An advertiser aims to target individuals who engaged with their Facebook Page posts within the last 30 days but exclude those who have already messaged the Page. What specific combination of Meta engagement Custom Audiences would achieve this?

To achieve this targeting objective, an advertiser would combine two distinct Meta engagement Custom Audiences within an ad set’s audience targeting settings: one for inclusion and one for exclusion. A Custom Audience is a type of audience created in Meta Ads Manager that allows advertisers to target people who have already interacted with their business on or off Meta platforms. Engagement Custom Audiences specifically focus on interactions that occur directly on Meta platforms, such as a Facebook Page.

First, to identify individuals who engaged with the Facebook Page posts within the last 30 days, a Custom Audience would be created using the 'Facebook Page' source. This source enables the creation of audiences based on various interactions with the advertiser’s Facebook Page. Within this source, the specific engagement type chosen would be 'People who engaged with your Page'. This option includes a broad range of interactions like liking or reacting to a post, commenting on a post, sharing a post, clicking a link in a post, or viewing a photo or video on the Page. The 'retention period' for this audience, which defines how far back in time the engagement data is included, would be set to '30 days'. This means the audience will comprise only individuals who performed any of these engagement actions on the Page's posts or ads within the most recent 30-day timeframe. This Custom Audience will be set as the 'include' audience in the ad set.

Second, to exclude those who have already messaged the Page, another Custom Audience would be created, also utilizing the 'Facebook Page' source. For this audience, the specific engagement type selected would be 'People who sent a message to your Page'. This option precisely captures individuals who have initiated a direct message conversation with the Facebook Page at any point. To ensure all individuals who have ever messaged are excluded, the retention period for this audience should be set to its maximum allowable duration, which is typically '365 days' for most engagement types. This Custom Audience will then be set as the 'exclude' audience within the very same ad set where the first audience is included.

By configuring the ad set to 'include' the Custom Audience of 'People who engaged with your Page (30 days)' and simultaneously 'exclude' the Custom Audience of 'People who sent a message to your Page (365 days)', the advertiser precisely targets users who have shown recent interest in the Page's content through engagement but have not yet taken the step of sending a direct message.