THE MEDIA ENCYCLOPEDIA
Lookalike Audience
A Lookalike Audience (LLA) is a way to reach new prospective customers based on characteristics, qualities, and behaviors exhibited by your existing customers.
What is a Lookalike Audience (LLA)?
A Lookalike Audience (LLA) is a way to reach new prospective customers based on characteristics, qualities, and behaviors exhibited by your existing customers.
How do you create a Lookalike Audience (LLA)?
Although the concept of a Lookalike Audience (LLA) is available, conceptually, on other digital advertising platforms such as Google, the term and technique is native to the Facebook Ads platform.
When using Facebook to create a Lookalike Audience (LLA), information gathered from existing data sources — such as a customer file or a previously created Custom Audience — is used to generate a best guess as to which “other” people may be best for you to target.
To create a Lookalike Audience (LLA) on Facebook, advertisers must provide three specific data points: Lookalike Source, Audience Location, and Audience Size.
Per Facebook, the Lookalike Source is the source audience — the people you already have captured and for whom you want to find more.
The Audience Location gives Facebook a specific geographic region on which to focus. At present, Facebook allows advertisers to select geographies down to the country level or based on specific geographic regions, such as App Store Regions and Free Trade Regions.
Finally, the Audience Size determines the effective sample size of your Lookalike Audiene (LLA). Facebook offers advertisers a sliding scale from 1% to 10% of the total population of your selected location. Usually, when creating Lookalike Audiences (LLA), it is recommended to select the broadest possible Audience Size.
What is an example of a Lookalike Audience (LLA)?
As noted above, a Lookalike Audience (LLA) is based on people who have exhibited some sort of actionable or valuable behavior relative to your business.
As an example, Facebook can create a Lookalike Audience (LLA) based on people who like your Facebook Page, based on activity from conversion pixels (such as sales on websites which are using the Facebook Pixel) or custom audiences such as those who subscribed to an email newsletter or who completed a lead generation form.
For an eCommerce brand or a DTC brand whose sales come primarily from a website with a Facebook Pixel and established conversion events, such as a purchase even or an add to cart event, it would be a good idea to create a Lookalike Audience (LLA) for each.
For the advertiser — in this case, the eCommerce or DTC brand who wants to reach people who are similar to those who have already purchased from their website — the Lookalike Audience (LLA) would be based on a custom audience of website visitors who completed a purchase.
From there, the advertiser would select the country or geographic region they would like to target. For a U.S.-based advertiser, the United States is likely the most practical, particularly if shipping is of consideration.
Finally, the advertiser would select an Audience Size of 10%, giving them the largest possible pool from which to reference as Facebook systematically prospects on your behalf.
THE MEDIA ENCYCLOPEDIA