When it comes to marketing and sales, there’s one factor that makes the difference between failure and success: leads. However, getting quality leads isn’t as easy as it looks.
This is why you need to shift your strategy to targeting leads that will boost your bottom line.
You need to invest time and money in creating lookalike audiences.
What is a lookalike audience?
The term lookalike audience is a term coined by Facebook to describe a group of prospects that represents your perfect audience. This is an audience that is likely to be more engaged in your content and ads, leading you to higher conversions.
Source: AdEspresso
In order to create your lookalike audience, you first need a source audience, an audience that represents the kind of people you are targeting. In this case, it will be your email list.
A lookalike audience is a great way to reduce your lead acquisition costs, as it helps your target your ideal customer. This is essential in increasing your conversion rates and reducing your lead acquisition costs.
How to measure the size of your lookalike audience
Deciding on the size of your lookalike audience is crucial to your finding leads that more closely match your desired personas. You can determine the audience size you want from 1% to 10% of a population.
However, the larger your audience size, the less targeted your lookalike audience becomes. Start with 1% and grow from there gradually to receive the best results.
Facebook recommends creating an audience between 1,000 to 50,000 people—both size and quality affect the ad’s overall engagement results.
How do you create a lookalike audience from your email list?
You will need to create a segmented list upon which to base your lookalike audience, and this will depend on what your goals are for creating the lookalike audience. To make things easy, download your email list as a CSV file.
In Facebook Ads Manager, go to the Audiences dashboard and click “Create Audience.” A drop-down menu will appear, then you will select Custom Audience, as you will be creating your audience based on your email list and not based on a Facebook audience.
Next, click on Customer File in the pop-up box that will appear. You have two options for adding your email list here. You can either upload the CSV file (which is easier) or import it from your email service provider.
Now that Facebook has your data, you can then map the identifiers that will help the Facebook algorithm create a lookalike audience. The more identifiers you have, the more targeted your lookalike audience will be.
After selecting your identifiers, click Upload and Create. You will then see a progress bar showing you the steps you’ve already covered. Click on Next Steps, and, under that, select Create a Lookalike Audience.
A “Create a Lookalike Audience” box will open and you’ll see your email audience in the Source field.
The last step is to select the country from which you want your audience to come and the audience size. Once done, click Create Audience.
Lookalike performance vs. your existing audience
When comparing lookalike audiences to your existing audience, lookalikes often yield higher conversion rates because they mirror the characteristics of your best customers. However, while your current audience typically has established brand trust, lookalikes offer broader reach and the potential for faster growth. The key is balancing both strategies—testing lookalike performance regularly while maintaining engagement with your core audience for sustained success. Adjusting audience size and segmentation can further improve the precision of your lookalikes.
Does it really matter?
Facebook is one of the most effective lead acquisition and marketing platforms you can have in your toolbox.
Understanding how to create and use lookalike audiences, therefore, is important. Not only will this drastically reduce your lead acquisition costs, but it will also increase the effectiveness of your ad targeting.
What now?
Lookalike audiences are a powerful way of increasing the efficiency of your marketing. The marriage between email marketing and social media is highly effective for your marketing strategy.
If you want to delve more into how you can marry these two strategies in your marketing campaigns, check out our article on how to integrate your email marketing and social media.