How to Optimize 6 types of Lookalike Audiences to Maximize Profits
Finding the right customer for your business is non-negotiable if you want to succeed. It makes no sense for you to go into business if you aren’t planning to succeed, right? That’s a no-brainer. So it only stands to reason that you need to understand those customers.
From a marketing standpoint, when understanding your customer, it enables you to develop successful ads. This is just one reason why lookalike audiences are a really great idea. Using a lookalike audience takes the guesswork out of finding the right customer base. It’s as if your new customers are just sitting on pause in your existing audience.
Another advantage of using your lookalike audience is that it gives you important trend information for your specific demographics. You should have their location, income, age, marital status, etc. This automatically tells you who is primed for conversion when they see your ads.
You don’t need to spend countless hours on the hunt for your new target audience. Your lookalike audience basically takes a deep dive into tons and tons of data pertaining to your customers, using algorithms to track down all the virtual lookalikes hanging out online to increase conversion numbers and improve efficiency.
And while you’re gathering basic data, it’s also really important to use the data you already have to cultivate relationships with your existing customers. Pay attention to their online behavior patterns so you can figure out their purchasing patterns and consistent habits.
Having lookalike audiences in your pocket, so to speak, keeps your marketing much more personalized when attempting to engage new buyers. The ads that show up for them will be specifically tailored to their preferences. So, rather than seeing advertisements marketed to every random Tom, Dick, and Harry, the potential buyers actually see something that piques their interest. You can’t do that if you don’t already know quite a bit about your ideal customer.
If you manage it well, then lookalike audiences can be attained before your competitors. This means you’ll have your eyes on serious potential customers first. The possibilities for growth expand when this occurs because it gives you more leads.
Uncovering the top lookalike audiences that your advertising campaign needs will prevent unnecessary struggles and open a doorway to increased revenue.
Alrighty. Let’s get into it …
The 6 Types of Lookalike Audiences
App Activity
Did you know that Facebook Comments is an app? Yep. Kind of a sneaky little thing to consider an app, but it sure is. It’s a plugin that lets you pull together a custom audience centered around all of the people leaving comments.
It’s pretty simple. You build a lookalike audience from the app activity, which is basically the relevant comments.
CRM
To do this one well, you need to have a really good CRM in place. If you don’t, make it happen soon. Customer relationship management is pretty darn crucial for your business to grow.
Your CRM audience is all about a list of customers. You can organize your prospects into appropriate categories based on their data. Pay attention to what they open to get the best picture of your customers. Tracking their behavior will help you create a more specialized custom audience. The better your custom audience, the better your lookalike audiences.
Website Engagement
Again, this lookalike audience will only work if you have a good degree of website engagement. If you don’t, you’re gonna want to fix that before expecting to build a good lookalike audience from website engagement. Better website engagement is a really good thing.
People who are engaging with your website are your best opportunity for customers. If they’ve taken the time to check out your website, then you already know they are interested.
You want to find out which of these visitors are at the top of the list, meaning who is spending the most time on your site. The people who spend the most time are the most engaged. Once you’ve built a custom audience from this information, you can use that as your golden ticket to building a lookalike audience.
Key Web Content
Broad is not always better. When your online presence is all over the place with no focus, you may get oodles of foot traffic which seems great. But it’s not gonna help you build a good lookalike audience because you’re attracting all sorts of people and you’re probably not even sure why.
If that’s you, consider narrowing down your audience. Create an ad campaign for your target audience and use the data from that to create a relevant lookalike audience. You can even pay attention to which pages on your website are visited by which people. Let’s say Sally visits page B several times and Susie visits page D several times, but they are completely different. Well, you’ll need two different lookalike audiences built to get new customers.
Facebook Page Engagement
You can build a custom audience using the people who interact with your Facebook page. Check out all the people who’ve liked and engaged with your Facebook page and use that information to create a lookalike audience.
You want to be sure they’ve engaged with your page in some way beyond just clicking the like button. I think we all know that people politely like our pages but never actually engage with it. Those are not your relevant people. The people who’ve taken the time to show true engagement with your page are who you can build an audience around.
Video Engagement
GIFs, memes, and cleverly worded posts are great for Facebook. But if you want to amp up your engagement, videos are your best bet. You can increase brand awareness, introduce new products, and explain your services through great videos.
Videos warm up your audience for interacting with your page. Those are the people who will help you determine your next lookalike audience.
Why Are Lookalike Audiences a Big Deal?
Your current customer base can’t keep your business afloat forever and ever. They might like you a whole lot, but they’re not married to you, their lives aren’t committed to you. You need to continually bring on new customers. That’s just reality.
And that’s why lookalike audiences are a big deal. They bring you brand-spanking new viable customers. It’s like this: If your current audience isn’t broke, you don’t need to fix it … You just need to duplicate it. Again. And Again.
A Lookalike audience should help to keep you from spinning your wheels searching for potential customers. These are people who have the most potential to engage with your content. You are not wasting your time or money when you advertise to lookalike audiences.
If you want leads that will actually convert for you, a lookalike audience is a way to go. These people share similarities with your existing customers, so they are a much better bet for conversion than a random guy you just happened to find through an ad.
To Maximize Your Lookalike Audiences, Be Sure To …
Use A/B testing for better results. Yep. Create multiple lookalike audiences and run your A/B testing. Hit them all with the exact same ad. Then measure your results.
Take your results and make them work for you by targeting the audiences that gave you the best response and adjusting for the other audiences to give them what they like.
Consider your sources. Garbage in, garbage out. If you’re using a crappy source, expect crappy results. Just because somebody is in your audience, it doesn’t make them an ideal customer. It’s not quite that easy.
A good quality source comes from a list of people who are really engaging with your content. Those are the type of people you have to target, period.
You can always get more specific with your lookalike audience by changing up your parameters. Add in the parameters like interests, gender, location, occupation, and age.
You also want to market to your new audiences by using the type of marketing they actually respond to. If videos grab their attention, use videos. If they prefer to read, then emails are your best bet.
Sooo …
It’s not rocket science. But it’s definitely more than just taking a shot in the dark. If you want to hit a target over and over, then you need to know everything about that target.
And if you want to see how your ads are doing, give me a call. I’ll jump on the phone for a free consultation and I’ll also let you know if Hyros can benefit you.
Alrighty. That’s it for today.
This has been Alex Becker. Thanks for being here. Have a good one.