Lookalike Audiences

How to Target New E-Commerce Buyers on Facebook Using Lookalike Audiences

Did you know Facebook owns over 1500 data points on each of its 2 billion users?  Did you know that Facebook will use this immense amount of data to help you show your products to the exact perfect buyers?


Facebook knows what posts we like and engage with, who our friends are, how long we watch any given video, where we shop online (and in person), what products we buy, if we use cash or credit, if we prefer Mercedes over BMW, how old our children are, and much more…


The amount of personal information Facebook owns is concerning to many business owners.  This is understandable, but what I tell people is that this information already exists and you might as well use it to your advantage to reach your audience.  In fact, you have a duty to, because if you don’t, you are doing a disservice to your potential product buyers who deserve to know about your products.


Why Good Facebook Targeting Is Important

Why Good Facebook Targeting Is Important


If you are going to spend money on Facebook ads, you want to make sure you put your ads in front of the right people because:

  1. Facebook’s algorithm will reward you will higher reach and lower CPC (Cost Per Click) if you are showing the right content to the right people.
  2. You will build good source audiences that in turn will create good lookalike audiences (more below).
  3. You want to drive buyers to your website, not tire kickers.

What is a Source Audience?

A source audience is a base audience of users you know the behavior of.  This could be previous visitors to your website, members of your email list, or existing product buyers.  You will also see these referred to as custom audience or website custom audience.

What is a Lookalike Audience?

A Facebook lookalike audience is simply an audience of people that are most similar to a given source audience, but much larger.  Facebook will use the commonalities using it’s 1500 data points of each user in the source audience, and come back to you with more people just like those in the source audience.  For example, if you have a list of 100 or more buyers, Facebook will bring you back 2 million or more of those type of people in a new audience.

What Is A Lookalike Audience?




2 Ways to Create Your Best Source Audience

The steps below assume you have already installed your Facebook Pixel and/or have a good source audience and email and/or phone numbers for them:


Method 1:  Watch the short video to create a source audience of website visitors (use this method if your email list or buyers list is under 100):


Method 2 :  Watch the short video to create a source audience of email subscribers or better yet existing buyers:

How to Create a Lookalike Audience of Your Best Source Audience

Now it’s time to let Facebook hand you an audience of people with cash in hand ready to buy your products.   Here are 4 easy steps:

1.) Go to Audiences in Ads Manager:

Audiences In Ads Manager

2.) Select your source audience and then “Create Lookalike”:

Create Lookalike Audience

3.) Select your country you will be targeting and select a Lookalike size 1% – 10% (in the USA this will typically be a 2 million to 20 million person Lookalike):

Select Lookalike Country And Size

4.) You will now have a Lookalike populating in your Audiences that you can use for targeting.  It will usually take about 30 minutes to populate but it can take up to 24 hours:

Lookalike Audience Populating


>>>It’s important to keep in mind that Lookalike audiences are automatically updated as your source audience grows!  I always say “the better it gets the better it gets”…


What to do if you are new and don’t have lists or existing traffic…

If you a brand new and don’t have a source audience of at least 100 people you can use Facebook’s interest, location, and behavior based targeting.  As soon as you generate a good source audience of at least 100 users you can then switch to Lookalike targeting.

Facebook's Interest, Location And Behavior Based Targeting


Important BONUS Tip:


Create ads that only your Avatar would click on or that would cause them to subscribe.


Actual results of using lookalike targeting of good source audiences?


When you properly implement this simple strategy you can expect better CTR (Click Through Rates), CPC, better user experience, more subscribers, lower CPA (Cost Per Acquisition), and more buyers in general.


Below you can see how we drove thousands of email subscribers at $0.67 cents using Lookalike audiences.

67 Cent Leads from Facebook Lookalike Retargeting



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