Facebook Lookalike Audience Basics in 2020
Social Media Marketing can be a very confusing realm to navigate, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience in the field. Confusing questions are bound to pop up, such as “how do I increase my outreach?”.
It used to be you just put up a sign in the window, but now, you have to target specific types of people on the Internet for maximized results. And not only that, you have to make sure you target the right group of people.
Facebook Lookalike Audiences helps you do just that. We have a pretty affordable Facebook Lookalike Audience Gig that might come in handy for you.
Acting as a sort of Tinder for marketers, it analyzes what you look for in the ideal customer and based on that, finds you potential client matches for your business.
Let’s have a closer look at how to use it successfully.
But how do I know what my ideal customer looks like?
To the inexperienced eye, this might seem like a complex process, but it’s remarkably easy. Facebook Lookalike Audiences looks at your current list of customers, starting with the most loyal/successful and then broadening its’ search to find people with similar interests, aka potential new customers.
Facebook Lookalike Audiences uses an initial source audience to find these ‘lookalikes’. Also known as seed audiences, you can create these ‘source audiences’ in a number of ways:
Your Website Visitors
It’s important to know who has shown an interest in your business. By looking at the people who visited your website or clicked on a product, Facebook can then locate similar people who might also, in future, do the same thing.
To create a source audience from website visitors, you need to install Facebook pixel, so that the app can track who visits your site and help you create an audience based on that data.
Online Engagement
That all-important word in social media marketing. A source audience can also be created by analyzing the people who reacted, commented or shared your content on Facebook or Instagram. Engagement data can also be collected from videos, events, etc. Take a look at our Facebook KPI article to further study this.
Offline Engagement
You don’t have to rely on social media interaction to run a successful social media campaign. You can also create a ‘source audience’ from people who interacted with your business IRL, by phone, in store or over e-mail.
Your Own Customer List
Facebook can build a source audience by using client info that you provide (such as an e-mail subscription list, telephone numbers or addresses), that it uses to find these people and their ‘lookalikes’.
Monitoring App
Facebook SDK offers tracking on people who have installed or used your app With different options for different types of apps, it focuses on your current clients to source out potential new ones.
Of course, you can use more than one of the above approaches at the same time, and you can also add extra factors, such as age, gender or interests, if you feel that would be beneficial for your business.
Remember that source audiences need at least 100 people to work.
Tips for Maximizing the Effect of Facebook Lookalike Audiences
1. It's not just quantity, it's the quality.
Facebook usually asks you to provide as many customers as possible, because the more data you feed it, the more accurate their results will be.
However, quantity isn’t everything. Sure, it may look good on paper if you have 3,000 customers rather than 300, but the quality of those customers plays an important part, too.
Keep in mind that you’re playing the match-making game here. You don’t want to be matched with that horrible sleaze you dated when you were 25. It’s the same with customers. Leave out any bad customer experiences and try to focus on the best, most loyal customers you had over time.
Avoid broad settings such as “all website visitors” - you don’t want them all, you only want those who installed the app or purchased your product, those who came back when they needed something else.
Take the extra time to determine the right customer.
2. Make sure your source audience matches your goal.
Before you start playing around with a Lookalike Audience, first determine what you want this audience to do for you. Are you trying to get more likes to your page? Then focusing on your actual customers might not do it.
Remember, you have customers who don’t like your page on social media and you have followers who have never actually used your services (sadly).
So, make sure you target the right group of people. If you want to increase brand awareness and just make an impression and maybe boost up that follower count, then create a source audience based on your existing followers.
Likewise, if you want to get more actual buyers, focus on your past customers.
3. Go through the information provided on a regular basis.
If you’re the one who’s providing the information about your clientele (e.g. e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc.), then update it periodically. An old, out-of-date list will slow both you and your sales down.
Likewise if you’re using online data to format your source audience. Focus on recent sales, website visitors, page likes (last 30 or 60 days, no more), to understand your target audience.
An old customer from a year ago won’t help you or your Lookalike Audience garner new fame.
4. Focus on the exact location
Are you aware where most of your current customers come from? In today’s online medium, this can be difficult to keep track of and seem irrelevant (even though it’s far from that).
Of course, Facebook will prioritize similar interest over similar geographic position, but by focusing your source audience on a certain country might help you extend your reach in that place.
Focusing on one location also means you don’t waste funds or focus on needless campaigns. If you’re only a local vendor, advertising to people halfway across the globe isn’t really going to cut it, is it?
5. Play around with size
Not sure what size your source audience should be? No worries, you have time to experiment with both larger and smaller scales. A small audience will usually be more precise, meaning that Facebook will be better able to focus on similarities and choose more alike people.
However, a bigger audience will extend your potential reach and broaden your business’s horizons.
So, it’s important to understand what you’re going for here. If you want more people to know and maybe like your brand, then go with the broader, more general audience. If, however, you wish to get similar people and optimize your customer list, we suggest opting for a smaller, more specific audience.
6. Don’t limit yourself to Lookalike Audiences – experiment!
In marketing success, diversity is key. Don’t just pick one advertising campaign and stick with it, but rather, try multiple things to grow your outreach.
For a start, focus on attracting new clients with similar interests, age, gender etc. You can do this, of course, by using the Lookalike Audience.
You can then combine this with a regular ad campaign or a series of video ads.
From there on, adapt and improve. See what people interacted most with your campaign and base your new campaign off of that. See which campaign was a total flop and learn from your mistakes. If you want to grow, in any market, it is paramount that you be permanently alert and open to new strategies.
7. Use a set of Lookalike Audiences
One source audience can spawn a dozen Lookalike Audiences that don’t overlap with one another. You can segment your source audience into groups, ranging from the most similar to the least similar – you can read more about doing this here.
8. Get creative with your Audiences!
Did you know you could build Custom Audiences? Again, it’s important that you narrow down your search for the ideal customer using past experiences.
Your Custom Audience depends on the custom goal. If you’re looking to launch a video ad campaign, then look for people who engaged with your videos. If you’re preparing a sales campaign, then base your Lookalike Custom Audience off of past customers.
Bonus Tip: Consider using the Customer Lifetime Value Option
This is really great if your business involves multiple long-term transactions, you can create a customer lifetime value custom audience.
This specific audience focuses on customer value and picks out your biggest customers and separates them from the casual, one-time-buyers, helping you better target your campaigns in future.
A 5-Step Guide to Using Facebook Lookalike Audiences:
- Go to Facebook Ads Manager and then go to Audiences. Click ‘Create Audience’ and choose ‘Lookalike Audience’.
- Determine your source audience (a custom audience determined by various factors, such as interests, age and past engagement).
- Decide which countries or geographical areas you wish to target (your source audience doesn’t need to contain people from that area).
- Choose an audience size. You can do this on a 1-10 scale (the lower numbers are more exact, while the bigger numbers have a wider reach). Facebook will then estimate your overall reach.
- Create the ad! You only need to go to the ‘Adverts Manager’ section, click on Tools and then on Audiences, select your custom Lookalike Audience and then simply create the ad.
Note: You need to wait for your Lookalike Audience to be completed (up to 24h waiting time) to be able to create the ad.
And that’s it. We hope our guide has helped you understand the world of Facebook Lookalike Audiences! For further help, you can take a look at our Facebook Full Management Service.
