Facebook funnels help guide potential buyers to your product. Have you thought about using buyer personas to create your Facebook funnel?

Buyer personas define your targeted audience and optimize sales. 

In this post, you’ll learn how to create and map out your Facebook funnel with buyer personas. I’ll use my case study about my client, ubiDesktop, to show you real-life examples of each step and how to apply it to your business. 

Ready to get started? 

How Do You Create a Facebook Buyer Persona? 

A Facebook buyer persona targets users who will most likely interact with your ad. Or, better yet, will buy your service. 

You can create a Facebook buyer persona and answer the following questions: 

  • What’s their name? 
  • How old are they? 
  • What are their wants? 
  • What products of yours are they most interested in? 
  • What are their problems? 
  • Who is your seed audience?  

Your buyer personas should look something like this: 

buyer personas breakdown

Notice how I created a visual of each buyer persona and answered every question in full detail. The more specific you are about each persona, the more accurate your Facebook audience will be. 

If you aren’t sure how to answer these questions, try one of the following strategies: 

  • Analyze your opt-in forms 

Your opt-in form has readily-available info about your customers, like their job title. You can analyze this info to build a buyer persona. 

  • Facebook Pixel 

Facebook Pixel measures a customer’s action on your site. Use this to learn more about your buyer persona’s behavior. 

  • Conduct an interview 

Gather a group of users and ask them about their occupation, interests, and why they bought your product. 

You can also post a questionnaire or poll online. For example, I built a questionnaire for my client’s website.

website questionnaire

Asking users about the main use of their desktop helped decide what buyer personas to create. We ended up narrowing the personas down to an IT developer, SEO expert, and Online Trader. 

Once you’ve finished your Facebook buyer personas, you’ll be ready to build an audience. 

Buyer Persona Facebook Audiences  

You can use Facebook buyer personas to build a custom or lookalike audience.

A custom audience is a group of users who’ve already interacted with your business in some form. 

A lookalike audience is a group of users similar to your custom audience (seed audience). 

We’ll start with custom audiences. Head over to the audience tab on Facebook Ads Manager. From there, click on, ‘Create a custom audience’. 

create a custom facebook audience

Notice how you can build a custom audience with your own sources or Facebook’s data. 

choose your source custom audiences facebook ads

In my case study, I created a lookalike audience of my client’s ‘IT buyer persona’. 

IT buyer persona

We’ll use my buyer persona to help you build a lookalike audience. In this case, click on ‘Build a Lookalike Audience’ at the audience tab. 

custom audience settings facebook ads

Here’s how to fill out the form: 

Lookalike source – Input your seed audience. This helps Facebook create a list of users similar to your original audience. 

I used the seed audience, IT Developers, to create a lookalike audience. 

Audience location – You can select one country and multiple regions. Keep in mind that your location needs at least 100 users. 

Audience Size – Consider your budget when you choose your audience size. I suggest choosing at least 1% to start. 

Plus, you can create multiple lookalike audiences at once. 

select custom audience size facebook ads

The Takeaway 

When you build a Facebook buyer persona, answer each question in full detail. Use real-life experiences and past data to build accurate personas. 

As for building a Facebook audience, you can create a custom or lookalike audience on Facebook. If you want to reach out to existing customers at BOFU level, I suggest a custom audience. If you want to reach out to new users at TOFU level, I suggest a lookalike audience. 

In my case study, I built a lookalike audience to increase ubiDesktop’s free trial users and then I created a custom audience of free trial users to push them towards a paid plan.

How Do You Create a Facebook Funnel? 

To put it simply, a Facebook funnel aligns ads with your marketing funnel. 

facebook ads funnel

As a customer goes through your funnel, they’ll build trust with your business. Trust creates a welcoming environment—users will be more willing to buy your product.  

When you create a Facebook funnel, consider the following: 

  • Lifetime value 

Are you selling something your customers will need over again (ie. subscriptions)? Or, is your product a one-time purchase? 

The lifetime value determines how long your Facebook funnel should be. A large lifetime value typically needs a longer funnel to build more trust. 

  • Average order value 

How many products do your customers buy in one purchase? 

