Lookalike Audiences Lookalike audiences let you find more people who are very similar to a customer list (custom audience) you care about, and then target them with Facebook ads to extend your reach and results. It's a simple, self- serve feature, and there's no added cost for using lookalikes with your custom audiences; the team just asks that you share back your results so that we can learn from your success. Over more than a dozen tests we have seen custom audience lookalike clusters drive many different metrics including fan acquisition, site registration, offsite purchases, and coupon claims. From what we have seen, custom audience lookalike clusters perform best when they are used as a replacement to standard demographic and interest targeting. Make sure to re- downloads account in Power Editor after you've been whitelisted, in order to see the "Create Similar Audience" button. This function will give the option to optimize for Similarity or Greater Reach:
Similarity: When you optimize for similarity, Facebook will find the people that are most similar to your existing audience. The estimated reach of the new audience will be smaller, but the match will be more precise. This option will produce an audience of 1-2M people. Greater Reach: When you optimize for reach, Facebook will find more people who are similar but may be a less precise match to your audience. This option will produce an audience of 8-9M people. Note that the lookalike audience sizes will always be 1-2M and 8-9M, regardless of the size of the seed audience. These audiences represent the 1% or 5% of the US population that looks most like the audience you started with. We hope to offer more granular controls in the future but these are the current options. Click "Create". In 24-48 hours, the lookalike audience should be ready for targeting in the account. The audience will be available for targeting through all buying channels (self- serve in power editor, through Ads PMDs, on Facebook IO), with all kinds of media (standard ads, page post ads, news feed, RHS, etc.). EXTERNAL Q&A How do I create a lookalike audience? 1. Create a custom audience in the power editor tool using a list of email addresses, phone numbers, or Facebook user IDs (if applicable). 2. Select your custom audience, and click Create Similar Audience. 3. Select whether you want to optimize for similarity or greater reach. a. Similarity: Find 1-2M people that are most similar to your custom audience. The estimated reach of the new audience will be smaller, but the match will be more precise. b. Greater Reach: Find 8-9M people who are similar but may be a less precise match. 4. Click "Create". In 24-48 hours, the lookalike audience should be ready for targeting in the account. Audience Creation Tips What kinds of inputs can I use as a seed audience? You must use a custom audience as the input seed to build a lookalike audience. Talk to your Facebook account manager for more info on custom audiences. TIP: The seed audience should be composed of people who have taken the action you re trying to drive. If you are trying to drive purchases of a particular product, then upload an audience made up of people who have bought that or similar products in the past. How big should my seed audience be? The seed audience should be at least 5,000 users, but we recommend using at least 30,000 users. This helps ensure there s sufficient data to find the best lookalikes.
Can I choose the size of my lookalike audience? Audiences optimized for similarity will contain 1-2M people, while audiences optimized for greater reach will contain 8-9M people. These sizes will be consistent regardless of the seed audience size. It s not possible to select any other audience sizes at this time. How long will it take for the lookalike audience to be ready? Your lookalike audience will be ready to use for targeting in your account 24-48 hours after you create it. Click Check Updates to refresh your audience list. TIP: If the seed audience is NOT new (i.e. was created >24 hours ago), the lookalike audience will take closer to 24 hours to be created; if the seed audience is new (i.e. created in the last 24 hours), the lookalike will take more like 48 hours to become available and ready for targeting. If I change my seed audience, will my lookalikes automatically update? No, once you create a lookalike audience it will remain static. If you make significant changes to your seed audience, you may want to create a new lookalike from scratch. Do I need to refresh my lookalikes frequently if I don't make changes? No, you can keep using your lookalike audience as- is. It's unlikely that your lookalike audience will change meaningfully if you haven't changed the composition of the seed audience. Although people do update their likes and interests over time, the evolution is not rapid enough to require frequent refreshes. Can I create lookalike audiences through the API / a PMD? No, this beta feature is currently only available to whitelisted clients in power editor. Can I find lookalikes of an audience that's been shared with me? No, only the owner (creator) of an audience can use the lookalike function. Can I use view tags with lookalike audiences? No, this is not currently allowed. How does this compare to lookalike audiences that my DSP creates? We don't have insight into how every other company creates lookalike audiences, but in general, companies create lookalikes by starting with a seed set of people, and then finding people who look like them based on the data they have access to. For a cookie- based provider, this generally means browsing data (people who have browsed the same sites or kinds of sites). At this stage, Facebook's lookalikes are built using the information people have shared and connected with on Facebook.
Campaign and Measurement Setup What kind of media can I use with lookalike audiences? You can use lookalike audiences to target any kind of self- service, all- Facebook media, including both Page post ads and ads that link offsite. If you re interested in buying media with an IO to reach a lookalike audience, please talk to your account manager. Measurement best practices To test the effectiveness of lookalike audiences compared to standard demographic and interest targeting: Run the ads at the same time, with the same bid and creative Results are more comparable when the comparison interest and demographic targeted group is of a similar size Results are more comparable when average frequency is similar Look at all of the metrics that matter to you because some audiences won't drive all KPI's equally. For example, some lookalike audiences may drive purchases at a very high rate but not drive registrations with the same success. Additional usage tips If your product only appeals to people of a particular gender or geography then you may want to use that targeting in addition to the custom audience lookalike targeting Keep in mind that the "Similar" custom audience lookalike population is also included in the "Reach" custom audience lookalike population. If you are testing both of these groups, then you may want to exclude the "Similar" group from the "Reach" targeted group to make sure that the targeting is mutually exclusive Troubleshooting Why don t I see the Create Similar Audience button? Redownload your account in power editor. If you still don t see the option, contact your account manager with your ad account ID to ensure they ve whitelisted you. Why isn t my lookalike audience available yet? Your lookalike audience will be ready to use in your account 24-48 hours after you create it. Click Check Updates to refresh your audience list. Why can t I select Create similar audience for a custom audience?
Keep in mind that this option is only available for custom audiences that you create and manage. This does not include audiences that were shared with you from another account. Known feature requests / limitations Feature requests: A sliding scale or more granular options for lookalike audience size Controls for lookalike accuracy rather than pure size Note that size is a fairly clean proxy for accuracy - "Similarity" audiences capture the top ~1% of similar users while "Reach" audiences capture the top ~5% The ability to use a fanbase instead of custom audience as a seed to build lookalikes Insights about the seed and/or lookalikes API access Current limitations: Only two settings - reach vs. similarity; we know that some clients want a sliding scale to test different sizes but this is not yet an option. Lookalike audiences will contain only US users No auto- refresh: The lookalike audience will not automatically update if the advertiser updates the seed audience. The advertiser should simply create a new lookalike if the seed has meaningfully changed (e.g. they refreshed the list with a large new influx of customers). Note that we don't expect natural profile evolution to change lookalikes dramatically over short periods of time so there is no need to recreate the lookalikes if the seed hasn't changed, e.g. for the sake of "keeping it fresh". If the seed audience has qualities like gender or geo built in, the lookalikes may not adhere to the same limits. E.g. if you have all female customers, the lookalike set may still contain men if those men are deemed close lookalikes of the women customers' profiles. If your product only appeals to people of a particular gender or geography then you may want to use that targeting in addition to the custom audience lookalike targeting.