What is a Facebook lookalike audience? And three simple ways to build them.

We all have customers that we love – like they’re a part of our own little family. We know they buy our products and are highly engaged in our business they are the perfect customer and we want more of them!

Social media marketing allows us to take a digital snapshot of these awesome customers, so we can create lookalike audiences, so we are delivering our campaigns and messages to people that are more likely to take action.

You can monitor the people that are already purchasing through your website or social media channels and find more potential customers that are just like them, delivering you a much higher ROI on your advertising spend. These campaigns are simple and easy to build as well; here are three ways you can create lookalike audiences in the Facebook Ads Manager to give yourself the best chance of success.

1. Customer Information

This is an excellent way to get started as it is based on the information you may already have. If you have a database of customer information like a newsletter subscription list, email mailout list or a customer file list, then you can upload this directly into Facebook Ads Manager as a .txt or .csv file. You can also copy and paste this data straight into Facebook. Then the social media platform will look for people that match the profiles you have supplied.

2. Website visitors

This is a highly effective way to create a lookalike audience as it allows you to seek out people with similar online behaviours to those that are already purchasing through your website. This process involves creating what is called a Pixel, which is a simple step in the ad creation process. This Pixel will be added to your website at conversion points like your sales cart and enquiry forms, allowing Facebook to access this data and find more people like those already purchasing.

3. Social media presence

Facebook is already collating enormous amounts of robust data for you, and you can use this to your advantage, especially if you have been established on the social media platform for a long time and have a large, engaged audience. Selecting this option will allow you to create a lookalike audience similar to those that have been reacting to your posts.

How to create a lookalike audience in Facebook Ads Manager

When you are in Ads Manager, select Audiences, Create Audience and Lookalike Audience. This is where you choose the option that is best for you and where you can create a Pixel for your website if you need to. You will need an audience size of at least 100 people, so bear this in mind if your website or Facebook has only recently been created.

Choose the country you want to target and the audience size, with one being hyper-targeted at the people most similar and ten meaning you are reaching the most people. Then when you create your ad, this audience will be available to be selected.