Audiences & targeting
What is Lookalike audience?
A lookalike audience is a Meta targeting option that finds new people who resemble an existing source audience — such as your customers or website visitors — based on shared traits Meta identifies. It's how you reach fresh prospects who behave like the people you already value.
Example
Upload a list of 2,000 buyers as the source and create a 1% lookalike in your country: Meta finds the ~1% of that country's users most similar to your buyers. A 1% lookalike is the closest match; widening to 5% or 10% adds reach but dilutes similarity.
Why it matters
Lookalikes let you scale beyond warm audiences while starting from better-than-random targeting, which is why they've long been a core prospecting tool. The quality of the source matters most — a lookalike of your highest-value buyers beats a lookalike of all traffic.
How to use and improve it
Seed from your best data (purchasers, high-LTV customers, not just page visitors), keep the source above ~100 people from one country though 1,000+ quality examples work far better, and test a tight 1% against a broader 3–5% to see which your funnel prefers.
Frequently asked questions
How many people do I need in the source audience?
Meta requires at least 100 people from a single country, but a few thousand high-quality examples produce a much stronger lookalike. Source quality beats source size.
What's the difference between a 1% and a 10% lookalike?
A 1% lookalike is the slice of the population most similar to your source — smaller and more precise. A 10% lookalike is much larger but less similar, trading precision for reach.
Do lookalike audiences still work with Advantage+?
Yes, though Meta increasingly favours broad targeting where its AI finds the audience. Many advertisers now feed lookalikes in as a signal rather than a hard boundary, or lean on Advantage+ automation instead.
Related
How does your account score?
A free Meta ads audit gives you a 0–100 score, shows wasted budget, and lists the exact next steps.
Run a free audit