Web Lookalike Targeting Campaign Guide

What are Lookalike Targeting Campaigns

Lookalike targeting campaigns analyze your website's user behaviors and match these signals with similar users across the web using The IntentMap.

The goal of Lookalike targeting is to drive net-new users to your website that resemble those already engaging and fill the website retargeting funnel with quality new visitors. Since these users have not been to your website before, they may not be familiar with your brand.

It is important to use high-level branding imagery to build awareness among new potential users.  Keep in mind that the ads you use for Lookalike Campaigns should be meant to introduce customers to your brand and encourage them to learn more, whereas Website Retargeting Campaigns encourage conversions from people who have already visited your website before.

Who can access

Access to Website Lookalike Campaigns depends on your subscription package:

Step 1. Essentials before you start

• Install the Pixel to track visitors.
• Create at least one conversion audience. We recommend creating a conversion audience for each single form submission on your website.
• Create at least one set of web ads.
• Your target audience must have 100 unique visitors.
• If a visitor from your target audience completes a conversion on your site, we will keep targeting them with ads. To avoid this, manually exclude all conversion audiences by selecting your defined Conversion Audience as exclusions.
• Make sure you have sufficient data on which your lookalike audience will be based. It is recommended to run a Website Retargeting Campaign first to collect accurate data about your high-intent visitors. That way, your Lookalike Targeting Campaign will be more effective and less random.

Step 2: Create a Lookalike Targeting Campaign

• Click here or go to Advertising > Campaigns & Playbooks.
• Click Create and select Ad Campaigns in the dropdown.

• Select Lookalike Targeting as your Campaign Goal and Click Next.

Step 3. Configure your Web Campaign Settings

In this step, you will configure the settings that will be applied to your campaign, including when it will run, how you would like us to prioritize your bid strategy, advanced bidding options, and placement exclusions.

Campaign Name

Click Edit Name at the top of your campaign and choose a name that will be easy to identify across reports and AdRoll ABM platform features. We recommend following a consistent naming convention for all your campaigns.

Campaign Channel

Scroll down to the section called Channel to select the channel where you wish to run your ads:

• Web: Your ads will be served on the Web (Desktop and Mobile) and Apps.
• Connected TV: Your CTV video ads will be delivered through streaming apps, either built into smart TVs or through devices like Roku, Apple TV, and gaming consoles connected to a TV.

If you want to run the same campaign on both Web and CTV, you will need to launch two separate campaigns, one for each channel.

Please note that this article will guide you through launching a Web Channel campaign.

Campaign Schedule

Scroll down to the section called Choose your Schedule. The schedule you select will be applied to all AdGroups within your campaign, unless you set up Custom Schedules for specific AdGroups.

• Specify your Start Date:
  • Here you can specify if you want to launch your campaign immediately or on a specific date.
  • Please note that all campaigns will go through a 48-hour review period before they are approved and go live.
• Specify your End Date:
  • For evergreen campaigns, select No end date.
  • For time-bound campaigns, set up a specific end date.

Please note that all dates and times you set are expressed in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), this default time zone cannot be changed.

alt="Schedule.png"

Default Start and End Dates	Specific Start and End Dates

Web Bidding Settings

Scroll down to the section called Web Channel.

Here you will be able to choose how your campaign optimizes its Bid Strategy by adjusting the algorithm to prioritize conversions, clicks, or conversions. This section also offers you advanced bidding settings to control Day Parting, Frequency Capping, and Exclusions. 

Choose one of the three options under Bid Strategy:

• Conversions: Focus on those most likely to convert as defined in your Conversion Audiences.
• Clicks: Enhance traffic by maximizing clicks.
• Impressions: Boost the number of ads displayed by your campaign.

Leaving the Target CPM, CPC, and CPA values blank will let us automatically maximize impressions, clicks, or conversions within your budget. If you set a specific CPM, CPC, or CPA, BidIQ will optimize to reach your target; however, the actual CPM, CPC, or CPA may vary.

If you need help choosing a Bid Strategy, read this article. Please note that bid strategy options differ by channel.

Advanced Options: Day Parting

Adjusting this advanced setting is not recommended. If you want to limit specific days of the week and times to serve ads, read this article for more information.

