Lookalike Audience
Also known as: Lookalike, LAL
A lookalike audience is a group Meta builds to resemble an existing source audience, finding new people who share traits with your best customers.
What it actually means
A lookalike audience starts from a source — a custom audience of customers, leads, or high-value buyers — and asks Meta to find new people who behave similarly. You choose a percentage from 1% to 10% of a country's population; a 1% lookalike is the closest match and most targeted, while larger percentages trade precision for scale. The quality of a lookalike depends entirely on the quality of its source: a list of your highest-LTV customers produces a far better lookalike than a generic list of all website visitors. Lookalikes are one of the most effective prospecting tools because they let the algorithm hunt for buyers using real evidence of who buys from you.
Lookalikes work for local businesses only if you cap them to your service area — build the model nationally, then layer your local radius on top so you reach lookalikes nearby.
Related terms
A custom audience is a targeting group built from your own data, such as a customer email list, website visitors, or people who engaged with your content.
An audience is the defined group of people your ads are eligible to reach, built from location, demographics, interests, behaviors, or your own data.
First-party data is information you collect directly from your own customers and prospects, such as email addresses, phone numbers, and purchase history.
LTV is the total revenue (or profit) a customer generates over the entire span of their relationship with your business.
Want this metric run for you?
Karbon Agency runs Meta, SEO, and landing pages for local businesses — and shows you every metric, live.