Here’s everything you need to know about the changes coming to LinkedIn’s targeting and audiences.
On February 29th, 2024, LinkedIn’s lookalike audiences will be discontinued, meaning that new lookalike audiences can’t be created, and existing ones can’t be edited.
Whilst this may seem alarming to many users, as their strategy will undoubtedly include lookalike audiences to target out-of-reach, top-of-funnel audiences that may have been missed through other audiences, such as remarketing and interest-based audiences, LinkedIn has made some changes to combat these changes.
What to use instead of LinkedIn lookalike audiences
Firstly, LinkedIn Audience Expansion is an option, which is recommended when you’re trying to grow your target audience.
LinkedIn Audience Expansion
Audience Expansion primarily uses professional demographics, which when combined with Matched Audience segments, will target those with attributes similar to your target audience, providing you with an expanded audience.
Predictive audiences
The other option is to use LinkedIn’s predictive audiences, which unfortunately comes with restrictions. Predictive audiences use Lead Gen Form conversions using the Insight Tag or CAPI (Conversions API).
LinkedIn says: “To create a predictive audience, we combine your data source and LinkedIn’s AI to automatically generate a new custom audience to use in your campaigns.” So essentially, it’s similar to Meta’s Advantage+ audiences, which has hugely benefited the platform. (Source)
When using predictive audiences, keep in mind you can only select one type of data source (contact list, conversion or Lead Gen Form) and your data source must have 300 or more members to create a predictive audience.
So whilst these other options aren’t quite the same as lookalike audiences, they’ll no doubt be helpful when looking at ways of expanding your audiences or simplifying the targeting process.
Final thoughts on LinkedIn lookalike audiences
Whilst predictive audiences and Audience Expansion won’t offer quite the same level of audience size as lookalike audiences, with AI getting better by the day, and platforms such as LinkedIn and Meta vastly improving how their AI function, I do not doubt that, over time, advertisers can expect similar results whilst using these alternative audience options.
Learn more about social media marketing and how we can support your LinkedIn campaigns, or contact our team.
