Lookalike audiences

Lookalike audiences are groups of people that share characteristics with others on an existing “seed” list. You’ll provide the seed list using your first-party data, including a customer match list or a list of people who’ve interacted with your website and app, or YouTube channel. We’ll then use this information to find other potential customers with similar characteristics.

On this page

• Benefits
• How Lookalike audiences work
• Requirements
• How to create Lookalike audiences
• Reporting
• Best practices

Benefits

• Showcase your ads to people with similar attributes as your existing customers: Lookalike audiences allow you to interact with potential new customers who could be critical to growing your business.
• Greater control: You can choose from 3 options (narrow, balanced, or broad) to achieve the optimal balance between reach and similarity.
• More refined approach: You can create Lookalike audiences based on specific interactions people have had with your business, like watching a video or visiting a specific page on your website.
• Up-to-date information: The Lookalike segment will be continually refreshed based on updated activity so that you have the most up-to-date list of target customers in your existing and future campaign.

How Lookalike audiences work

Lookalike audiences are built from your first-party customer data, which includes:

• Your existing customer lists
• Activity on your website and app
• Engagement on your YouTube content

You can then use this data to reach new customers. For example, you can upload lists of customers who have purchased specific products or used specific services, and then create a Lookalike audience to reach potential new customers who are most similar to those existing customers.

Reach

Lookalike audiences offer the following reach options:

• Narrow: We aim to populate narrow Lookalike audiences with 2.5% of users in your ad’s target location, resulting in users who are most similar to your seed list.
• Balanced (default option): We aim to populate balanced Lookalike audiences with 5% of users in your ad’s target location. This option creates a balance between reach and similarity.
• Broad: We aim to populate broad Lookalike audiences with 10% of users in your ad’s target location. While this option results in the largest reach, it may also include users who are less similar to those in narrow or balanced Lookalike audiences.

Requirements

Your Lookalike audience will be automatically refreshed every 1-2 days based on your available customer data. If the requirement below is not met, your Lookalike audience won’t be available for use:

• The sum of all your submitted seed lists must have a minimum of 100 active users.

It could take up to 3 days for Lookalike audiences to reflect the failed seed list requirement and stop targeting potential customers. You can check the status of your Lookalike audience if it is populating, complete, inactive, or failed.

How to create Lookalike audiences

Lookalike audiences can be created from up to 10 existing audience lists. 

Create a Lookalike audience list

1. From your Display & Video 360 advertiser, click Audiences in the left menu.
   New Lookalike audiences can also be created when adding audience targeting in Demand Gen ad groups.
2. Select New Audience > Lookalike audience.
3. Enter an “Audience name” for your list.
4. In the “Seed audience lists” section, click Add to select audiences to combine into a new one, then click Apply. Up to 10 first-party lists can be selected. The sum of all your submitted seed lists must have a minimum of 100 active users.
5. Add first-party audiences together. Up to 10 first-party lists can be selected.
6. Choose between narrow, balanced, or broad Audience reach to determine how much to leverage Google intelligence to expand your reach. Choosing more reach helps you reach people in your campaign's targeted location and language similar to people on your seed audience list.
7. In the “Geography” section, choose which countries or regions you want your Lookalike audience to include.

Reporting

Because Lookalikes are a type of audience list, reporting will work the same as with other audiences. Review how each Lookalike audience is performing, then increase your focus on those that perform best.

Best practices

Create a Lookalike audience by keeping the following in mind to maximize your reach of new, highly relevant, and qualified users:

• Use high-intent seed lists: Ensure your Lookalike audiences have users who are the most similar to or closely match your recent converters. Include frequent purchasers or those who’ve come close to a conversion. The key is to include the most relevant customers for the goal you have in mind.
• Add external converters: Include users who’ve engaged with your brand on external media channels to your seed list. Add these converter seed lists in the same segment as your recent converters to maximize your reach.
• Combine Lookalike and custom audiences: Add your Lookalike audience in the same ad group as a high intent custom segment that targets users who’ve recently searched for your brand or category. Use 10-15 of the top converting search terms to curate your custom audience.