Lookalike Audience Discovery
Find high-quality prospects by identifying influencers and accounts whose followers match your ICP. AutoReach uses AI-powered web search to discover seed accounts, then extracts and scores their followers as leads.
How It Works
Lookalike Audience Discovery follows three steps:
1. Discover Seed Accounts
AutoReach uses AI-powered web search to find accounts whose audiences overlap with your target market. Based on your offer, it searches for relevant accounts, verifies them against live platform APIs, and returns a curated list of seed accounts.
Discovery works on both X and LinkedIn from the same interface.
What it searches for:
The AI searches across multiple audience categories:
Industry publications- newsletters, media outlets, trade publications
Professional communities- groups, forums, community accounts
Vendor/competitors- competitor accounts and adjacent vendors
Thought leaders- executives, analysts, and domain experts
Vertical-specific- niche accounts specific to your industry
If your offer specifies preferred locations, the AI prioritizes accounts with audiences in your target regions.
2. Extract Followers
Once seed accounts are saved, their followers are extracted through the standard extraction pipelines:
X seeds: Followers are extracted and queued for enrichment
LinkedIn seeds: A people search is created with a follower filter
In the manual flow, you discover seeds from the Lookalike Audiences page, save them to your library, then separately trigger extraction via the "From a Lookalike" option. Under Autopilot, extraction is fully automatic after discovery.
3. Score and Add Leads
Every extracted follower goes through the standard enrichment and scoring pipeline. All extracted followers are added as leads and scored by buyer intelligence like any other source.
Search Options
When starting a lookalike search, you configure:
Offer- select the offer that provides ICP context, location, and competitors
Channel- choose X or LinkedIn
Platform account- select your connected X or LinkedIn account
Profile URL (optional)- enter a profile URL for profile-based discovery instead of offer-based
Two discovery modes:
By Offer: Select an offer- finds seeds matching your offer's ICP, domain, and audience
By Profile URL: Enter a profile URL- finds accounts similar to a specific person
Available Actions
From the Lookalike Audiences page, you can:
Estimate cost- preview the estimated cost before running a search
Search for seeds- discover seed accounts with real-time progress updates
Save accounts- save one or more discovered accounts to your library
Browse saved accounts- view your saved accounts with pagination and filtering
Delete accounts- remove individual or multiple saved accounts
Automatic Rotation Under Autopilot
When Autopilot is enabled, seed accounts rotate automatically:
When a seed is exhausted, Autopilot discovers new seed accounts via web search
New seeds are saved and extraction begins automatically
Previously used accounts are tracked to avoid duplicates
If the AI can't find new relevant accounts, it broadens its search to find lesser-known accounts
If discovery stalls, you receive a notification
This means Autopilot actively discovers fresh seed accounts- it does not just re-extract from existing ones.
Cost Estimation
Before running a search, use the cost estimation feature to preview estimated costs for the web search AI calls.
Best Practices
Mix account types. Combining publications, communities, and individual thought leaders produces more diverse and well-rounded audiences.
Prioritize engaged audiences. Accounts with high engagement rates tend to have more active, reachable followers.
Use both platforms. Run lookalike discovery on both X and LinkedIn to maximize coverage. The extraction pipelines differ but both produce scored leads.
Monitor lead quality. Track response rates from lookalike-sourced leads. If quality drops, your seed accounts may need adjustment.
Combine with other methods. Lookalike audiences complement content search and people search. Use them together for best coverage.
Let Autopilot handle rotation. Manual seed management works, but Autopilot's automatic rotation with escalating diversity prompts keeps the pipeline flowing without intervention.
Example Workflow
Offer: "API platform for payment processing"
Step 1: AutoReach web-searches for fintech publications, developer community accounts, API-focused thought leaders, and competitor ecosystems on X. Returns 10 verified seed accounts with 1,000+ followers each.
Step 2: You save the 6 most relevant seeds. Follower extraction begins- 200 followers per seed, totaling ~1,200 profiles.
Step 3: Each follower is enriched and scored. CTOs, engineering leaders, and technical founders who match your ICP surface as active leads. The rest land in Monitor or Poor Fit.
Under Autopilot: When the 6 seeds are exhausted, the scheduler automatically discovers 10 new seed accounts and creates fresh extractions. This repeats continuously.
Troubleshooting
Not finding relevant seed accounts?
Make sure your offer description includes relevant domain keywords
Check that your target audience is active on the platform you are searching
Broaden your offer's pain points or audience definition to give the AI more to work with
Try profile-based discovery with a known relevant account
Low ICP match rate on extracted followers?
Review whether the seed accounts truly align with your ICP
Refine your ICP definition, particularly pain points and target audience
Try targeting more niche, specialized accounts rather than very broad ones
Seed accounts getting exhausted?
This is expected. Previously extracted followers are not re-extracted
Under Autopilot, new seed accounts are discovered automatically
You can also add seed accounts manually to increase flow
Getting prospects with missing profiles?
Some followers do not maintain active profiles. These are filtered out during enrichment and are not counted against your lead totals
Autopilot stall notification?
After 3+ consecutive misses finding new seeds, you'll receive a notification
Review and update your offer description to give the AI fresh context
Consider switching channels (X ↔ LinkedIn) if one platform is exhausted
Next Steps
Continuous Operations: Automate lookalike discovery with Autopilot's daily expansion
Enrichment Pipeline: Understand how extracted followers get enriched and scored
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