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An audience for one event in Meta and TikTok

Use the event's ID or its page address to build an ad audience of the people who looked at, or bought, one event.

Step by step

  1. Open the event's “Settings” tab and find “Ads for this event”. Copy the event ID and the page address. If the block says no pixel is on, add one under “Tracking” first.
  2. In Meta Ads Manager, open Audiences, create a Custom audience and choose Website. Pick your Meta pixel.
  3. Add a rule on the URL: the address contains the page path from the block, for example /e/your-event. Meta advises using “contains” with the shortest part of the address that tells this page from all others.
  4. Or use an event: choose ViewContent or Purchase and narrow it by the parameter content_ids equal to the event ID. Name the audience after the event and create it.
  5. In TikTok Ads Manager, open Audience, create an audience, choose Custom Audience and then Website Traffic. Under Include, pick your pixel and an event such as ViewContent.
  6. TikTok receives the event ID as content_id. TikTok's help page for Website Traffic audiences does not describe filtering an event by a parameter. If your Ads Manager offers it, filter by content_id equal to the event ID. If not, the audience covers every event your pixel sees.
  7. Viewed but did not buy: include ViewContent for this event, then exclude Purchase for it. On TikTok the purchase event is called CompletePayment, and the exclude option is “Exclude People”.
  8. Bought: include Purchase (TikTok: CompletePayment) for this event. Keep this audience out of the ads that sell the event, or use it as the source of a lookalike audience.

The ad networks decide how an audience fills and how big it must be before you can use it. Nothing here promises results.

Open this screen in the panel

Questions

Do I need a pixel for each event?
No. One pixel per account is enough. Every event sends its own ID, and the audience picks the event by that ID.
How long until the audience has people in it?
It fills as visitors reach the event page, so a new event starts empty. Meta and TikTok each set a minimum size before you can target an audience.
How many people does an audience need?
TikTok says a custom audience needs at least 1,000 people to be targeted in an ad group. Meta does not state a number in its documentation, only that an audience must reach a certain size.
What about a free event?
A free registration is reported as CompleteRegistration, not as a purchase. Use it in place of Purchase (TikTok: CompletePayment) in the steps above.
Does the ID change if I rename the event?
No. The ID belongs to the event and stays the same. The page address changes only if you change the address of the page.