Audience Insights Tool: What Replaced It on Facebook
Facebook’s Audience Insights tool is gone: Meta’s help says it “is no longer available” and points you to Meta Business Suite Insights instead. Its Audience tab covers people who already follow you. For people you haven’t reached yet, the old tool’s job is now split between Insights’ Potential audience view, Business Suite’s ad audiences and Ads Manager’s estimated audience size.
This guide maps each piece to where it lives now, with Meta’s steps. Meta’s other business tools are compared in the business tools section of our Facebook guide.
Is Facebook Audience Insights still available?
No. Meta’s Business Help Center says: “Audience Insights is no longer available. Instead, we encourage people to use Meta Business Suite Insights to access audience data across Facebook and Instagram.” We found no live Meta page that says when it was retired, so we don’t give it a date.
Checked against Meta Business Help Center: Create a new audience from Meta Business Suite Insights.Not verified
The date most guides repeat, 1 July 2021, belongs to a different tool. Meta’s Facebook Analytics notice says the standalone Facebook Analytics tool “is no longer available as of July 1, 2021” and recommends Meta Business Suite, Ads Manager and Events Manager instead. Page Insights and Instagram Insights weren’t affected.
Checked against Meta Business Help Center: Facebook Analytics is No Longer Available.
What the old Audience Insights tool did
It helped marketers learn about the audiences they wanted to reach. Facebook launched Audience Insights in Ads Manager on 8 May 2014 for US marketers, as a tool showing aggregate information about target audiences, such as geography, demographics and purchase behaviour, and said global access would follow “in the coming months”. That announcement now survives only as an Internet Archive copy.
Checked against Facebook for Business news: Audience Insights (Internet Archive capture).Archived copy, 21 May 2014
No live Meta page we found still describes its other features, so we don’t list them.
What replaced it: Meta Business Suite Insights
Meta Business Suite Insights. It reports organic and paid results for your Facebook Page and Instagram profile, in tabs that may include Overview (the past 28 days), Results, Audience, Content and Ads; not every account sees every tab. Checked against Meta Business Help Center: About Insights in Meta Business Suite on desktop For people who don’t follow you yet, Meta’s steps start in Insights’ Potential audience view, where you filter the graphs and save an audience for Ads Manager:
On a computer:
- In Meta Business Suite, click Insights.
- Click Potential audience and use the graphs.
- Click Filter at the top right and choose your filters.
- Click Create audience, name it, then click Save audience (it can then be used in Ads Manager).
Checked against Meta Business Help Center: Create a new audience from Meta Business Suite Insights.
If you have more than one ad account, Meta says to pick one from the dropdown at the top left first. New to the Suite? Our Meta Business Suite guide walks through it.
What the Audience tab shows you
Your current followers, not the wider market. Meta says Insights > Audience shows these for a Facebook Page or Instagram account, and that all its metrics are estimates and in development:
- Lifetime followers
- Age and gender
- Top cities
- Top countries
On a computer:
- Go to Meta Business Suite > Insights.
- Click Audience.
Checked against Meta Business Help Center: About Facebook and Instagram audience insights in Meta Business Suite.
Meta also describes a separate audience view for Facebook videos, covering the last 14 days.
To turn these numbers into goals, our social media KPIs guide covers which metrics to report, and the free social media audit template scores each account.
How to build ad audiences now
When you create an ad in Meta Business Suite, Meta lists these audience options, with detailed targeting by demographics, interests and behaviours:
- Advantage+ audience
- People you choose through targeting (manual targeting)
- People who like your Page, with or without people similar to them (your Page needs at least 50 followers)
- A new audience you save to reuse
Checked against Meta Business Help Center: Audience targeting options for ads in Meta Business Suite.
Some detailed targeting isn’t available when the audience includes people under 18, or older in some countries. For custom audience targeting, retargeting and campaigns with several ad sets, Meta points you to Ads Manager. Checked against Meta Business Help Center: When to use Meta Business Suite and when to use Meta Ads Manager
In Ads Manager, the estimated audience size updates as you set location, age, gender, language and other targeting. Meta warns: “Estimates may vary over time and should not be interpreted as the number of Meta Accounts who will actually view your ads.”
Checked against Meta Business Help Center: About estimated audience size.
Where to find each audience insight today
No single Meta tool replaces Audience Insights; each job it did now has its own home. Here’s the map:
| You wanted to | Use this now | Meta’s caveat |
|---|---|---|
| See your followers’ age, gender and location | Business Suite: Insights > Audience | Estimates, and in development |
| Understand your Facebook video audience | Insights: the video audience view | Covers the last 14 days |
| Explore people who don’t follow you yet | Insights > Potential audience, then Create audience | You save it to use in Ads Manager |
| Check how many people your targeting matches | Ads Manager’s estimated audience size | Not the number who will see your ad |
| Advertise to people like your followers | A Business Suite ad aimed at people who like your Page and similar people | Your Page needs at least 50 followers |
Planning what to post for that audience? Our Facebook marketing strategy builds the plan.
Outfeed AI has no analytics or audience data, so use Meta’s Insights for everything on this page. Outfeed handles the publishing: describe a post in one chat and it goes to your Facebook Page (Pages only, never profiles or groups) and up to eight other networks, with TikTok posts publishing as private for now while TikTok reviews the app.
Publish your next Page post with Outfeed AI
FAQ
Is Facebook Audience Insights still available?
No. Meta’s help says Audience Insights is no longer available and encourages people to use Meta Business Suite Insights for audience data across Facebook and Instagram. We found no live Meta page that gives a retirement date; the 1 July 2021 date many blogs quote is when Facebook Analytics, a different tool, was retired.
Where is Audience Insights in Meta Business Suite?
There’s no tool by that name now. In Meta Business Suite, go to Insights, then Audience, to see your followers, their age and gender, and your top cities and countries. Meta also describes an audience view for Facebook videos, covering the last 14 days. For people who don’t follow you yet, Insights has a Potential audience view.
What replaced Facebook Audience Insights?
Meta points people to Meta Business Suite Insights. Its Audience tab describes your current followers, and its Potential audience view lets you filter and save an audience to use in Ads Manager. When you build an ad, Ads Manager’s estimated audience size estimates how many accounts match your targeting, which Meta says isn’t a count of who will see the ad.
How do I see the demographics of my Facebook followers?
In Meta Business Suite, open Insights and click Audience. Meta lists lifetime followers, age and gender, top cities and top countries for your Facebook Page or Instagram account. Meta adds that all of these metrics are estimates and in development, so treat them as a guide rather than an exact count.