SOP 031: How to create a lookalike audience
\nCreate a lookalike audience that you can use to expand your Facebook Ads audience in the target country of your choice.
\nLast Updated / Reviewed: 03/25/2024
\nExecution Time: 5-10 minutes
\nđ Goal: To create a Lookalike Audience that you can use to expand your Facebook Ads audience.
\nđ¤ Ideal Outcome: By the end of this SOP, you will have a Lookalike audience in the target country of your choice.
\nđ¤ Why this is important: A Lookalike Audience uses your selected source audience as an input to create a group of people that share the same qualities (demographic information, interests and other) of the people in it, allowing you to scale your ads effectively.
\nđ§ Where this is done In your Facebook Asset Library.
\nđď¸ When this is done: When you want to scale your prospecting campaigns.
\nđ¨ Who does this: The person responsible for paid advertising.
\n__â ď¸Prerequisites or requirements: __To follow this SOP to add Lookalike Audience, you need:
\nGoogle Tag Manager installed on your site. If you havenât done so already and you are using WordPress you can follow SOP 004 (web version).
\nYou should have created a Business Manager account for your site (you can follow SOP 010 (web version) to do that).
\nYou also need to have the Facebook pixel on your website. If you donât have it yet, you can follow: SOP 005 (web version) (or SOP 068 (web version) if youâre using Shopify).
\nYou also need to have set up Facebook conversion tracking (you can follow SOP 017 (web version) to start tracking your conversions).
\nFinally, youâll need to have verified your domain inside Facebook Business Manager (you can follow SOP 97 (web version) to do that).
\nClick here to get the most up-to-date version of this SOP
\nNote: To create a lookalike audience, it is recommended to create a custom audience first for Facebook to recognize who your audience are and where they are from such as website traffic, Facebook or Instagram engagements, video views, and etc. For more information, you can refer directly to Facebook Business Help Center.
\nTo create a value-based lookalike audience, your source audience must be a mobile app, pixel, SDK, catalog or a custom audience that has customer value as a data type.
\nDown the customer list template file and fill it out at your own time. Upload it when you are ready.
\nFacebook would automatically match the customer list columns as highlighted in the green boxes above to ensure they are correct. You will be prompted if further actions are required.
\nNote: If you are seeing no values being reported, and/or 0 purchases, like in this example:
\nOr if you see all events grayed out when you click on âOther events with valueâ:
\nYou probably are not sending your conversion values and/or events to Facebook yet. You can follow SOP 017: Set up Facebook (Meta) Conversion Tracking (web version) to do so.
\nSelect your Source - If you are not sure, that should be the companyâs Facebook pixel. (Identified by a gray âFacebook Pixelâ label next to it on the right of the drop-down)
\nSelect your Event - The event you select here will be the one Facebook will use to generate the audience that will serve as a source for your lookalike audiences.
\nNote: Select an event that generates an audience of at least 100 people from a single country or you wonât be able to generate your lookalike audience. The more people in your source audience, the better your lookalikes will be.
\nNote 2: If you donât have enough people in your lookalike audience for a given event (e.g: InitiateCheckout) select an event that occurs more often (e.g: AddtoCart).
\nReview your source audience - After youâve selected your Source and your Event, youâll be able to review the data that Facebook has and that will be used to generate your source audience (and consequently your lookalike audience).
\nAsk yourself the following questions:
\nNote: You can cross-reference the data with the one you have in Google Analytics. If the data does not make sense, make sure you have followed SOP 017: Set up Facebook (Meta) Conversion Tracking (web version) to correctly setup your Facebook tracking. If you are not able to fix it yourself contact a web developer to help you fix your tracking setup. It is not recommended to create this lookalike audience at this moment for you.
\nJump to \"Selecting locations where you would like to find your similar set of users.\" on this SOP.
\nNote: The audience you select here will affect the Lookalike Audience that ends up being created. Example: If you run an e-commerce apparel business and create your Lookalike Audience based on the people that visited your âWomenâsâ section, you will most likely get a Lookalike Audience where the majority of the group is female.
\nNote 2: Your source audience must contain at least 100 people in the same country in order to use it as the basis for a Lookalike Audience.
\nJump to \"Selecting locations where you would like to find your similar set of users.\" on this SOP.
\nSelect the locations where you would like to find your similar set of users.
\nNote 1: Facebook may automatically recommend you to add other countries as well according to your source audience. Click âAdd these countriesâ, if feasible to you.
\nNote 2: You will be able to add locations when you create ad sets. This location does not need to be necessarily the same as the one where your source audience is located.
\nSelect your intended audience size as a percentage of your target countryâs Facebook users.
\nNote: You cannot edit the audience size after the audience is created. You can always create a new one, and you can create up to 500 Lookalike audiences from a single source audience.
\nNote 2: The percentage you select will vary depending on how broad you are willing to go with your targeting. Selecting 1% will yield highly similar users whereas 10% might include some less similar users but will increase your audience size.
\nThatâs it! Your Lookalike Audience has been created and you should now see it on your âAudiencesâ dashboard:Â
\nNote: When setting up your Ad Set, you will be able to filter your Lookalike Audiences:
\nNote 2: Your audience might not be ready immediately, sometimes it may take up to 24h for it to become available for use. Once ready the âAvailabilityâ column will feature a green light and a âReadyâ status.
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