The best people to target with your Facebook ads are the ones that look like your current (and paying!) customers.

But how can you target these people?

Facebook offers a variety of ways to target unique custom audiences.

A unique and highly beneficial way to do that with Facebook ads is to target a lookalike audience.

What is a lookalike audience?

A lookalike audience is an audience identified by Facebook that appears like a warm or hot audience of your choice. This audience may resemble people who visit your website (this is why it’s important to install your pixel early), leads and even customers.

How do you create a lookalike audience?

Step #1 Log into your Facebook Ads Manager

Step #2 Click the “Audiences” Tab

When you log in to your Facebook Ads Manager, click the “audience” tab from the upper left-hand corner drop-down menu.

Step #3 Create a Custom Audience

On the left-hand side, you will see a blue button labeled “create audience.” Click the white arrow that drops down into a menu. Choose “lookalike audience.”

Step #4 Insert Information To Identify Lookalike Audience

In the box, fill out the required information.

First, choose a source. This can be an audience from your Pixel, mobile app or Facebook page fans. Think about the best audience to mirror for your lookalike audience based on your goals for the audience.

Next, choose the location of your audience and finally, choose the size of your audience. Remember the smaller the percentage, the smaller the audience size.

Facebook will take the information and identify the common qualities of the audience members. This will be demographic information, interests or where the audience is found (ex. website visitors or Facebook page fans).

Then Facebook will create an audience that is similar to the one you defined.

Step #5 Create Audience

You’re ready to go! The lookalike audience will be created and now, you can target this audience when creating a Facebook ad.

Does a lookalike audience already know about my business?

Likely not. You should treat a lookalike audience like a cold audience.

These are people that Facebook identifies as individuals who could become leads and customers simply because they resemble the demographics and interests of the audience you chose to mirror.

But that does not mean this audience has ever been exposed to your business and brand. As a result, you should run ads to this audience like a cold audience.

That said, it’s likely they will go through your funnel at a faster rate than a wider cold audience because they more intricately resemble your leads and paying customers.