Quickstart: Audiences

Build your first audience and activate it across marketing channels. This guide takes you from raw customer data to a targeted segment syncing to your ad platform in under 15 minutes.

Prerequisites

• A connected source with customer data (see Quickstart: Data Pipeline)
• At least one model with customer attributes
• A destination configured for audience activation

Step 1: Define Traits

Traits are computed attributes about your customers used to build audiences.

1. Navigate to Segment > Traits
2. Click Create Trait
3. Choose a trait type:
   • SQL Trait — Write custom SQL to compute any metric
   • Aggregation Trait — Use a visual builder for counts, sums, averages
   • Formula Trait — Combine existing traits with expressions
4. Example: Create a “High Value” trait:

SELECT
  customer_id,
  CASE WHEN lifetime_value > 500 THEN true ELSE false END as is_high_value
FROM customers

5. Save and run the trait evaluation

Step 2: Create an Audience

Audiences are groups of customers defined by trait conditions and filters.

1. Navigate to Segment > Audiences
2. Click Create Audience
3. Use the visual filter builder:
   • Add condition: is_high_value equals true
   • Add condition: last_purchase_date is within last 90 days
4. Click Estimate Size to see how many customers match
5. Click Preview to see sample profiles
6. Name your audience (e.g., “High Value Recent Purchasers”)
7. Click Save

Step 3: Activate the Audience

1. Navigate to Segment > Audience Syncs
2. Click Create Audience Sync
3. Select your audience
4. Select a destination (e.g., Facebook Ads, Google Ads)
5. Choose a sync mode:
   • Mirror — Keeps the audience perfectly in sync (adds and removes members)
   • Additive — Only adds new members, never removes
   • Subtractive — Only removes members who no longer qualify
6. Set a schedule
7. Click Save & Run

Next Steps

• Explore the filter builder for complex conditions
• Create audience splits for A/B testing
• Set up priority lists to manage overlap