Facebook Lookalike Audiences Program Template

The Facebook Lookalike Audiences Program allows you to combine the power of your CRM data in Spektrix with Meta Ads to help you reach new customers.

Before you start, you should be familiar with:

Dotdigital Program Templates

Why set up a Facebook Lookalike Audiences Program?

The Ad targeting tools in Meta Ads Manager utilise data from uers Facebook profiles such as their activity (likes, shares, and follows) or website behaviour (clicks and page views). These behavioural signals can be misleading. For example, someone who likes multiple posts might never purchase tickets, while a subscriber or member might browse less but spend more.

Instead, by using your CRM data from Spektrix, you can target ads to profiles that reflect your current most valuable customers, rather than old profile data or behaviour inferred from cookies. Using your data from Spektrix, you can identify your ideal customers based on their booking behaviour, loyalty and spending patterns.

Meta can use this data to identify people who resemble your best customers. The more accurate your data, the more likely Meta is to find people who will convert, helping reduce wasted impressions and lower costs.

TIP: Using Lookalike Audiences powered by CRM data can lead to an average 27% reduction in cost per acquisition.

How does it work?

For this Program, we’ll use the Spektrix metric Average Spend Per Order to identify your most valuable customers.

You’ll then use this as the criteria for enrolment to your Program. Customers who meet the criteria are enrolled in the Program when data is synced from Spektrix to Dotdigital every day at 7am or at the point that you send out any Integrated Email.

Customers who enter your Program will then be synced to a Facebook Meta Ads Custom Audience. This Audience can then be used to create your Lookalike audience.

We will aim to create a Lookalike audience from your top 1000 customers. This size allows for a precise Lookalike while still giving Meta enough data to find accurate matches.

TIP: You won’t be charged for activating the Lookalike Audiences Program in Dotdigital. The cost of running your ad campaign is set in Meta Ads Manager when you create your Ad.

Before you start

To set up your Program for Lookalike Audiences, you will need:

Your Dotdigital account details
Your Meta account details
To have linked your Meta account to Dotdigital

To link your Meta account to Dotdigital, follow the guidance on how to connect your ad account to Dotdigital.

When you activate your Program, you may need to agree to the terms and conditions. The terms and conditions must be accepted by the same account user who set up the link between your Dotdigital and Meta accounts. Otherwise, you will be unable to set the terms and conditions and proceed.

Using Customer Data

If you decide to start using Ads Automation in Dotdigital Programs, you may want to consider updating your privacy policy.

For organisations in the UK and Ireland, we recommend reading the GDPR and UK Data Protection article.

For Canadian clients, take a look at Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation and Spektrix.

How to set up a Lookalike Program

To retain your Program Template, you’ll need to make a copy before you start making changes.

In your Dotdigital account, navigate to Automation > Programs
Find the Facebook Lookalike Audiences Program Template:
Check the box next to the template and then click Copy program from the MORE ACTIONS dropdown:
Give your Program a new name and then click CONTINUE:

REMINDER: When building your Program don’t forget to regularly click Save to save your progress.

1. Create a Start Condition

Click on the blue start node:

Create a start condition.png

Work through steps one to three to configure the start condition:

Enrolment Scheduling

Click Set Schedule
Choose daily
Set the time of day you want contacts to enrol
Click Apply

Enrolment Rule

Click Set Rule
Choose Segment and then click the COPY EXISTING button
Choose the High Value Lookalike Segment
To change the parameters of what classifies customers as “high value”, you can click into each segment to set a different value
By default, the AVGSPENPERORDER metric is set at more than £150/$150. Adjust this number as appropriate for your organisation. Increasing the average spend number will make the audience smaller
By default, the WEEKSSINCELASTORDER metric is set as is less than 53. Adjust this number as appropriate for your organisation. Decreasing the number of weeks will make the audience smaller
Click the GENERATE SEGMENT button to see how many of your existing customers meet this criteria. Ideally this number should be between around 2000. If not, return to the segments to adjust accordingly until your number is around 2000.

TIP: Not all of your customers will have a Meta account, so starting with 2000 ensures you’ll have at least 1000 customers in the final sync. It also helps account for small fluctuations in average spend, keeping your audience consistently above 1000.
Click Apply

Enrolment Limits

Click Set Limit
Choose Re-enrol contacts on the program every day they meet the start criteria
Click Apply

2. Configure your actions

There are two action nodes in the Program template.

Click the first action node
Choose to Add the selected audience to your ad account
Then, select NEW AUDIENCE:
Enter the name of your new Audience. For example “Spektrix High Value Customers"
Select CREATE
Click the second action node
Choose to Remove the selected audience to your ad account
Then, click CHOOSE AUDIENCE:
Select the Ads Audience you created above:
Click Apply

Create a Lookalike Audience

Next, log into your Meta Ads Manager account to create your Lookalike Audience.

In your Meta Ads Manager account, navigate to Audiences.

Then, go to Create Audience > Lookalike Audience.

Select your lookalike source and choose other sources. You can then select your synced Custom Audience as the source for your Lookalike.

Once set, your Lookalike Audience will take 1-3 days to generate.

When the Lookalike Audience has generated, you can: