Facebook is now offering advertisers a new feature called Lookalike Audiences, which enables direct marketers to target audience segments with similar customer profiles to those they have uploaded themselves with Facebook’s Custom Audience feature.

“With Lookalike Audiences, advertisers can expand their reach to specific geographic areas or audiences who are not already fans of the company’s page while still maintaining the desired demographic profile of their existing audience using Facebook’s algorithms,” a Facebook spokesperson tells WebProNews. “When using Custom Audiences, the data is hashed so no information is shared between the advertiser and Facebook.”

Lookalike Audiences is currently in beta in Facebook’s Power Editor tool for advertisers. According to Inside Facebook, advertisers in the beta are seeing lower costs per action than with traditional targeting options. Brittany Darwell reports:

Lookalike Audiences can be created after an advertiser has uploaded a list of first-party data, such as customer email addresses, phone numbers or user IDs to make a Custom Audience. Facebook’s algorithms analyze the Custom Audience and produce another audience segment that is likely to have a similar customer profile. The advertiser can then create any Facebook ad type and target it to the Lookalike Audience. No personally identifiable information is shared back with advertisers and Lookalike Audiences can only be used within Facebook, not exported for email marketing or other ad targeting.

In other Facebook ad-related news, the company has reportedly agreed to implement the AdChoices industry standard icon on its display ads served through the Facebook Exchange, following complaints from advertisers.