LinkedIn to sunset lookalike audiences

The platform recommends adjusting your audience targeting strategy to either predictive audiences or audience expansion.

LinkedIn will discontinue lookalike audiences on February 29.

Why we care. Before March, advertisers must modify their audience targeting strategy, as they will no longer be able to create new lookalike audiences or edit existing ones.

What are lookalike audiences? A lookalike audience allows your ads to reach new individuals who are likely interested in your business because they share similar characteristics with your existing customers.

Action needed. Starting in March, the platform suggests exploring alternative options to connect with similar audiences and pinpoint potential buyers who are most likely to take action, such as:

• Predictive audiences: For contact list, conversion, or Lead Gen Form data sources.
• Audience expansion: For Matched Audiences and LinkedIn attribute targeting, such as by skill or interest.

Implications for existing campaigns. For existing ad campaigns using lookalike audiences on LinkedIn, you will need to shift to predictive audiences or activate audience expansion to maintaining a dynamic targeting strategy. LinkedIn is providing a 30-day grace period during which unused lookalike audiences can still be accessed before being archived.

It’s also important to note that LinkedIn’s API for creating lookalike audiences through third-party marketing platforms, such as HubSpot, will no longer be available. Marketers relying on these integrations to build audiences will need to explore alternative options.

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Deep dive. Read LinkedIn’s announcement in full for more information.