What Are Facebook Lookalike Audiences?

You might already know what type of customers your business thrives on, but even then you can still benefit from Facebook lookalike audiences.

While you’re targeting individuals, you can put your customers into certain categories. These groups will be based on characteristics like their geolocation, interests, or basic demographics. And you might know which characteristics are your gold mine – the ones that make an audience the best for your business.

What if you were able to have this perfect audience, but have an audience almost identical to them? This would expand the people you can target and thus, give you a much wider customer base. In this way a lookalike audience is extremely beneficial, but there’s more to it. Read on and find out how using these audiences on Facebook can help your business.

What Are Facebook Lookalike Audiences?

Facebook is not the first out there to try their hand a lookalike marketing. They just happen to currently be the best at it (for now).

To add to our previous description, here’s what Facebook lookalike audiences are. Using their specialized algorithm, Facebook analyze your current audience. They detect the characteristics which make your audience perform well, and they use this data to uncover an audience which “looks like” your current audience.

So, with this new audience, you can confidently target them under the assumption that your product or service will appeal to them. Why? Because the lookalike audience is derived from an audience you’re already targeting, potential customers who are like the ones you already sell to.

This is another way in which you can maximize the potential of the mass data that Facebook holds about its users. It allows you to go even further and effectively target your marketing to more people.

How Does It Work?

So, how do Facebook lookalike audiences work? To start with, you have to provide Facebook with a list of your current customers.

Since Facebook Video Ads are the most successful form of marketing currently in use on Facebook, maybe you want to target people who have watched your video content. You can achieve this by using a lookalike audience on Facebook.

Once you have a spreadsheet (or some type of file) with past customers’ data in it, head into the Facebook Ad Manager. Navigate to the Audiences section and start creating a Custom Audience. This should be based on the people who engaged with your videos in some way. Choose the parameters accordingly and save this as a custom audience.

That’s only the first part, since that’s still your original audience. To create the lookalike audience, go back to Ad Manager > Audiences but this time create a Facebook Lookalike Audience. Again you’ll be able to choose a variety of parameters, such as the most impactful countries.

It doesn’t have to just be for videos either. It depends on what your goal is and which audience you want to derive a lookalike audience from. As long as you’ve got the data, you’re good to go.

How Can I Use These Audiences?

To use this feature most effectively, you must provide Facebook with an existing audience sample that has a good size.

Similar to Facebook Remarketing, they allow you to target your content right where it will hit home the most. The minimum sample size is 100, but you should aim much higher. Try to have a much broader size. The larger the audience you supply, the more data points Facebook’s algorithm has to work with. At the very least, aim for 500 so that the lookalike targeting is relatively accurate.

You’ll also have the option to select a target audience size between 1-10%. Bear in mind though that 1% targeting will highlight the most lookalike audience, and the higher percentages will look less alike.

In addition, you can expand your campaigns over time if things go well. You can start your Facebook lookalike audience campaign in one country, track progress and improve it as you go, then expand into other countries.

Benefits of Lookalike Audiences on Facebook

Still not sold on the idea? Maybe this will change your mind. Here are a few of the benefits that come with using a lookalike audience.

  • Fresh Faces. Especially if you have a smaller and more limited audience, this is a great benefit. You don’t have to worry about constantly targeting the same people and overusing certain ads as much. You’ll have more people to target and ads won’t “wear out” as quickly.
  • Similar Conversion Rate. One risk of targeting a new audience is that your conversion rate will drop. With lookalike audiences, this isn’t a risk. You know your original audience performs well, and a lookalike audience won’t do much differently.
  • More Data. An important part of online marketing is the data you collect. It sets you up to target people the right way and uncovers how you can get them to convert more. Having a lookalike audience just gives you access to a lot more invaluable data.

These benefits should be enough to convince you that Facebook lookalike audiences are worth pursuing.

Start Using Lookalike Audiences

At some point, after months of tedious Facebook marketing, you’ll hit a point where you need to expand your reach. By targeting Facebook lookalike audiences, you can broaden your reach and target a whole new group of individuals.

This really is a no-brainer for businesses who already have their attention on Facebook marketing.

It doesn’t require any extra tools (everything you need is already in Facebook Ads Manager). And with a few pieces of data which you should already possess, you can create a lookalike audience in a matter of minutes.

This will introduce your brand to thousands upon thousands of new customers. Sound like too much to take on-board? Call KonvertLab and let us walk you through this important stage of your Facebook marketing campaign.

Share this post with your friends

Access the SaaS Cheatsheet 🔑

40+ Best Facebook Ads for SaaS that we use internally when building out high performing Facebook Ad Campaigns.⤵