Lookalike Audiences are created from Custom Audiences. When you create a Custom Audience, you ask Facebook to locate your existing customers on Facebook or Instagram, based on their activity such as website visits and page engagement.

Using this information, you can create a Lookalike Audience. A Lookalike Audience allow you to target brand new people, but with similar information to those in your chosen Custom Audience (such as interests, demographics, and location). Find out more about Lookalike Audiences here.

Viewing Lookalike Audiences in Advertise

In Social Media Management, you can view any Lookalike Audiences which were created on Facebook, along with any which were created in Advertise. To view your Lookalike Audiences, visit the Advertise tool and click Custom Audiences from the Assets menu on the left.

Your Lookalike Audiences will be listed along with any other Custom Audiences. The below information will be shown for each audience:

Shared status

The shared arrow indicator appears when an audience is shared with or by you. If the audience is not shared, the indicator won't be visible.

Status

There are three possible statuses for your audience. When the audience is 'Ready', you're good to go with using it in any of your Ad Sets.

If the status is set to 'Not created', your Lookalike Audience on Facebook was not narrowed down by the given Lookalike Audience criteria. Broaden the criteria to create an audience of a big enough size.

When an audience is set to 'Disabled', it means the Ad Account it was shared from has been disabled. We recommend sending a request to the audience owner to re-enable the Ad Account.

Name

Hovering over the name of the audience gives you a popup with more details about the audience criteria. Due to certain Facebook API limitations, some criteria or audience source data is displayed in numerical values.

Type

The type is either a Custom Audience or a Lookalike Audience.

Size

Shows the approximate size of the audience.

Edited

Shows the last edited date. If you hover over the date, it also shows a popup with the creation date.

Actions menu

Gives you the option to either view the audience natively in the Facebook Business Manager or create a Lookalike Audience (if applicable).

Applying Lookalike Audiences to Ad Sets in Advertise

You can apply an existing Lookalike Audience to any Ad Set in Advertise, whether you’re creating a new Ad Set or editing an existing Ad Set. Please see the steps below to get started:

1. In Advertise, click Ad Sets from the Overview menu on the left-hand side.
2. Click Create Ad Set from the top, right-hand side.
3. Scroll to Targeting or select Targeting from the menu on the left.
4. Click Add Custom Audiences to view and select an existing Audience from the dropdown.

Once you have added your Lookalike Audience, you can click the X on the right to remove it, switch the cursor on the right to change it from Included to Excluded, or click Add Custom Audience to select add an additional Audience.

Creating Lookalike Audiences in Advertise

In Advertise, it’s possible to create an Existing Audience (Lookalike Audience) from any Custom Audience.

To get started, select Custom Audiences under the Assets menu on the left-hand side, followed by Create New Audience from the top right. For more information, please visit our full guide to Creating Audiences in Advertise.