Lookalike Audience (LAL)
Lookalike Audience (LAL) explained — audiences modeled on your best customers. Note: LinkedIn retired Lookalikes for Predictive Audiences.
Updated July 2026.
An audience the platform builds by finding new users who resemble a source list of your existing customers or leads, expanding reach to similar high-potential prospects.
Benchmark range
Meta lookalikes typically start at 1% of a country (closest match) and widen to 10% for more reach. Source-list quality drives results more than size.
Why it matters
Lookalikes scale prospecting beyond your known audience using your best customers as the template. A clean, high-value source list produces a far better model.
2026 update
In 2026 the trend is toward broader, AI-driven targeting over manual lookalikes: Meta's Advantage+ Audience often outperforms hand-built lookalikes, and LinkedIn retired Lookalike Audiences entirely on February 29, 2024, replacing them with Predictive Audiences. Meta's lookalikes remain available — they were never retired. Feed strong first-party seed lists and let the algorithms expand.
Where it applies
- Meta Ads
- TikTok Ads
- Snapchat Ads
- Pinterest Ads
- LinkedIn Ads