What is it that makes a loyal customer loyal? Your service counts for a lot, and of course the way you deliver that service is very important. But what is also important is the type of person who buys from you. Have you ever considered that a loyal customer is a loyal customer not because of what you do but, in part, because of who they are? Facebook have. If you can find the shared traits of people who are loyal to your business, you can more effectively find new customers who share those traits and gain new followers from there, too. This is what Facebook Lookalike Ad Targeting is for.

Finding Your Loyal Customers

First, of course, you need to figure out who your loyal customers are. Luckily, Facebook can even do most of the work for you here, but if you want to achieve the best results, then you should think about narrowing your definitions down before you begin the Lookalike process. Here are a couple of steps you might want to consider:

• Repeat Customers: If you have a record of customers who have used your service on more than one occasion, these are considerably more valuable than single time buyers;
• First Time Buyers: Conversely, figuring out who has recently used your service, and why, might be a good way of finding out what it is that draws new people to your service;
• Seasonal Shoppers: Is your service seasonal? If so, think about how you might get different types of customers at different times of year, and factor that into your advertising;
• Preferred Audience: Not everyone can choose their target audience, but if you do have a preference, then it may be worth filtering through your list to find those;
• Value: Not every customer is equally worth chasing. You might not have the advertising spend to use on low value customers, and if so, make sure that these can be factored out of your list;
• Website Visitors: Facebook has added functionality to their Lookalike service that allows you to target visitors to your website. If your customer list is still small, you can expand its relevancy by also targeting potentially-interested parties as well as actual customers.

Finding a relevant list of your loyal customers and uploading them to Facebook for analysis is easy. Phone us on 01524 566 736 and we’ll talk you through it, or even handle it for you.

Facebook Lookalike Targeting

Facebook Lookalike Targeting can be used to target a number of different audiences based on your preference. You can use any of the following methods:

• Email List: Upload a list of customer emails, and Facebook will match them to their Facebook profiles;
• Website Visitors: If a person has visited your website, and can be traced back to a Facebook page, then Facebook can add them to your custom Lookalike database. This can even be used for specific sections of a site, such as only the “mens” part of a page, for example;
• Conversion Pixels: Similar to website audience, you can target visitors to your website who went through a specific conversion funnel, such as completing an enquiry form;
• Facebook Pages: You can use the followers of your own Facebook page, or one you manage, to create your Lookalike audience;
• Mobile App Users: If you have a mobile app, then you can add those users to your custom Lookalike audience.

Unfortunately, you can currently only choose one of these options per country, currently, so you’ll need to decide on which is most useful for you, especially considering our list of loyal customers above. Once this is done, Facebook can begin to work its magic.

Facebook uses the profiles that you have pointed it towards to establish what your customers ‘lool’ like. Whether they have shared interests and hobbies, tastes, age, gender and basically anything similar about them. Then it begins to work through all profiles on Facebook to find people who are as similar as possible in all the relevant ways, and uses those to determine your Lookalike audience. Once you have an audience (expect this to take around 24 hours to complete) you can begin targeting Facebook advertisements towards them, safe in the knowledge that they’re likely to want what you have to offer.

Converting Your Customers

Of course, finding the right customers is no good unless you’re also able to convert them. Most often, this is the final hurdle that catches otherwise successful businesses out. Finding an audience is Facebook’s role, but your role is to make sure that once Facebook has found them, you’re ready to turn them into a new customer.

This means making sure that you follow advertising best practices. Use striking and relevant images, strong calls to action and make sure that there are no problems with your landing pages. By targeting people you know are likely to want your product or service, you have an opportunity to achieve unbelievable conversion rates, but only if you get this last step right.

Novi.Digital are specialists in Digital Marketing, and we have plenty of practice with both Facebook advertising and Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO). If you want to make sure that your Lookalike audience converts, then call us on 01524 566 736 and we’ll talk you through how we can help.

Or, email your enquiry to [email protected] for a free consultation.