Audiences in Epsilon Accelerate allow you to reach new customers by building Lookalike Audiences (LALs) based on your best users. This article covers everything you need to know about using LALs in Epsilon Accelerate, including setup, activation, and strategy.
What is a Lookalike Audience?
Lookalike Audiences (LALs) are a way to find new users who share similar characteristics with your existing audience segments. By identifying and targeting users who resemble your target customers, LALs help drive higher engagement, reach, and conversion on traffic from your paid search, social, display, and video channels resulting in better ROAS and ROI.
How Does LAL Audience Targeting Work in Epsilon Accelerate?
For clients using LAL Audience activation, a new “Audiences” tab will appear in the Epsilon Accelerate platform. From here, your Customer Success Manager (CSM) can view and configure your target audience settings, and you can monitor key details and status of your modeled audience as it’s pushed to your paid channels to then activate against.
Note / Pre-requisites: this feature is only available to clients in the USA who have the Epsilon tag, a controller DPA, and who have upgraded to access this feature.
How to Set Up Lookalike Audiences
Ready to get started? First, contact your CSM to discuss your strategy or review more about Lookalike Audience targeting in our Audience Building Guide.
To begin, you will provide us with a list of users you’d like to target. These might include recent buyers, newsletter sign-ups, or high-engagement users. We take this seed list and utilize Epsilon’s best-in-class AI/ML models in conjunction with our extensive identity network to create a target Lookalike Audience sized to match your goals. This new audience is then automatically pushed to your paid channels. Customers are then ready to run paid campaigns against Epsilon Accelerate LAL audiences and get reporting insights on the performance of their modeled audiences, channels, and onsite engagement and conversions.
Setup Timeline:
The initial setup and audience match takes up to 5 business days.
Once pushed to your paid channel account the modeled audience takes 1-3 business days to appear in your account.
Once activated, expect up to a few months for full optimization of ROI as the audience data aligns across channels.
Recommended Strategies for Using Lookalike Audiences
Timing and audience selection are essential for maximizing Lookalike Audience success. We recommend:
Choose high-engagement groups like recent buyers or loyal customers for your LALs.
For best results, consider seasonality, product launches, or high-traffic times.
For more tips on building and optimizing LALs, read our detailed Audience Building Guide. This guide provides in-depth information on Audiences, timing recommendations, and targeting strategies when comparing the performance of Epsilon Accelerate LAL audiences against other campaigns you’re running.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to set up a Lookalike Audience?
It takes around 7 days for the initial setup, but the full optimization period can take a few months.
Can I see which users are part of the Lookalike Audience?
While you’ll be able to see audience details in the LAL tab, specific user profiles remain anonymous to protect privacy.
What if I need more guidance on targeting?
Connect with your CSM for help choosing audiences and optimizing your LAL campaigns.
Ready to get started? Have questions? Contact your CSM to discuss your strategy.