Telling a platform to "bring me people like my best customers" sounds like a great idea. And sometimes, it is. But in practice, lookalike models often create more illusions than real results.

In digital marketing, a lookalike audience is built from an original seed group (say, your top buyers), and uses machine learning to find users with similar attributes. Platforms like Meta, Google, or CRMs use this logic to scale. The problem is: being similar doesn’t mean behaving the same.

The problem with similarity without context

In Latin America, where audience behaviors are deeply diverse and influenced by culture, economy, and intent, using lookalikes without considering behavior or context can be a fast way to burn through budget.

A 35-year-old woman in Lima who purchased your product is not the same as a 35-year-old woman in Buenos Aires with similar social media interests. Their motivations, timing, and decision-making processes are completely different.

What traditional lookalike models miss

Standard models don’t capture intent, journey stage, or behavioral signals. They focus on surface-level data: age, geography, declared interests. But behavior is what drives conversions.

At Revfy, we use a complementary approach. We don’t discard lookalikes — we reframe them. We look for convergence. People who not only seem similar, but act similarly in similar moments: browsing the same category, revisiting a product page, comparing, or abandoning carts.

Audiences that behave similarly, not just look similar

That’s the key. Instead of scaling with assumptions, we scale with validated patterns. If we know certain users revisit a product page three times before converting, we look for others who do the same — not others who are just demographically alike.

This leads to more relevant audiences, lower acquisition costs, and fewer wasted impressions.

A new way to scale with precision

The challenge is always the same: how to grow without losing relevance. Lookalikes can be part of that strategy — but only when rooted in your first-party data and validated with behavioral signals.

Revfy IQ helps you enrich your models with intent, behavior, and context. Because in 2025, resemblance is not enough. You need to understand.

If you’re already using lookalikes and not seeing results, the problem may not be the algorithm. It may be what it’s not seeing.