Last month, Facebook began testing a new targeting feature for marketers called lookalike audiences. Today, the company announced the global launch.

The feature enables marketers to target audience segments with similar common attributes (interests, demographics) to the customers a marketer has already identified as a target audience, through the custom audiences feature.

“With lookalike audiences, advertisers (both e-commerce companies and direct response marketers) 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,” a spokesperson for Facebook tells WebProNews. “Companies using custom and lookalike audiences only know the size of their targeting groups; Facebook does not share any personal information from those audiences with advertisers.”

“We’ve seen this new type of targeting drive a wide range of success metrics for direct response companies like Fab, including lower cost per checkout, lower cost per acquisition, larger purchase size, and faster and increased return on investment,” the company says in a blog post.

The Lookalike Audiences tool will be available to all advertisers, in any country, from the power editor, this week.