Excel Fuzzy Lookup Tutorial (Step-by-Step for Messy Data)
In this video, I walk through Excel’s Fuzzy Lookup tool step by step, showing how to match messy, inconsistent text data that normal lookups fail on.
You’ll learn:
How to convert raw data into Excel Tables (and why it matters)
How to name tables properly
How to use Fuzzy Matching in Power Query
How similarity thresholds work (and how to choose the right one)
How to move, expand, and clean columns in Power Query
Real business examples with customer and company names
This tutorial is beginner-friendly and focused on real-world data, not perfect textbook examples. If XLOOKUP or VLOOKUP keeps returning #N/A, this tool can save you hours.
Perfect for:
Business analysts
Students
Anyone working with messy Excel data
CRM, accounting, or operations datasets