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Create or manage a Lookalike audience

Create and customize Lookalike audiences; edit, duplicate, or delete existing ones; and assign them to new or existing campaigns.

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Written by Team IQM
Updated over 2 weeks ago

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Lookalike audience overview

Lookalike audiences are made up of users with similar characteristics to an existing Matched audience. You’ll select the high-value source audience, choose how similar the new audience should be to the existing one, and specify its ideal audience size.

Refer to Lookalike audience overview for more information and eligibility requirements, or continue reading to create and manage a Lookalike audience in the IQM platform.

Create a Lookalike audience

You can create one Lookalike audience at a time in the Audiences app. Follow these steps to create a new Lookalike audience:

  1. Open the Audiences app.

  2. Select Lookalike Audience.

  3. Click + Create New. This will open the Create Lookalike Audience pop-up window.

  4. Enter a name for the audience.

  5. Open the Matched Audience menu and select the existing audience(s) that your new audience should use as source data.

    1. Review the selected audiences’ Match Rate and Reach details.

    2. Since the Lookalike audience will share characteristics with these audiences, we recommend choosing ones with similar objectives and performance.

  6. Click Next.

  7. Slide the Audience Similarity & Size toggle to the left or right to define how the audience should prioritize these settings.

    1. Refer to Key terms and concepts: Audience Size and Similarity for more details on the relationship between these two values.

  8. Apply the audience’s Geo Expansion Settings.

    1. At least one State is required, while Cities and Countries are optional.

  9. If you’re a Political advertiser, target particular Senates, Congressional Districts, and/or State Houses, if desired.

  10. Select Create.

Your Lookalike audience will immediately begin processing. You can monitor its current status by following the steps outlined in Review a Lookalike audience.

Manage a Lookalike audience

Use the Lookalike Audience page of the Audiences app to review, search, sort, or filter your existing Lookalike audiences. You can also use this page to edit, duplicate, or delete them; and to assign them to campaigns.

Review a Lookalike audience

Follow these steps to locate and review an existing Lookalike audience:

  1. Locate the audience you’d like to review.

    1. Search by ID or Audience Name.

    2. Filter by Status.

    3. Open the column selector to add or remove a table column.

  2. Select the desired audience ID in the ID column. This will open the audience in a pop-up window, where you can review its details.

  3. Once the Lookalike audience features a Ready status, you can review additional details.

    1. Review the audience’s Reach, Cost (CPM), and Status in the summary panel.

    2. Review the details you entered when you created the audience such as its source Matched audience(s) and Geo Expansion Settings.

  4. Select Done to close the pop-up window and return to the Lookalike Audience page.

Edit a Lookalike audience

More on editing Lookalike audiences: Only an existing Lookalike audience’s name can be edited. If you’d like to apply changes to the audience’s other settings—such as its source Matched audiences and Geo Expansion Settings—we recommend duplicating the audience or creating a new one instead.

Follow these steps to edit an existing Lookalike audience’s name:

  1. Select the existing name from the table’s Audience Name column, and type the new audience name directly in the cell.

  2. Click the checkmark icon to confirm your selection.

Duplicate a Lookalike audience

Follow these steps to duplicate an existing Lookalike audience:

  1. Select the page icon from the desired audience’s Actions column.

  2. Follow the steps outlined in the Create a Lookalike audience workflow to name the audience and apply your preferred settings.

    1. If no changes are applied, the duplicated audience will include the same Matched audience(s) and settings as the existing audience; and its Audience Name will show “Copy of” followed by the existing audience’s name.

The duplicated audience will appear in the Lookalike Audience table of the Audiences app and feature a Processing status. The original audience will remain unchanged.

Delete a Lookalike audience

Audience deletion notice: Note that deleted audiences are unrecoverable, and this action is permanent. As a safeguard, consider duplicating and updating the existing audience to reflect any desired changes.

You can delete Lookalike audiences individually or in bulk. They must feature a Ready, Processing, or Failed status; and their Allowlist/Blocklist count must be 0.

Follow these steps to delete a Lookalike audience:

  1. To delete audiences individually, use the Actions column to select the trash can icon next to the individual audience that you’d like to delete

  2. To delete audiences in bulk:

    1. Select the checkboxes next to the desired audiences.

    2. Click Delete.

The deleted audience(s) will no longer appear in the Audiences app.

Assign a Lookalike audience to a campaign

A single campaign can target up to 20 audiences. Lookalike audiences can be assigned to new and existing campaigns, and from the Audiences and Campaigns apps. Refer to Assign an audience to a campaign for step-by-step instructions.

Locate additional Lookalike audience resources

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