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How retargeting works on a Live Video Ad

How retargeting works on a Live Video Ad


Your Live Video Ad keeps working after the live ends. Everyone who watched it becomes an audience you can reach again — and they are the warmest shoppers you will ever advertise to.


How it works


  1. Your Live Video Ad reaches new shoppers. Meta shows your live to people who don't follow your Page yet.
  2. Meta remembers who watched. It records every viewer and how long they stayed.
  3. You show them your replay. You turn those viewers into a custom audience and put the replay (or your next live) back in front of them.


Why it works: these shoppers have already met your host, seen your products and spent time in your live. Retargeting live viewers with the replay is consistently one of the best-performing ads we see across LiveMeUp merchants.


Step 1 — Create an audience of your live viewers


  1. Open Meta Ads Manager and go to Audiences.
  2. Click Create audience → Custom audience.
  3. Under Meta sources, choose Video.
  4. Pick an engagement level:
    • At least 3 seconds → biggest audience, least engaged.
    • At least 10 seconds or ThruPlay → smaller audience, much warmer. (Recommended)
  6. Click Choose videos and select your live video(s) from your Facebook Page.
  7. Set the retention to 30 days (your replay stays shoppable on Facebook for 30 days).
  8. Name it clearly, e.g. Live viewers – Nov 6 – 10s, then click Create audience.


Small lives? Select several past lives in the same audience to build a bigger pool.


Step 2 — Retarget viewers with your replay


Follow our article How to boost a past Facebook Live replay, with one change:


  1. At the Ad set level, under Audience, open Custom audiences.
  2. Select the live viewers audience you just created.
  3. Keep the rest of the setup as described in the boost article, then Publish.


Timing tip: launch the retargeting ad within 24–48 hours after your live, while the products and the moment are still fresh.


Step 3 — Bring them back to your next live


Your viewer audience is saved in Ads Manager. Reuse it for any future campaign — for example, to promote your replay again or to announce your next live to people who already know you.


Best practices


  • Start small. Your viewer audience is much smaller than a cold audience, so it needs a much smaller budget.
  • Retarget every live. Create a new audience (or update your existing one) after each live so your newest viewers are always included.
  • Judge it beyond the live. Look for new names coming back to shop in the days after the live, not only same-session sales.


FAQ


My audience is empty or very small. Why?
Meta needs some time to populate a new audience, and it needs a minimum number of people before it can deliver ads. Wait a few hours, or combine several lives into one audience.


Can I retarget a live that didn't run as an ad?
Yes. Any live video published on your Facebook Page can be selected in Step 1. Lives promoted with a Live Video Ad simply give you more new viewers to retarget.


Where do I see the results?
Check your ad in Meta Ads Manager, and your Live Video Ads performance in LiveMeUp. See Facebook Live Video Ads Analytics.

Updated on: 07/11/2026

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