Let’s say you sell plants. How many plants, on average, does a customer buy? This number determines your average order value. 

The higher your order value, the longer your funnel should be. 

  • Your buyer persona 

How can you use your persona’s wants and problems to build a targeted funnel?  

For example, if your persona has a long list of pain points, you can lengthen the consideration stage in order to answer all of their problems. 

In addition, each buyer persona needs its own Facebook funnel to target properly. 

  • Your Facebook funnel experience and budget 

If you’re new to building Facebook funnels and/or have a tight budget, I suggest using the example below for the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel. 

facebook funnel starting with lookalike audience

This Facebook funnel collects useful data about your buyer personas and ads. You can always update your funnel from here. 

Plus, this model is budget-friendly and hits the main areas of your marketing funnel. 

The Takeaway 

Your Facebook funnel should align with your marketing funnel. If you’re new to Facebook Ads, I suggest using the funnel above. 

Also, remember to build a Facebook funnel for each buyer persona you have. This keeps your campaign specific to the user. 

How Do You Map Out Your Facebook Funnel With Buyer Personas? 

Creating your funnel is one part of the process… How do you map it out? 

When you map out your funnel, you’ll need to create: 

  • A top of the funnel ad campaign (TOFU) 
  • A middle of the funnel ad campaign (MOFU) 
  • A bottom of the funnel ad campaign (BOFU) 

This is what a standard TOFU looks like. 

tofu with it buyer persona

From here, your buyer personas will do one of the following: 

1. They’ll go through each step and execute your call to action 

2. They’ll interact with your ad but won’t make it to the final stage 

While the first option is most ideal, you’ll come across users who leave your ads.  

So… what if a user doesn’t complete your funnel? 

This is the best part of a Facebook funnel. If a user doesn’t complete your cycle, you can retarget them. Your retargeted ads should take them to where they left off. 

With ubiDesktop, when a Facebook user interacts with TOFU but doesn’t click on the landing page, they’re redirected to MOFU. 

top of funnel to middle funnel custom audience facebook ads

So, users skip the awareness stage (TOFU) and go straight to the consideration stage (MOFU). 

What if a user leaves in the middle of your MOFU ads? 

If a user makes it through the TOFU and MOFU and still doesn’t purchase, Retarget them again. 

When a user goes through TOFU and/or MOFU, AND interacts with the IT developer landing page, they are taken to BOFU. 

middle funnel to bottom funnel custom audience facebook ads

At BOFU, there’s a good chance your audience will finish your call to action. In my client’s case, their CTA is to sign up for a free trial. 

Once they go through with your CTA, I recommend following up with your new customers. 

Following up increases retention and continues building a long-lasting relationship. You can follow up passively (ie. email marketing), directly (upsell), or both. 

With ubiDesktop, we decided to directly follow up with free trial users. To do this, we added an ‘upsell’ BOFU. 

bottom of funnel to upsell custom audience facebook ads

When a free-trial user reaches this stage, they’re given information about ubiDesktop’s payment plans. 

free trial and premium plans

At this point, their audience is familiar with ubiDesktop’s business, has tried their service for free, and knows the right information to purchase. The likelihood of purchasing a payment plan is now much more likely than before. 

Along with purchasing a payment plan, ubiDesktop can continue building long-lasting customer relationships. 

The Takeaway 

Mapping out your Facebook funnel builds a long-term strategy for your audience. You can visualize their path to your call to action. 

Plus, a great way to lengthen your funnel is to add an ‘Upsell’ stage after BOFU. This continues your relationship with your audience for the long-term. 

While this funnel works for my client, you might get different results. On that note, you should always analyze your data as you build a Facebook funnel. This helps you make the best decisions for your business and audience. 

To Wrap Up 

When you create a Facebook funnel with buyer personas, make sure to complete each of the following steps: 

1. Create a buyer persona

2. Create a Facebook funnel 

3. Map out your Facebook funnel 

4. Follow up with new customers

5. Analyze your funnel 

And most importantly, make changes as needed to your Facebook funnel. Don’t be afraid to customize your funnel to your buyer personas. 

Do this, and you’ll reach out to your targeted goals in no time.