What are lookalike audiences?

Facebook describes Lookalike Audiences as “a way to reach new people who are likely to be interested in your business because they’re similar to your best existing customers.”

In other words, Facebook will use your existing customer base to fetch you more prospects whose buyer personas “look like” your current audience.

Why should I be using lookalike audiences?

Lookalike audiences help you cut back on ad spend since you’ll be running conversion-focused ads that target people who are already somewhat interested in your product or service.

You can determine just how closely you’d like your lookalike audience to resemble your source audience on a scale of 1 to 10%. Your source audience or custom audience refers to the specific group of people that you would like your lookalike audience to be based on.

How can I maximize the use of lookalike audiences to generate quality leads?

#1 Email and Facebook page engagement lookalikes
• You can create lookalike audiences using your email list as well as people who engage with your Facebook page as source audiences.

• To really maximize lead generation using email and Facebook page engagement lookalikes, you want to use “expensive” data sets. Most people make the mistake of using “cheap” data sets i.e. source audiences comprising people who have subscribed to your product/service emails but have probably not performed any intended action, and many of them may not even really be interested in what you have to offer.

• Expensive data sets on the other hand are tied to a sale or sign up. For instance, if 100 people out of your source audience of 1000 have actually bought your product or service and/or signed up for some offer, then you want to create a new source audience comprising these 100 people before you create a lookalike audience.

• You also want to use “time spent” data sets when you create a lookalike audience. These data sets comprise warm audiences that are on the verge of becoming “expensive data sets” since they’ve spent the most time on your product or service pages.

#2 Messenger bot lookalikes
• There is no warmer audience than a Facebook Messenger bot audience. Since Messenger bots simulate personalized real-life conversation with a lot of back and forth, these users are typically highly engaged and super familiar with your business and content. Click here to read our take on the benefits of click-to-messenger and messenger bot lead generation.

• “Lookalike audiences will be more accurate if Facebook knows a lot about your audience” according to Social Media Examiner. It’s possible that your messenger bot lookalike audiences outperform your email or page engagement lookalikes. This is because click-to-messenger ads eliminate the need for lead capture since your prospects are already on Facebook, giving you a ton of data about them (Timezone, gender, profile photo, country, language, etc.). Facebook will be able to produce more refined lookalike audiences based on the extra information about prospects that click-to-messenger ads generate.

#3 Video engagement lookalikes – the 75% rule
• You want to create a lookalike audience based on a source audience of people who watch up to at least 75% of your videos.

• Video engagement stats are powerful in assessing who’s interested in your brand. According to WordStream, “marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users.” Additionally, 64% of consumers make a purchase after watching branded social videos as per TubularInsights. And so, the 75% viewing metric is helpful in identifying warm audiences.

#4 App activity lookalike
• A lot of people don’t first create a custom audience because they don’t think they have an app. What they don’t know is that the Facebook comments plugin is an app!

• For instance, you can create a lookalike audience after you create a custom audience based on people who comment on your blog post.

Bottom line

Using lookalike audiences will help you increase reach, sales, conversions, and traffic. They’ll help you target your ideal customer and reduce lead acquisition costs.

We’ve only just scratched the surface! Want to know more about how we can help you target your ideal consumer? Social Blue is a leading expert in generating high-quality leads by maximizing the lookalike audiences feature. Don’t hesitate to get in touch!