Retargeting and lookalikes: the next step
Two audiences built from your own data. They don’t replace prospecting. They build on it.
Retargeting first
Retargeting reaches people who already interacted with you: site visitors, abandoned carts, video viewers, page followers. These are warm audiences, and they usually convert at the lowest cost in the account.
Hence the classic mistake: see that cost, decide retargeting is the best campaign, and move most of the budget there. Retargeting doesn’t create demand, it harvests it. Without prospecting to refill the pool, it runs dry in a few weeks.
Lookalike audiences
A lookalike is an audience Meta builds from a source you provide: your buyers, your best customers, your sign-ups. Meta then finds people who resemble them, based on its own signals.
The source decides everything. Recent buyers beat all your site visitors. A source that’s too small won’t give you anything reliable. Broaden the definition instead, like buyers over a longer period, rather than forcing it.
What order to build them in
Follow your data. At first you have none: start with broad targeting and fill the pool. Once you have some buyers, retargeting becomes useful. Once that buyer list grows, lookalikes start to work.
Wanting all three on day one is the fastest way to three starving ad sets that learn nothing.
Keep your campaigns from competing
If one person sits in several of your audiences, your campaigns can bid against each other for the same impression, and you pay for it. Excluding recent buyers from prospecting, or recent visitors from a lookalike, usually fixes it.
This is exactly the kind of overlap Adwize spots in your account and flags, with the reason and a suggested fix, before you approve anything.