What Are Lookalike Audiences and Why Contractors Should Pay Attention
In the world of digital advertising, there’s one tactic that consistently helps businesses reach more of the right people without blindly spending more money: lookalike audiences. For contractors looking to grow their business and secure more high-ticket jobs, this strategy can be a game-changer.
Lookalike audiences allow you to advertise to people who share characteristics with your best clients. These aren’t just random homeowners in your city—they’re statistically similar to the customers who already paid you $10K+ for a project, showed up to consultations, and didn’t ghost you halfway through. Platforms like Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Google Ads have massive data sets about user behavior, purchasing habits, browsing patterns, and engagement metrics. When you upload your past client list, these platforms compare the data against their ecosystem and find “lookalike” users most likely to engage with you in the same way.
This is the missing link for many contractors stuck in the cycle of generic local ads, seeing low-quality leads and poor returns. With lookalike audiences, you start with a data-informed base—your actual paying clients—and expand your reach in a meaningful, profitable way.
The Problem With Scaling Contractor Ads the Traditional Way
Let’s be honest: Most contractor ads start strong and fade fast. You pick a zip code, set an age range, maybe choose “homeowners” as a target audience, and see some clicks roll in. But over time, you notice the quality of leads dropping. You’re getting form submissions from renters. People who can’t afford your services. Tire-kickers who waste your time. And yet your ad costs stay the same—or increase.
The problem isn’t your ad copy or your landing page. It’s audience fatigue and poor targeting. Traditional broad targeting can only take you so far. If you’re serious about scaling, you need to stop guessing and start feeding the algorithm with better data.
That’s where lookalike audiences excel. They aren’t based on demographics alone—they’re based on behavior and intent. So instead of targeting “homeowners in Dallas,” you’re targeting “people in Dallas who behave online like the people who hired me for a $15K kitchen remodel.” See the difference?
The first place contractors should experiment with lookalike audiences is Meta. It’s still one of the most powerful advertising platforms because of the sheer amount of personal behavior data it has on its users. From page likes to video views to shopping habits, Meta knows who’s likely to spend and who’s just scrolling.
To begin, you need a list of your best clients. Ideally, these are people you’ve worked with in the last 1–3 years who paid for premium services. Even if you only have a list of 50–100 clients, that’s often enough to build an effective custom audience.
Export that list into a CSV file with names, emails, and phone numbers. The more fields you provide, the better Meta can match those users on its platform. Once you’ve uploaded the file to Meta Business Manager, you’ll be prompted to create a custom audience. After it’s uploaded and processed, you can then create a lookalike audience based on that original data.
Meta will give you the option to select a percentage range: 1% being the closest match (i.e., people most similar to your original list), and higher percentages (up to 10%) being broader and less precise. For contractors, especially those offering premium services, it’s best to stick with the 1% to 2% range and combine it with tight geo-targeting—focusing on the actual areas you serve.
Setting Up Lookalike Audiences in Google Ads
While Meta is often more intuitive for creating lookalike audiences, Google Ads offers its version through what it calls Customer Match and Similar Segments (though the naming and availability of similar audiences have evolved post-2024 due to privacy updates).
With Google, you also begin by uploading a client list—ideally through your Customer Match settings. This list should contain email addresses and phone numbers at a minimum. Once uploaded, Google can begin using the data to target those existing clients (useful for upsells), but more importantly, it can start generating similar audiences if your account and campaign types qualify.
Although Google is more conservative in how it uses personal data, its massive reach across Search, YouTube, Gmail, and Display makes it incredibly powerful. Think about it—if someone just like your past client is actively searching “custom deck builder near me” on Google, your ad has a much higher chance of showing up in front of them when using a well-built similar audience model.
And since you’re not bidding against every other general contractor using basic keyword targeting, your cost per lead (CPL) tends to drop while your lead quality rises.
Advanced Tip: Segment by Job Type or Budget Tier
One of the biggest mistakes contractors make with lookalike audiences is uploading one giant, messy client list. If you’ve built everything from $5,000 fences to $80,000 home additions, lumping all those clients together creates a muddy audience.
