Write an audience plan for one campaign, with prospecting, retargeting and exclusions.
Most small advertisers can only describe their audience as the ad set they built recently: some interests, an age range, maybe a lookalike. Ask why they chose it and the usual answer is that it seemed sensible at the time. Because nothing was written down, nothing can be checked, and when results disappoint, nobody knows whether the audience caused the problem.
Every campaign needs three audience decisions: who you reach for the first time, who you bring back, and who you keep out. The exercise here puts those three decisions on one page for a single campaign, using what lessons 4.1 to 4.3 taught. It has 4 steps and takes about twenty minutes. In the finished plan, each audience has a stated reason and a stated source. Someone setting up the campaign in module six should be able to build it from your page without asking you a question.
Prospecting means reaching people who have not interacted with you yet. For the first step, choose one prospecting audience and write down why it fits your budget and your data. Use the reasoning from lesson 4.2, "Broad targeting and why platforms now push it". If your conversion tracking works and the campaign optimises for a real conversion, start broad. Limit the audience only by genuine constraints such as location and language, and let the creative do the targeting. If you have little conversion data, a lookalike of your best customers or a modest set of interests is a reasonable start, with a note to test broad later.
On Google Search, you prospect through keyword groups rather than audiences, and module seven covers those. You can still record any location or language limits in this plan.
A retargeting audience is made up of people who visited, engaged or nearly acted. For the second step, choose one and name a specific source and a specific time window. Website visitors to the pricing page in the last 30 days, or people who watched most of a video in the last two weeks, show the level of detail to aim for. Those windows are only examples, so pick ones that match how long your customers usually take to decide.
Lesson 4.3, "Custom audiences, lookalikes and retargeting", pointed out that these people have already seen your first ad and did not act. Write down the most likely reason they did not act and the ad that answers that reason. If the audience is too small for retargeting to run usefully, the platform usually warns you. If that happens, note it in the plan and hold retargeting until prospecting has built up visitors.
Exclusions set out who should not see each audience's ads. For the third step, list them for each audience. At minimum, exclude existing customers from prospecting and exclude people who already converted from retargeting. Then add anyone else who wastes money in your business, for example staff, job applicants who visited your careers page, and people outside your service area.
For the fourth step, write down the source of each audience. There are four possible sources: platform targeting, your pixel, engagement on the platform, and an uploaded list. For any uploaded list, note how the people on it agreed to that use, following lesson 3.3, "Consent, privacy and the PDPA". If you cannot say how the people on a list agreed, leave that list out for now.
Finally, put everything on one page with three short sections for prospecting, retargeting and exclusions, each with a reason and a source. If any audience has no reason next to it, cut it.
Priya (an invented example) runs a tuition centre in Tampines and is planning a Meta leads campaign for a free P5 (Primary 5) maths trial class.
For prospecting, she uses broad targeting limited to the eastern part of Singapore, because parents are unlikely to travel further twice a week. She also limits it to English, the language her classes are taught in. Her tracking records trial bookings reliably, so she lets the platform find bookers. Her video ad does the targeting: it shows a tutor solving a fractions problem, with on-screen words addressed to parents of P5 children. The source is platform targeting.
For retargeting, she picks people who visited the trial class page in the past 30 days without booking, plus people who watched most of the fractions video in the past 14 days. Priya believes nerves and timing are what stop most parents, so her message is a short clip of a parent saying her daughter was nervous before the first class and fine after it, with the evening timetable on screen. The sources are her pixel and video engagement on Meta.
She excludes parents of current students, uploaded as a list of families who agreed on her enrolment form to receive updates and advertising. She also uses her pixel to exclude anyone who completed the booking form in the past 90 days. Both groups are excluded from prospecting and from retargeting.
For the consent check, the uploaded list comes from her enrolment form, which has included a line about advertising use since last year. Families who enrolled before that change are left off the list.
Pick the campaign from your account plan in lesson 2.4 and work through the four steps. The activity below asks you to write the full plan.
Write a one-page audience plan covering prospecting, retargeting and exclusions, and note where each audience comes from.
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