from an ad for that course.
• You can include up to 10 and exclude up to 10. One audience cannot be both.

Only an audience whose status is Ready is used. If you include an audience that is still building, too small or could not be built, the ad set reaches nobody through it until it is ready. An excluded audience that is still building does not exclude anyone yet.

Sizes, statuses and rebuilding

• Sizes are rounded: to the nearest 10 below 1,000 people, and to the nearest 100 above.
• Engagement audiences and lookalikes are rebuilt every night. Choose Rebuild to update one now.
• A customer list changes only when you add contacts, because the uploaded codes are not kept.
• Only saved audiences can be edited (Edit). To change another kind, make a new one.
• Delete removes an audience for good. Ad sets that include or exclude it stop using it.

Privacy

Advertisers never see the names, emails or phone numbers of the people in an audience. They see only rounded sizes, a rounded match rate for customer lists, and totals in their reports. When someone opens Why am I seeing this ad?, Sikhami never names your custom audience; it says People like you instead. Read what learners see in Sponsored posts, clips and stories.

Questions