Day parting is automatically adjusted by BidIQ®, our proprietary real-time bidding algorithm processing hundreds of variables for each and every user, to determine whether or not to bid, and how much, at the time of each potential impression.

Advanced Options: Frequency Capping

Adjusting this advanced setting is not recommended. If you want to limit the number of impressions per user per day, read this article for more information.

Frequency capping is dynamically adjusted by BidIQ®, our proprietary real-time bidding algorithm processing hundreds of variables for each and every user, to optimise how many times your ads appear to the same person.

Advanced Options: General Exclusions 

To find Campaign-specific exclusions, scroll down to the section Choose Web Settings and click Advanced Options.

Check this box to choose whether to target your existing customers in this campaign, as defined in your account General Exclusion Settings.

Please note that we will automatically exclude competitors and coworkers from your campaigns.

To make changes to your existing account General Exclusions, exit your campaign and navigate to Settings > General Exclusions, and follow the instructions in this article.

Advanced Options: Campaign-specific Exclusions

To find Campaign-specific exclusions, scroll down to the section Choose Web Settings and click Advanced Options.

Web Campaign-specific exclusions allow you to configure Domain and App exclusions at the campaign level to control the placements where your ads are served. Campaign-specific exclusions are applied in addition to your existing General Exclusions.

Learn more about Campaign-specific exclusions in this article.

Step 4. Configure your AdGroup Settings

An AdGroup is a fundamental organizational unit within a campaign. Creating multiple AdGroups within one campaign lets you select specific ads for a specific audience, environments, locations, and custom schedules.

• At a minimum, a campaign will have one AdGroup; you can add more as needed.
• You can measure performance for each individual AdGroup.
• Your Campaign budget is automatically allocated across all the AdGroups in your campaign; you can't set specific budget allocations by AdGroup.

AdGroup Name

Choose a naming convention that is easy to recognise in reports and dashboards.

AdGroup Schedule

If you want this AdGroup to run on a different schedule than your main campaign schedule, toggle on Use Custom AdGroup Schedule and select your start and end dates.

AdGroup Audience Included

With lookalike AdRoll ABM automatically chooses the best audience for you. You cannot select specific audience inclusions or exclusions.

AdGroup Audience Location

With lookalike AdRoll ABM campaigns you must select at least one location to target. Adjusting geo targeting limits the locations of users seeing your ads. If you want to select specific audience locations, read this article to learn more.

Please note that this is an AdGroup setting, and you can have multiple AdGroups within one campaign targeting different user locations with different ads.

Environments

By default, we will automatically serve ads to your audience users in Desktop, Mobile Web, and Mobile Apps. We recommend using the Automatic Environments default setting to cover 100% of users in your audience, regardless of the type of environment.

While not advised, you can exclude Desktop, Mobile Web, and Mobile App by turning off each specific Environment. Learn more about how to exclude Environments here. 

Please note that this is an AdGroup setting, and you can have multiple AdGroups within one campaign targeting different environments with different ads.

AdGroup creatives

Scroll down to Web Ads section to upload ads to the campaign. At a minimum, select the following ad types and sizes:

• Image Web Ads: 160x600, 300x250, 300x600, 320x50, 728x90, 970x250, 600x500, 600x315
• Native Web Ads: 600x600, 600x315, 600x500

You can create additional AdGroups with different ad creative variations to let BidIQ optimize towards the best-performing ads automatically.

Create more AdGroups if needed

Add additional AdGroups to your campaign as needed by clicking New AdGroup and repeating the prior steps to define: AdGroup Name, Custom Schedule, Environments, Location, and Ad sets.

Step 5. Choose your Campaign Budget

You have the option to select between Daily Budget and Monthly Budget.

The Monthly budget can be prorated (based on the number of days left in the month) or you can use the entire monthly budget for the number of days remaining in the month. Your budget settings apply to all AdGroups. 

Read this article for tips on selecting your campaign budget.

Step 6. Finish later or launch

Once you have completed all the steps in this guide, you can:

• Click Finish Later to save a draft. This allows you to save your work in progress and return later to finalize and submit for launch.
• Click Submit if you are ready to confirm the campaign should launch on the Start Date. Launch date is subject to our ~48-hour ad policy review period. 

Campaign Troubleshooting

If you are experiencing issues after launching your campaign, find tips to troubleshoot your campaign in this article.