Create audiences

Audiences define the group of users or entities you want to target in your marketing campaigns. Using the visual audience builder, you combine filters, events, and traits without writing SQL.

Learning objectives

After reading this article, you’ll know how to:

• Create and define a new audience
• Use different filters (properties, events, traits, etc.) to refine your segment
• Validate and preview audience results
• Limit and control audience size
• View and interpret audience insights

Overview

The audience builder allows you to define audience segments without writing SQL. You use visual filters based on properties, events, relationships, and custom traits, and can preview your segments as you build.

Once created, audiences can be analyzed for insights, used in journeys, split into groups for experimentation and personalization, and synced to your marketing platforms like CRMs, ESPs, or ad networks.

Create a new audience

Step 1: Create a new audience

1. Go to Customer Studio → Audiences.

2. Click Add Audience.

3. Select a Parent Model to segment (e.g., Users, Accounts, Devices).

4. Enter a clear name (e.g., "High-Value Customers") and optionally add a description.

Step 2: Add filters

Start with an audience template(link) or use filters and logic to define your own criteria.

1. Click + Add filter and choose from six types

2. Use logical conditions (AND/OR), time windows (e.g., "within the last 7 days"), and comparison operators (equals, greater than, contains) to create your ideal segment.

Example:

• Users who made a purchase in the last 30 days

• AND work in healthcare

• AND who have an LTV greater than $500

Filtering nested JSON data

Some columns may contain nested JSON objects, represented in your schema as the unknown JSON object type. You can filter on fields within these JSON columns using dot-path notation (e.g., booking.product.geo.city or booking.0). This is useful for event data or object payloads with nested attributes. JSON column filtering is supported on parent, event, and related models.

How to filter:

Use dot-path notation to specify the field you want to filter on. This supports both JSON object and array traversal.

We default to the unknown type with exists as the operator. You can specify the type, including string (most common), number, or boolean, to access the appropriate operators for that data type. All operators currently supported in the audience builder (e.g., equals, contains, greater than, exists) are available and will only apply if they're compatible with the selected type.

Example

We have a column with the following values:

{"inventory":{"on_order":50,"stock":750,"warehouse":"WHB"}, "dimensions":[9, 8, 7]}

{"inventory":{"on_order":10,"stock":120,"warehouse":"WHA"}, "dimensions":[5, 4, 3]}

If the column is on a parent model:

If the column is on an event model:

This feature works best for teams familiar with their JSON data structure. Depending on your dataset size and how recent your events are (when using an event column), you may use the member preview to view some example key paths.

Step 3: Validate and preview

Once your filters are applied, preview your audience size and sample members.

Validate audience size and results

• Click Calculate size to see how many user records meet your criteria.

• Once calculated, click the member count (e.g., 110 members) to view individual records.

Limit audience size

To reduce or control audience size:

1. Click the Limit audience size icon.

2. Choose Top or Bottom members and specify audience size.

3. Select a meaningful column to sort by, such as:

   • Numeric (e.g., purchase_amount)

   • Date (e.g., last_purchase_date)

Example: Target your top 500 customers by total spend.

Select a destination to preview

If you have destination rules set up in your workspace, you can select a destination to preview your audience before finalizing.

Learn more: Destination rules →

Step 4: View insights

Insights help you understand the composition and overlap of your audience, enabling informed decisions about targeting and messaging.

• Click Show Insights to open the insights panel:

  • Overlap of audience: Compare shared users with another audience.

  • Audience breakdown: View the distribution of the audience by a chosen metric like traits, geography, or behaviors.

Learn more about Insights →

Step 5: Save, manage, and reuse audiences

Save audience

When you're finished building and previewing your audience, click Save audience.

Use audience templates

Templates make standard audience segments quickly reusable.

Learn how to create Templates →

Step 6: Sync your audience to destinations

Once your audience is saved, you can activate it by syncing to marketing tools (e.g., email platforms, ad networks):

Learn how to Sync audiences →

Example use case

Campaign goal: Retarget users who abandoned checkout in the last 24 hours

Audience filters:

• Event: Checkout started performed within last 24 hours

• Event: Order completed not performed in same window

• Trait: LTV > $200

• Property: Email is not null

Sync to:

• Facebook Custom Audiences

• Klaviyo List

What’s next?

• Sync your audiences to marketing tools →

OR

• Add custom traits for filtering audiences →

• Orchestrate campaigns with journeys →

• Reuse audiences with templates →