As the old adage goes, if you’re for everyone, you’re for no one. For Vitaly, the Toronto-based direct-to-consumer brand known for its bold statement accessories crafted from recycled stainless steel, the right audience is everything.
“There's a lot of brands out there that go, ‘We're going to sell to everyone,’” founder Shane Vitaly Foran says on the Shopify Masters podcast. “We've never taken that approach. Our approach has always been to really define who our audience is going to be, and then go after them.”
But identifying an ideal customer and marketing to them is just step one. What happens after you’ve found your core audience? How do you expand? This is where using a lookalike audience comes in: an algorithmic approach to targeting that relies on your existing customers as a compass.
What are lookalike audiences?
Lookalike audiences are groups of people who share significant traits with your current customers. Facebook introduced a lookalike audiences tool in 2013, and other platforms, including Google and LinkedIn, have since added similar features.
You can use lookalike audiences to serve ads to users who are similar to your loyal customers. To build these audience segments, an algorithm uses data points from your existing audience—like demographic information, shared interests, and online behaviors—to surface “lookalikes” who might be interested in your product.
How can lookalike audiences help my business?
Lookalike audiences allow ecommerce businesses to expand into new markets, diversify their marketing strategy, and attract high-quality leads. Since lookalike audiences share characteristics with your existing customers, you can target them with similar marketing campaigns.
This eliminates guesswork because you already know which visuals, tones, and messaging resonate with your target audience. Thus, you get more value from your ad spend, allowing you to expand your reach not by courting views at random, but with custom ad sets informed by likelihood of engagement and real customer data.
How to set up lookalike audiences on Facebook
It’s easy to create lookalike audiences on Facebook. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
1. Create a custom audience
To create a lookalike audience, log in to your Meta ad account, then navigate to the “Audience” view. From there, you’ll need a custom audience to work from; you can create a custom audience by uploading a list of customer emails. Use an email list you gather from customers when they place an order via your online store or POS system—and consider narrowing this list down to only your best customers.
Your source audience must contain at least 100 people from the same country. Meta recommends source audiences include between 1,000 and 5,000 people.
2. Select your lookalike audience size
Facebook allows you to choose an audience size ranging from 1% to 10% of your target country’s population. The smaller the percentage, the more closely aligned the resulting audience segment will be to your source audience.
For example, if you set your lookalike audience size to two, your ads will be shown to the top 2% of Facebook users in your target country whose interests align most closely with your custom audience. Choosing a larger percentage will give your campaign a broader reach, but the additional audience members may not be as closely aligned with your existing customers.
3. Finalize your lookalike audience
Finally, click “Create Audience.” Your lookalike audience may take up to three days to complete (during which time it will be labeled “Populating”). During this time, you can begin serving ads to profiles that have been added to your lookalike audience. Once it’s labeled “Ready,” you’ll know your lookalike audience is fully assembled.
Tips for using lookalike audiences
Lookalike audiences are simple to use, but there are a few ways to make the most of this segmentation tool:
Identify the most effective source audience
Aim to select a lookalike source that’s ideal for the content you plan to promote. For example, if you run a clothing brand and you’re running ads for a new line of baby clothes, you might build a source audience based on an existing segment of customers who have purchased maternity dresses.
Experiment with audience size
A smaller, more precisely aligned lookalike audience may be more likely to convert, but if you’re hoping to build brand awareness, it may be worth serving ads to a larger population. Meta allows you to create multiple lookalike audiences and run them concurrently, so you can even combine approaches (and A/B test them) depending on your needs. For instance, you might create one lookalike audience set to 1% and one set to 5%, serve your ads to both, and measure how the conversion rates compare.
Pay attention to overlaps
When building lookalike audiences from different custom sources (like email list subscribers or past customers), you’ll likely encounter overlaps. To avoid showing the same ads to the same customers targeted by an active lookalike audience, navigate to “Audiences,” then “Actions,” then “Show Audience Overlap.” If the percentage is significant, it may not be worth running a campaign targeting the new audience. Instead, try a different lookalike source—or try a new targeting approach based purely on demographics and interests.
Lookalike audiences FAQ
What is a lookalike audience?
A lookalike audience is an advertising segmentation tool that allows you to create and target new customers who share similar characteristics with your most engaged followers or segments of your existing customer base. These lookalikes may be more likely to be interested in your business.
When should I use lookalike audiences?
A lookalike audience can be used to address various challenges or opportunities in your overall growth strategy. If your current ads aren’t moving the needle, lookalike audiences informed by your existing customers can be a tool to improve engagement and more accurate targeting. If you’re looking to expand and engage a broader audience, lookalike audiences use specificity and shared interests to attract those most likely to connect with your offering.
Do Facebook lookalike audiences still work?
The overall worth of lookalike audiences is up for debate among marketers in the age of artificial intelligence, especially as some platforms, like LinkedIn, have begun to sunset their version of the tool in favor of AI-powered “predictive audiences.” But for most small business owners and ecommerce businesses, Facebook lookalike audiences are an easy way to increase ROI on social media ads and find their footing with warm leads in larger audiences.