Instead, segment your lists before uploading. Separate clients by:
- Service type: bathrooms, kitchens, basements, outdoor structures
- Budget: high-end vs. mid-range
- Project location (especially if some areas generate better clients than others)
When you create a lookalike audience from a list of high-ticket clients who hired you for full renovations, Meta and Google are going to look for users who reflect that premium behavior. Your ads will now speak directly to people more likely to book large, profitable jobs—not budget browsers looking for deals.
What Makes Lookalike Audiences Work So Well for Contractors
At the core of it, most contractor services are trust-based and high-consideration purchases. People don’t hire someone to rebuild their kitchen on a whim. They research, read reviews, ask around, scroll Instagram to see before-and-afters.
So when you run ads to cold, broad audiences, you’re often catching people too early or people who were never serious to begin with. Lookalike audiences shortcut that by showing your ads to users who already show high-intent signals. These users may have visited contractor websites, clicked on remodeling videos, or filled out service inquiry forms in the past.
They’re not just “interested in home improvement”—they’re actively behaving like people who hire contractors. That behavioral data makes a massive difference in ad performance.
Real-World Example: Scaling a $20K Remodeler With Lookalikes
Let’s take a real example from a remodeler based in Austin, Texas. This contractor specialized in full-home remodeling jobs averaging $20,000. Their initial ad strategy used interest-based targeting on Meta with decent results—about 15 leads per month at an average cost of $70 per lead.
But the team noticed many leads weren’t qualified. Some didn’t own homes. Others just wanted a handyman for $500 worth of work.
They decided to upload a list of 35 past clients who had completed major remodeling jobs and create a 1% lookalike audience from that list. They combined it with a local radius around their top 3 service areas.
Within the first month of switching strategies, their lead cost dropped to $48, and over half of the leads were from homeowners actively requesting consultations. Within three months, they increased their monthly ad budget from $1,000 to $3,500—profitably—because they were consistently booking bigger jobs with better clients.
Combining Lookalikes With Funnel Strategy and Retargeting
To truly unlock the power of lookalike audiences, you need to think about where in the customer journey you’re reaching people. Lookalikes are perfect for top-of-funnel awareness and lead generation. But they work even better when you add:
- Middle-of-funnel education ads (like testimonials or behind-the-scenes videos)
- Retargeting ads for people who click but don’t convert
- Landing pages that match the specific audience segment (e.g., a bathroom remodel gallery for people who clicked a bathroom-focused ad)
The goal is not just to attract “similar people.” It’s to build an intentional path from ad to booked consultation. And the more relevant and trust-building that path is, the more likely your lookalike leads will convert.
It’s important to know that lookalike audiences aren’t a one-time setup. The platforms continue learning over time—especially as more people interact with your ads, land on your pages, or get entered into your CRM.
That’s why it’s good practice to update your audience lists regularly, especially with newly closed high-ticket clients. This keeps your lookalike audiences fresh and sharp, helping you avoid audience decay.
The best-performing contractor campaigns use a feedback loop:
- Collect quality lead and customer data
- Upload and segment the data for custom audiences
- Build lookalikes from those top segments
- Launch ads, optimize based on performance
- Feed new wins back into the system
It’s not magic. It’s smart, scalable targeting that respects your budget.
Conclusion: Scale With Certainty, Not Guesswork
For contractors serious about attracting better clients and scaling their business, lookalike audiences are one of the most efficient tools available. Instead of throwing ads at a wall and hoping they stick, you’re building campaigns based on real customer behavior. You’re targeting people who already act like your best buyers—and that’s a recipe for long-term, sustainable growth.
Whether you’re spending $500 a month or $5,000, building smart audiences is what separates the average contractor from the dominant one.
If you’re not sure where to start—or need help organizing your client data and structuring high-converting campaigns—our team at Kiri Visual specializes in helping high-salary contractors grow with precision-focused advertising and funnel design.
Let’s turn your past clients into a pipeline of future wins.
FAQs
Do I need a huge client list to use lookalikes?No. You can start with as few as 100 customers. Quality matters more than quantity.
Are lookalike audiences expensive to use?No additional cost is charged for using lookalike features. You only pay your normal ad spend.
Can I use this strategy for Google AND Meta?Yes. Both platforms allow customer list uploads and offer variations of lookalike targeting.
Will my client data be safe?Yes. Both Meta and Google encrypt data and only use it for audience matching purposes.
How often should I update my lookalike lists?Aim to refresh your source lists every 2–3 months to keep your audiences high quality and current.