Meta Lookalike Audience Guide

Date: May 2026 Source data: your customer export (2,080 in-area contacts)

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Overview

We will upload three audience seeds to Meta, create a Custom Audience from each, and then build 1% Lookalike Audiences targeted to Phoenix metro. This is the cold prospecting foundation for the Meta ads launch.

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Step 1: Prepare the CSV Files

Meta requires specific column headers. Our Jobber export uses slightly different naming, so you need to create formatted versions before uploading.

Required Meta column headers (exact spelling matters)

How to create the three filtered CSVs

Open your customer export in Excel or Google Sheets.

All Customers file:

1. Filter: total_paid > 0
2. This excludes anyone with $0 paid (pure leads with no history)
3. Rename columns to Meta headers (see table above)
4. Add st column → fill all rows with AZ
5. Add country column → fill all rows with US
6. Save as: meta-upload-all-customers.csv

VIP Customers file:

1. Filter: tier = 1-vip
2. Note: the tier values in our CSV are prefixed (e.g., 1-vip, 2-standard) — filter for rows containing vip
3. Same column rename/add steps as above
4. Save as: meta-upload-vip.csv

Quoted Never Paid file:

1. Filter: tier = 4-quoted (or contains quoted)
2. Same column rename/add steps as above
3. Save as: meta-upload-quoted.csv

Tips for clean data

• Remove any rows where both email and phone are blank — they will not match
• Phone numbers in the CSV are mixed format (some have parens, some don't) — Meta handles both, no need to normalize
• Do not include the jobber_id, in_service_area, status, sent_at, or batch columns — strip those out to keep the file clean
• Save as plain CSV (not xlsx)

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Step 2: Upload to Meta — Create Custom Audiences

Do this three times, once per CSV file.

Navigation

1. Go to Meta Ads Manager
2. In the top-left menu, click All Tools → Audiences
3. Click Create Audience → Custom Audience
4. Select Customer List

Upload steps

1. Click Upload File and select your CSV (start with meta-upload-vip.csv)
2. Meta will auto-detect column mappings — review them carefully:
   • Confirm fn maps to "First Name"
   • Confirm email maps to "Email"
   • Confirm phone maps to "Phone Number"
   • Confirm ct maps to "City"
   • Confirm st maps to "State/Province"
   • Confirm country maps to "Country"
   • If Meta flags any column as unmapped, manually assign it from the dropdown
3. Click Next — Meta will hash the data client-side before uploading (PII never leaves your browser unencrypted)
4. Name the audience clearly:
   • Trimlight — VIP Customers
   • Trimlight — All Customers
   • Trimlight — Quoted Never Paid
5. Add a description noting the source and date (e.g., "Jobber export May 2026, 2,080 contacts, filtered for VIP tier")
6. Click Create Audience

Repeat for each of the three CSV files.

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Step 3: Create 1% Lookalike Audiences

Wait until each Custom Audience shows a contact count (usually within a few minutes of upload, though match rate processing takes longer). You don't need to wait for full population before creating the Lookalike.

For each Custom Audience

1. In Audiences, find the Custom Audience you just created
2. Check the checkbox next to it
3. Click Actions → Create Lookalike
4. Configure:
   • Source: the Custom Audience (e.g., Trimlight — VIP Customers)
   • Audience Location: United States — but you will geo-restrict at the ad set level (see Step 4)
   • Audience Size: Select 1% — this is the tightest match, closest to your seed audience behavior
5. Name it clearly:
   • Trimlight — Lookalike 1% VIP
   • Trimlight — Lookalike 1% All Customers
   • Trimlight — Lookalike 1% Quoted
6. Click Create Audience

You will end up with 6 audiences total: 3 Custom (seeds) + 3 Lookalike.

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Step 4: Geo-Restrict to Phoenix Metro

Important: A 1% US Lookalike is ~2.1 million people nationally. You must restrict delivery to Phoenix metro at the ad set level — not the audience level.

When creating or editing an ad set:

1. Under Audience, in the Locations field, delete "United States"
2. Search for and add these locations:
   • Phoenix, Arizona (city, includes surrounding metro)
   • Scottsdale, Arizona (city)
   • Paradise Valley, Arizona (city)
   • Arcadia (neighborhood within Phoenix — may need to add as part of Phoenix)
   • Optionally add: Gilbert, Chandler, Tempe, Mesa, Peoria, Surprise (these appear in our customer list)
3. Set radius to 25 miles around Phoenix if you want a broad metro sweep, or pin specific cities with no radius for tighter control
4. Under the location selector, confirm "People living in or recently in this location" (not "traveling in")
5. Apply this geo setting to every ad set using a Lookalike audience

This ensures your national Lookalike is only served within the Trimlight service area.

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Step 5: Population Timeline

You can launch campaigns before the Lookalike is fully populated — Meta will start serving as soon as enough matches exist. For best results, let it fully populate before drawing conclusions from early performance data.

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Step 6: Best Practices

Minimum seed size

• Meta recommends a minimum of 100 matched contacts to generate a Lookalike
• 1,000+ matched contacts produces a significantly better Lookalike
• Our VIP segment should have 80–120 contacts — borderline but workable
• Our All Customers segment should produce 500–900 matched contacts after deduplication — solid seed

Expected match rates

Meta matches on email and phone independently. Typical match rates for residential service businesses:

Our CSV has gaps — some rows have email only, some phone only, a few have neither. Expect an overall match rate of 50–65%, yielding roughly:

• All Customers: ~900–1,200 matched contacts
• VIP: ~50–80 matched contacts (may be thin — monitor)
• Quoted: depends on segment size

If VIP match count comes back below 100, combine VIP + Standard tiers into a single "High Value Customers" seed.

When to refresh

• Re-upload after each Jobber export cycle (monthly is sufficient)
• Definitely refresh before the Sept–Dec peak season push
• To refresh: go to the Custom Audience in Audiences, click Update → upload the new CSV. The Lookalike will automatically update within 24–48 hours.

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Step 7: Which Seed to Use for Which Campaign

Recommended launch sequence

1. Start with VIP Lookalike + Phoenix metro geo — this is your best-guess cold prospect audience
2. Set a modest daily budget ($25–50/day) for the first 2 weeks to gather signal
3. After 2 weeks, compare CPL between VIP Lookalike and All Customers Lookalike
4. Scale the winner; pause the underperformer
5. Run the Quoted Never Paid Custom Audience as a separate retargeting campaign with a different creative angle (urgency, limited availability, seasonal hook)

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Quick Reference Checklist

• Export and filter three CSVs from your customer export
• Rename columns to Meta headers (fn, ln, email, phone, ct, st, country)
• Add st = AZ and country = US columns to all files
• Upload VIP CSV → Create Custom Audience: Trimlight — VIP Customers
• Upload All Customers CSV → Create Custom Audience: Trimlight — All Customers
• Upload Quoted CSV → Create Custom Audience: Trimlight — Quoted Never Paid
• Create 1% Lookalike from VIP → Trimlight — Lookalike 1% VIP
• Create 1% Lookalike from All Customers → Trimlight — Lookalike 1% All Customers
• Create 1% Lookalike from Quoted → Trimlight — Lookalike 1% Quoted
• Wait 24–48 hours for audiences to populate
• In every cold prospecting ad set: set location to Phoenix metro cities, exclude All Customers custom audience
• In retargeting ad set: target Quoted Never Paid directly