A Lookalike audience, just like the name implies, is a group of people in a social network that have similar characteristics to people in another group. This is a digital marketing tool that was first introduced by Facebook. Its main objective was to help businesses reach prospective customers online.
The parameter for determining a lookalike audience is mainly people who have a similar interest or follow the same trends as existing customers of the business. After Facebook launched this tool, many other digital platforms, such as Google and LinkedIn, followed the trend.
The system uses information such as interests, demography, and behavior of people in the source group to look for those who share the same traits outside the group. So, for a business on a digital platform, the source audience is its customer base. The tool will now use the information of this customer base to find their lookalike group for targeted adverts. In this article, we will discuss how to optimize lookalike audiences to maximize profit in business. At the end of this article, you will have a better idea of how to go about getting better results in this regard.
Platforms Where You Can Find Lookalike Audiences
Although this tool was first developed by Facebook, many other digital platforms now use it. However, each platform uses its own set of data to determine the parameter for similarity. This, therefore, means that you will see some slight variations on each platform.
On Google and Facebook, the metrics used are the interest and online behavior of the source audience. LinkedIn, on the other hand, uses professional characteristics, while Mailchimp and Twitter use topics and issues that their users show more interest in.
Shopping platforms such as Amazon use the shopping history of the user, while platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat rely on the type of video content that their users watch. Academic platforms such as Outbrain and Taboola use the data they get from the articles that their users read.
How to Use Lookalike Audiences to Optimize Adverts On Your Platforms
Since this digital tool or strategy is no longer exclusive to Facebook, it means that you can use it on whatever platform your business is hosted. As with everything online and on digital platforms, getting it right from the get-go is very important. So, we will share steps to using it below:
Define and Identify Your Source Audience
The source group as we said, is a list of either your customers or your contacts. It can be extracted from a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database, people who like your page on Facebook, or people that visit your website.
Remember that you need to use an audience with a sizeable number of people. For Facebook users, the recommended number is 1,000 contacts for the source audience. The rule is that the more persons you have in the original group, the better the quality of your lookalike audience.
Verify the Privacy Regulations On the Platform You’re Using
Ensure that you read and understand the privacy regulation for whatever platform you want to use or are using. There are red lines that you must not cross with digital marketing. One such is using people’s personal data that you got from your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or subscription list without permission. Click here for more information about CRM.
Recently, regulations such as CCPA and GDPR have brought stricter terms and conditions for the use of people’s email addresses. An example is that an advertiser has to get permission from a user before using their personal information in any marketing campaign.
Match the Data from the Source Audience with the Data from the Second Audience
Anytime you upload an original or unique audience online, it is recommended that you encrypt the address. This will restrict the platform from reading the email addresses but will allow it to find user profiles that match.
If you get a match level of 50% or more, it is considered a good match. This is because so many profiles will not match the user profiles either because they are not on that platform or because they used another email address on the platform.
Set the Similarity Level that You Want
The similarity level you set is what the system will use to match your source audience and other users. On Facebook, for example, the similarity level is on a scale of 1 to 10%. So whatever number you choose is what the system will use to create the lookalike group closest to your source audience.
So if you choose a 2% similarity level, the system will use 2% of their user profiles that match your original profiles the most. If you choose a higher similarity percentage, you will have a larger audience with less important similarities. The ideal result you are looking for is determined by a large source audience of qualified profiles (users) and a low similarity level percentage.
Start Using It
If you are on Facebook, you may not be able to start using this platform until 24 hours after creating it. But while you wait, you should prepare your advert campaigns based on the characteristics of the lookalike audience.
On LinkedIn, however, it takes a minimum of 48 hours for your audience to reflect and be activated and for your advert/campaign to reach them. The important thing here is to know how long before your audience will be activated on the platform you are using and then use that time to prepare adverts that are custom-made for them. Visit https://www.facebook.com/business/ for more information.
Conclusion
The world and everything in it are changing every day; so also are digital marketing and adverts trends. If you want your business to succeed both online and offline, you need to learn how to flow with the times. You cannot just dream up a strategy or advertising campaign without considering your market niche.
In this article, we have discussed some basics of using lookalike audiences to optimize your business. Bear in mind that although Facebook started this trend, almost all social media platforms have their own version of it. So no matter the platform your business is hosted on, ensure that you find out how it works there and maximize it to the fullest.
