What Is Lookalike Audience?
A Lookalike Audience is a Meta audience of users who resemble a seed audience — usually your best customers, high-LTV subscribers, or high-intent leads. You choose a size from 1% (most similar, smallest) to 10% (loosest match, largest) of a target country.
Worked setup
Upload your top 10% of customers by 12-month LTV (2,500 people). Create a 1% Lookalike in Bangladesh (~1.6M users) as your prospecting audience. Layer a 1% Lookalike of cart abandoners as a warmer prospecting audience. Test 1–3%, 3–5%, and 5–10% tiers separately — bigger tiers cost less but convert less.
Benchmarks
- Seed size sweet spot: 2,000–50,000 users. Bigger isn't better.
- 1% Lookalike: highest quality, smallest reach.
- 10% Lookalike: broadest reach, weakest signal — often barely different from open targeting.
- In Advantage+ era, well-seeded 1–3% Lookalikes still beat broad on new accounts.
Why it matters
Lookalikes let Meta find people who resemble your best buyers without you knowing who they are. On accounts with strong first-party data and CAPI feeding LTV signals, Lookalikes remain a top-3 audience type even in the Advantage+ era.
Common mistakes
- 1.Seeding with a list of everyone who ever bought — includes low-quality one-time buyers, dilutes the pattern.
- 2.Testing 1% and 10% in the same ad set. Different beasts; separate them.
- 3.Ignoring Lookalikes because 'Advantage+ handles it.' Test both; don't assume.
Put Lookalike Audience to work
Related services
FAQs about Lookalike Audience
What's the best Lookalike percentage?
1% for accuracy; 3–5% for scale; 10% only for very small markets or upper-funnel. Test them separately.
What's the best seed to use?
The narrowest high-quality signal you have. Top 10–25% of customers by LTV beats 'all customers.' Beats 'website visitors' by a wide margin.
Do Lookalikes still matter with Advantage+ Shopping?
Less than before, but yes — especially on newer accounts. Advantage+ can rediscover your best pattern, but a well-seeded Lookalike often outperforms for 4–8 weeks.
Related terms
Meta audience built from your customer, pixel, or engagement data.
Source list (customers, leads) used to build lookalikes.
Meta's AI-driven campaign setup that automates targeting and placements.
Total gross profit a customer generates across their relationship.