Book A Lookalike Modeling Demo With Our Team
In the marketing discovery calls, we discuss what seed data we need from you, pricing across programmatic, paid social and search, how the modeling actually works, and how we partner with agencies as well as direct brands.
Lookalike Modeling In Live Campaigns
Lookalike modeling takes the customers who already converted for you and finds more people who resemble them. You supply the seed data, the platform models the shared behaviours, and budget goes toward people who look like buyers rather than people who merely fit a demographic guess. Both campaigns below were built on lookalike audiences from the client’s own data.
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Find More Lookalike Customers Who Are Converting With Your Enterprise
Demographic targeting and psychographic targeting is a powerful means to reach those you believe can be top converters of your products and services. Maybe you’ve conducted focus groups or already have a sense of who those ideal customer profiles are. But after you’ve determined who they are, you’ve set your advertising in place, and you’re starting to get leads, are you leveraging any machine learning to find more of the customers who are really buying your products and services?
Our team leverages lookalike modeling and retargeting through several digital platforms including Programmatic Display, Paid Social, and Search Engine Marketing Campaigns.
Do you have a list of people who have converted on your website via a CRM List? Maybe you have a list of keywords you know gives you people certain to be in-market for your products and services? Our team will put together the ideal retargeting and lookalike model that will get you closer to your ideal customer.
How Our Lookalike Modeling Works
After identifying a pool of larger customers, you can use our programmatic, paid social, and search engine tools to discover similar audiences with behaviors that match up with your target audience, thus giving you a greater chance to converting more like-minded customers. Here is our process for setting up lookalike modeling campaigns:
- Supply Our team with your CRM database of top converters
- Your second option is to identify the interests, demographic variables and behaviors that best make up your clients
- Our team uploads that data across our various advertising mediums
- Through machine algorithmic learning, we identify those key customers who are most likely to convert and fit the same customer profile of your audience
- The machine continues to refine and improve its targeting based on the lookalike audience that converts on your website or with your brand
Key Lookalike Modeling Benefits
Lookalike modeling can be a powerful tool used as part of your marketing strategy and target top of funnel, middle, and lower funnels customers you have a sense could be in market looking for your products or services.
- Find your ideal clients and similar potential converters from your own CRM Lists
- Optimize your ad budget to those more likely to become customers
- Gain key insights on the users you truly want to reach
- Discover key learnings of your lookalike models and those converting on your website
- Leverage multiple lookalike platforms including our programmatic, paid social, and search engine marketing channels
Where The Seed Data Comes From
The model is only as good as the list you feed it. In practice, the strongest seed audiences we work with are:
- Closed customers rather than all leads — modelling on everyone who filled in a form teaches the algorithm to find more form fillers, not more buyers.
- Your highest value segment — if 20% of customers drive most of the revenue, seed on those 20% rather than the whole database.
- Recent converters — a list from three years ago models a market that may no longer exist.
- Enrolled students, past attendees or repeat purchasers — any group whose behaviour already proves the outcome you want more of.
We would rather work from a few hundred genuinely good records than tens of thousands of mixed ones. Cleaning the seed list before it goes near a platform is usually where the performance comes from.
Lookalike Modeling Case Studies
Lookalike Modeling Campaign Development
1
Seed Audience Review
We review the customer data you have and decide what to model on. Choosing the right seed list matters more than any other decision in the campaign.
2
Model Build
The seed data is uploaded across the platforms in your media mix, and each builds its own lookalike audience from the shared behavioural signals it can see.
3
Campaign Launch
Creative and messaging are built for a cold audience, since lookalikes have never heard of you, then the campaign goes live across the selected channels.
4
Analytics
Performance is pulled into one dashboard so lookalike audiences can be compared directly against your other targeting rather than judged in isolation.
5
Seed Refresh
As new customers convert, they are fed back into the seed list so the model keeps learning from who is actually buying rather than who bought last year.
Lookalike Performance Reporting
The question worth answering is not whether the lookalike campaign got clicks, but whether it produced customers at a better cost than your other targeting. So we report lookalike audiences as their own line item alongside every other tactic in your plan.
That includes cost per lead and cost per conversion by audience, how lookalike performance shifts as the seed list is refreshed, and where relevant, foot traffic through conversion zone tracking. All of it sits in the same analytics dashboard as your search, social and programmatic campaigns.
Frequently Asked Questions About Lookalike Modeling
What is lookalike modeling?
Taking a list of people who already converted for you and using machine learning to find others who behave like them. You supply the seed audience, the platform identifies the patterns those people share, and then targets others who match. It is a way of scaling beyond an audience you can describe manually.
What do you need from me to build a model?
Either a CRM list of your top converters, or a clear description of the interests, demographics and behaviours that define your best clients. The list route almost always performs better, because it is based on what people actually did rather than what you believe about them.
How is this different from CRM retargeting?
CRM retargeting advertises to the people on your list. Lookalike modeling advertises to people who resemble them but are not on it. One re-engages an audience you already have, the other uses that audience as a template to find new ones. They are frequently run together.
Should I seed on all my leads or just my customers?
Customers, and ideally your highest value ones. Modelling on everyone who ever filled in a form teaches the algorithm to find more form fillers, which produces volume and disappointing conversion. This is the single most common mistake we see when clients have run lookalikes before.
How big does the seed list need to be?
Platforms vary, but a few hundred genuinely good records generally outperforms tens of thousands of mixed ones. If your list is small, the answer is usually to wait until you have more real conversions rather than padding it out with weaker records.
Which platforms can lookalike audiences run on?
Programmatic display, paid social including Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, and search engine marketing. Each platform builds its own model from the same seed data, and they rarely perform identically, which is why we run and compare rather than assuming one will win.
When does lookalike modeling not work?
When the seed list is too small, too old, or made up of leads rather than buyers. It also struggles for businesses with a genuinely narrow addressable market, where the honest answer is that audience curation or addressable targeting will reach your buyers more directly than a model will.
How should performance be judged?
On cost per conversion against your other audiences, not on reach. Lookalikes are a cold audience, so expect a lower click through rate than retargeting and judge them on what they cost to acquire a customer. One nursing program campaign produced 87 leads in two weeks at a $6 to $9 cost per lead this way.
Your best future customers look a lot like your best current ones.
Lookalike modeling turns the customers you already earned into a template for finding more of them, across programmatic, paid social and search.
Bring us your converter list and we will tell you honestly whether it is strong enough to model on before you spend anything.
Fill Out the contact form or call us at 1 (877) 776-7358.