How to Import Klaviyo Lists to Facebook Ads for Custom Audiences

Leveraging your email list effectively is one of the most powerful strategies in e-commerce marketing. By importing your Klaviyo segments into Facebook (Meta) Ads, you can unlock advanced retargeting capabilities and build high-quality Lookalike Audiences based on your actual customer data.

In this tutorial, I will walk you through the technical process of exporting your list from Klaviyo, formatting the data for Facebook, and setting up your audiences in Business Manager.

Step 1: Export Your List from Klaviyo

The first step is getting the right data out of your email service provider. We want to ensure we aren't just getting contact info, but also value metrics to help Facebook prioritize high-value customers.

1. Navigate to Lists & Segments in your Klaviyo dashboard.
2. Select the specific list or segment you want to use.
3. Click Manage List and select Export List to CSV.

Selecting the Right Properties

When the export prompt appears, you need to select specific properties to ensure Facebook can match these profiles to users on their platform. Select the following fields:

• Email
• First Name
• Last Name
• Phone Number
• City
• State
• Country
• Zip Code

Crucial Step: Search for and add Total Customer Lifetime Value. This allows us to create value-based audiences, telling Facebook not just who your customers are, but how valuable they are to your business.

Once selected, click Start Export.

Step 2: Clean and Format Your CSV Data

Facebook requires specific header formats to map data automatically. Open your downloaded CSV in a spreadsheet editor (like Google Sheets or Excel) and clean up the data.

Required Header Mapping

Rename your column headers to match Facebook's expected format:

Klaviyo Export Header	Facebook Required Header
Email	email (lowercase)
First Name	fn
Last Name	ln
Phone Number	phone
City	ct
State	st
Country	country (lowercase)
Zip Code	zip
Total Customer Lifetime Value	value

Tip: Browse through your data rows briefly to ensure there are no formatting errors or test profiles that might skew your data. Once formatted, download the file as a CSV.

Step 3: Import into Facebook Business Manager

Now that your data is clean, head over to your Facebook Business Manager.

1. Navigate to the Audiences tab.
2. Click Create Audience and select Custom Audience.
3. Select Customer List as your source.
4. When asked about the file template, simply click Next (since we have already manually formatted the headers).

Configuring the Value Field

1. Upload your cleaned CSV file.
2. Important: Check the box that says "Yes, my list includes a column for customer value."
3. Select your value column from the dropdown.
4. Name your audience (e.g., "Klaviyo Export - Giveaway Entrants") and click Next.

Facebook will review the mapping. Since we used the correct header codes (fn, ln, email, etc.), everything should map automatically. Click Import & Create.

Step 4: Create Lookalike Audiences

Once the import is complete, you can immediately use this data to generate a Lookalike Audience.

A Lookalike Audience leverages Facebook's algorithm to analyze the data points of your uploaded list and find the top 1% (or more) of users on Facebook who share similar traits. This is incredibly effective for scaling campaigns to cold traffic.

1. From the success screen, click Create Lookalike Audience.
2. Select your Location (e.g., United States).
3. Select your Audience Size (1% is usually the highest quality, most closely resembling your source data).
4. Click Create Audience.

Final Notes

It will take some time for Facebook to populate these audiences. The matching process happens first, followed by the algorithm generating the Lookalike profiles. While you can attach these audiences to campaigns immediately, I recommend waiting a short period for them to fully populate for optimal performance.

By following this process, you are bridging the gap between your owned marketing channels (email) and paid acquisition, allowing for significantly smarter targeting in your ad campaigns.