Efficient digital marketing targets an audience segment that meets certain characteristics that enhance their chances for engagement. This target market can be vast but is typically narrowed in order to create more exclusive engagement strategies that move people down the sales funnel. Using lookalike (LAL) audiences, businesses can increase their digital audience base without expanding their target market’s criteria for inclusion.
If you want to leverage a lookalike audience using your own first-party data, reach out to V Audience Labs today.
How Lookalike Audiences Work
Lookalike audiences are a digital advertising tool that creates new audiences based on your existing audience, criteria you’ve selected, or people who already engage with your marketing efforts. For example, Facebook’s lookalike audience program analyzes the data from your current audience and uses it to create new audiences from within its walled garden—users who share similar characteristics or behaviors.
These similarities can include:
- Buying habits
- Page likes
- Clicked ads
- Group activity
- Comments on social media
- Interest
- Profile demographics
A lookalike audience creates a new audience that looks like your existing target audience but with a broader reach. This new audience is a customized fit for your sales funnel, which leads to increased sales. Having a lookalike audience is akin to waving a magic wand over your audience to make them want your business offerings, but it’s not magic. Instead, it’s a data-driven approach to reach the market that is most likely to need or resonate with your products or services.
The Value of Lookalike Audiences
The value of lookalike audiences lies in the ability to identify and target more people who are just like your best existing customers. By starting with a list of individuals who have already visited your website and who are your ideal clients actively in the market for your product or service, you can leverage the algorithm to find similar prospects. This not only saves time in prospect identification and lead generation but it also increases the likelihood of higher engagement and conversions. Marketing teams can focus their efforts on audiences who are more likely to interact with their business, leading to more leads and, ultimately, more sales. Lookalike audiences are a powerful tool that brings the right customers straight to your doorstep.
Types of Data Needed to Create LAL Audiences
The data needed for an effective LAL audience can vary depending on your target market and business industry. While general demographics are a good starting point, leveraging data from Meta Pixel, for example, can provide valuable insights into how users are interacting with your website. By analyzing this data, the algorithm can uncover patterns and connections that might not be immediately obvious. This enables you to expand your marketing reach to new individuals, even those located in different regions or countries, ensuring your ads are seen by people who share similar characteristics with your current customers.
How VAL Products Collect Data to Enhance Lookalike Audiences
At V Audience Labs, we specialize in first-party data collection. This is the most valuable type of customer data because it is generated through you as opposed to a third party. You control the type of data you are seeking, which allows you to have information that is valuable and aligned with your goals.
Lookalike audiences created from first-party data are more effective than those created solely based on demographics or from outside data like Google or Facebook. Targeting an audience pulled from your own website traffic ensures that you’re reaching individuals who’ve already shown intent. By replicating this type of contact, one that is already aware of their need for the type of product or service you offer, you are more likely to reach contacts ready to engage with your content.
How Lookalike Audiences Can Help Holiday Marketing Efforts
The holidays are an excellent time to reach out to new audiences because they are in the mood to shop and more open to first-time engagement. These seed audiences are much more reliable than traditional seed markets created by normal marketing outreach. Therefore, the holidays are an excellent time to reach out to LAL audiences who are already primed for the shopping season.
At V Audience Labs, we want to provide data to your business and help you build target lookalike audiences that break your sales records. Contact us today to learn more about your company’s first-party data, and how our product, Prospect Hub, is able to complement your marketing efforts. From sales prospects to data analytics, we offer tailored marketing solutions for your business, so you can use a client-centered approach to reach a broader audience.
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