Getting Started with Facebook’s Look-alike Audience

Facebook is a powerful digital marketing tool that any business, large or small, should leverage to its benefit. Facebook marketing enables brands to reach out to the platforms more than 2 billion active users around the globe to spread brand awareness, generate leads, and drive conversions. One of those powerful tools in Facebook marketing is its look-alike audiences. For those yet to use this tool, let’s take a look at what’s required to get started using Facebook lookalike audiences in digital marketing campaigns.

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What is Facebook Lookalike Audience?

The look-alike audience tool in Facebook marketing is a way for businesses to reach new customers based on the activities and characteristics of existing customers. The lookalike audience tool allows business users to choose a source audience (customer or otherwise) and then identifies common qualities of the customers within that audience. Facebook then uses that information to find users similar to that custom audience. In short, Facebook finds customers similar to the ones already interacting with (likes, shares, follows, etc.) the brand on the platform. Ads in the brand’s digital marketing campaign then appear in front of those look-alike audiences.

Read More: 3 Ways to Take Advantage of Facebook’s Advanced Matching Pixel

How to Get Started with Lookalike Audiences

Before getting started with a look-alike audience, brands need to decide whether to use a custom audience or pixel data. A Custom Audience is one created using information on existing customers, while pixel data uses information from mobile app data or fans of the brand page on Facebook.

Once a decision is made regarding which audience to use as a source, users must go to “Audiences” and select “Lookalike Audience” from the drop-down menu under “Create Audience.” From here, creating a lookalike audience requires a series of decisions that include:

  • Selecting the country/countries to search for a similar set of people in

  • Set the desired audience size

In order to use any given source audience, it must contain at least 100 people from a single country to serve as a basis for the lookalike audience. Additionally, 500 separate lookalike audiences can be created from a single source audience. When using a custom audience as the source, those users will be excluded from the lookalike audience, meaning only new viewers see digital marketing content.

Facebook offers two tips for getting started with lookalike audiences. First, try to use source audiences between 1,000 and 50,000 people. For better results, consider using a source audience with the brand’s best customers rather than every single customer. The best customers interact with the brand the most and convert more frequently, creating a look-alike audience more likely to convert.

Read More: 3 Skills Every Facebook Advertising Pro Has Mastered

Benefits of Lookalike Audiences

There are many benefits to Facebook marketing and lookalike audiences. First and foremost, brands get twice the value. Knowing what types of ads appeal to existing audiences, using that audience as the source for a lookalike audience increases the likelihood of converting new audiences with similar characteristics. Additionally, brands can adjust how lookalike audiences match the original source audience. Brands can target a new audience that shares 90% of the source audience’s traits, or branch out by lowering that commonality overlap to try and reach a broader base.

Most importantly though, Facebook lookalike audiences enable digital marketers to constantly monitor the performance of Facebook Ads. Users can track the performance of ads, see who the ads are shown to, and figure out how the audience is responding. This enables brands to nip potential issues in the bud, adjust ads and audiences, and do so before it starts costing the company money.

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