A brand's primary goal is to re-engage past website visitors who added items to their cart but did not purchase. Which Meta ad objective and corresponding Custom Audience type would be most effective for this lower-funnel action?

The most effective Meta ad objective for re-engaging past website visitors who added items to their cart but did not purchase is the Sales objective. The Sales objective is designed to drive conversions, which are valuable actions taken on a website or app, such as purchases. When using the Sales objective, advertisers specify a particular conversion event to optimize for, and in this scenario, the most relevant event is 'Purchase.' Meta's ad delivery system then works to show the ads to people most likely to complete that specific purchase action, based on their past behavior and demographic data. This directly aligns with the lower-funnel goal of converting abandoned carts into sales. The corresponding Custom Audience type that would be most effective is a Website Custom Audience. A Custom Audience allows advertisers to target people who have already interacted with their business. A Website Custom Audience is specifically built using data collected by the Meta Pixel or Conversions API, which are tools placed on a website to track user actions, known as events. To target visitors who added items to their cart but did not purchase, this Website Custom Audience would be configured to include individuals who triggered the 'AddToCart' event on the website but exclude those who subsequently triggered the 'Purchase' event within a specified lookback window, such as the last 30 or 60 days. This precise targeting ensures that the ads are shown only to the relevant segment of users who are already familiar with the products and are close to making a buying decision, maximizing the ad campaign's efficiency for cart recovery.