Are you looking for a way to reach new potential customers on Facebook? One powerful tool at your disposal is the Facebook Lookalike Audience. In this post, we’ll walk you through the steps to create and use a Lookalike Audience for your ad campaigns, and share some best practices and tips to help you get the most out of this feature.

A Facebook Lookalike Audience is a target audience for your ad campaigns that is based on an existing audience that you have. This existing audience is known as the “seed” audience. Facebook uses its algorithms to find other people on the platform who are similar to the people in your seed audience and includes them in your Lookalike Audience. You can then use your Lookalike Audience to target your ad campaigns to people who are similar to your existing customers or target audience.

Facebook’s Lookalike Audience is a powerful tool that allows you to expand the reach of your business and target new customers who are similar to your current audience. This can be particularly useful if you are looking to grow your customer base and increase sales.

To get started with Lookalike Audiences, go to the “Audiences” section in Facebook Ads Manager and select “Create Audience” from the dropdown menu. From there, choose “Lookalike Audiences”

  1. Select a seed audience: The first step in creating a Lookalike Audience is to select an audience that represents the people you want to reach with your ads. This can be a Custom Audience that you have created using your own customer data such as an Email list, or Engagement From Your Facebook Account, Instagram Page, or Content. It can be a Saved Audience that you have created based on specific interest or behaviour.
  2. Choose The Audience Size: Next, you’ll need to decide on the size of your Lookalike Audience. Facebook offers several options: 1%, 2%, 3%, etc. The higher the percentage, the larger the Lookalike Audience will be, but it will also be less similar to your seed audience. You’ll need to decide which option is the best fit for your goals and budget.
  3. Select A Location: If you want to target a specific location with your Lookalike Audience, you can select one or more countries or region that has at least 5% of your seed audience.
  4. Name Your Lookalike Audience:  Give your Lookalike Audience a descriptive name that will help you identify it later.
  5. Create The Lookalike Audience: After you are done with the processes above, click on “Create Audience” to create your lookalike Audience. It may take few hours to more for this audience to propagate or to be fully generated, depending on the size of the seed audience.

See the video below for guidance on creating a Lookalike Audience.

1. Set Up An Ad Campaign: To use your Lookalike Audience, you’ll need to set up an ad campaign in the Facebook Ads Manage. Choose your ad objective, targeting options, budget, and other settings as you normally would.

2. Select Your Audience: In the “Audience” section of the ad set, select “Lookalike Audience” as targeting option. Then choose the Lookalike Audience that you want to target from the dropdown menu.

3. Create Your Ad: On the “Ad Level” of your campaign set up process, add the image or video  and text [ad copy] you planned to use for your campaign as you normally would.

4. Launch Your Ad: Once you are certain that your ad is set up and ready to go, click on “Submit” to launch it. Your ad will be shown to the people in your Lookalike Audience, and you can track the results in the Facebook Ads Manager dashboard.

  • Reach New Potential Customers: Lookalike Audience allows you to reach people on Facebook who are similar to your existing customers or target audience, potentially exposing your brand to a whole new group of potential customer. For example, if you sell handmade jewelry and have a custom Audience of people who have purchased from you in the past, you could create a Lookalike Audience of people who are similar to those customers and target your ad campaign to them.
  • Target Specific Demographics and Interest: With Lookalike Audiences, you can target specific demographics and interests based on the characteristics of your seed audience. For example, if you have a Saved Audience of people who you selected and targeted previously with interest in children outfits, you can create a Lookalike Audience of people who are similar to those individuals and target your ad campaigns to them.
  • Save Time And Effort: Creating and Targeting a Lookalike Audience can be much faster and easier than manually targeting your ad campaigns specific demographics and interests. You can simply select your seed audience, such as; a Saved Audience, from your Video Views, Page Interactions or more and let Facebook’s algorithms do the rest of the work.
  • Improved Ad Performance: Because Lookalike Audience are based on people who are similar to your existing customers or target audience, they can be highly targeted and relevant to your ad campaigns. This can lead to higher ad performance and better results.
  • Test New Markets: Lookalike Audiences can also be useful tool for testing new markets and determining which ones are most receptive to your products or services. For example, if you sell Logistic services and have a Custom Audience of this customers in Abuja, Nigeria you could create a Lookalike Audience in Kogi State, Nigeria or any state you have in mind to see how your ad campaigns perform in the market.

Do you need help setting up a targeted audience for your next ad campaign? Click here.