The Power of Facebook Lookalike Audiences
Resources
Resources
Jun 2, 2023

The Power of Facebook Lookalike Audiences

If you’re in marketing you have probably used or at least heard about Facebook lookalike audiences. To the non-initiated, Lookalike Audiences are basically telling Facebook to find audiences, who are similar to your existing customer segment. This is obviously a powerful tool to broaden your segment and find potential customers, but is there more to it?

How does Lookalike Audiences work?

Lookalike audiences are not a new thing. Facebook first introduced the feature in 2013 and after that, most major ad platforms have made similar features. The way it works is that it takes your best customers and uses an algorithm to find similar people. You, as the ad spender, only have to choose what customer segment to find lookalikes to and how closely the lookalike has to match your audience. Here you choose between the numbers 1% to 10%, where 1% is the most closely matched lookalike audience on facebook.

Why should you use Lookalike Audiences on Facebook?

Lookalikes audiences on Facebook are one of the most preferred ways to grow your customer base. Especially in recent years, machine learning has become so powerful that data-driven marketing is a must for any modern marketer. Finding people who are similar to your most valuable customers sounds great, but is it too good to be true.

Data laws and the future of data marketing

Most companies who have been dependent on Facebook data to do their business are in for a rude awakening. The changes to data collecting by the likes of Apple and Google make it even tougher for Facebook to collect data, which in turn makes it weaker for companies to use. Therefore businesses need better and more precise data, which they can get in a CDP.

How can a Customer Data Platform help your Lookalike Audiences?

A good rule of thumb when dealing with an algorithm is, that the better data you feed the machine the better results you get. While the data being used right now by businesses on Facebook only comes from Facebook itself, it is possible to get aggregated data that is more specific.

By using a Customer Data Platform, you collect data from multiple sources to get the most specific and valuable customer segments in real-time! This data might be aggregated from your Shopify, google analytics, Facebook, Klaviyo, you name it.

This data is now a lot better. How? Well, by aggregating data you get specific segments that you would not have had, had you been using only Facebook data.

This is because the data used before maybe didn’t account for metrics like return rate or order frequency. But by getting all the most important data from multiple sources it is possible to get the “true” most valuable customers.

Now while a normal human being would be able to see no connection between the people in the segment, the algorithm recognizes similar behavioral tendencies, which makes it possible to find lookalikes, in this case, really good lookalikes.  

So using aggregated data and therefore more specific data makes your lookalike audiences a lot more powerful, which makes it possible to grow your customer base faster, than using regular data.

Lookalike audiences combined with a CDP opens new opportunities for your targeting

How can you get this data into facebook?

In Custimy’s CDP you can activate your data, simply by pressing a button. The activation layer makes it super easy to get exactly the data you want, where you want it. Just with a few clicks, you can activate the best data right into Facebook, in our software! No need for any complexity, when using Custimy.

3 tips about Facebook Lookalikes to leave you with.

  1. The better data you use lookalikes on, the better the outcome.
  2. Keep your data up to date when using lookalikes. The best data is the newest and therefore the most precise. Real time data is worth its weight in gold.
  3. You have better data than you think. You just need to run it through the right “machinery” to take it to the next level.

These are some of the many reasons why using a Customer Data Platform is a must nowadays. Check out all the other reasons at Custimy.io