Overview
Audiences let you capture a group of users by the signals that matter, then reuse that definition anywhere in Activate. Rather than redefining the same "returning mobile shopper" condition on every experience and experiment you build, you set the criteria in one place and reference it by name. Change the definition later and every rule that points at it picks up the update on the next page load.
Audiences are evaluated entirely client-side by the Activate SDK, so targeting decisions happen instantly with no round trip to a server. The signals available include behavior, traffic source, user attributes, cart state, time and location, and device type, which mirrors the targeting available on experiences directly.
Navigate to Audiences
Open your property and go to Activate > Audiences from the left sidebar. You'll see a table of every audience defined on this property, along with a count of rules that reference each one. Click Add in the top right to start a new audience definition.
If this is your first audience, the list will be empty and the Add button is the only meaningful control on the page. Audiences are scoped to the property you're currently in, so make sure the property selector in the top nav shows the right value before you start creating.
Define audience criteria
Set the conditions that define who belongs to this audience. The targeting categories mirror what's available on experiences directly: user behavior such as pages viewed or time on site, traffic source signals like UTM parameters and referrer, user attributes like new versus returning, cart state such as total value or line item count, time and location windows, and device type including mobile, tablet, and desktop.
You can combine multiple conditions to narrow the audience tightly. Every condition you add is AND-joined, so the audience only matches users who satisfy every rule. If you want an OR-style audience (users matching any of several profiles), create separate audiences and combine them at the rule level on the experience or experiment.
Keep in mind that evaluation happens on the client using data the SDK has access to. If you reference a user attribute the SDK cannot read (because your integration layer hasn't pushed it into the data layer), the condition will always be false. Verify your SDK is surfacing the values you want to target on before you build audiences around them.
Name and save
Give the audience a descriptive name that communicates the segment at a glance, for example Mobile Shoppers, Returning Visitors from Google, or High-Value Cart. You'll see this name in dropdowns when building experiences and experiments, so clarity pays off later.
Click Save to persist the audience. It becomes available immediately across the property. You can return to edit the criteria at any time, and any rule referencing this audience will start using the new definition the next time it's evaluated in a browser.
Apply to rules
When creating or editing an experience or experiment, look for the audience selector in the targeting section and choose this audience from the dropdown. The personalization will only trigger for users who match the audience definition in addition to any other conditions you set at the rule level.
You can stack audiences with additional rule-level conditions to build precise targeting. For example, you might select the Mobile Shoppers audience and also add a condition that the current page path contains /cart, giving you mobile shoppers specifically on the cart page without duplicating the audience for every page variant.
Audiences are reusable, so build them once and apply them across every matching experience and experiment instead of redefining conditions inline. Combine audiences with additional rule-level conditions when you need precise control, and remember that evaluation is real-time on the client via the Activate SDK, so changes propagate as soon as the visitor loads the page.
Troubleshooting
Audience never matches any users
Open your site in a browser and confirm the Activate SDK is loaded and firing. If the SDK is present, check the browser console for any warnings about missing data-layer values. The most common cause of a zero-match audience is a condition referencing a user attribute the SDK cannot see, such as cart_total on a site that hasn't pushed cart state into the data layer.
Audience change didn't propagate to rules
Audience definitions are evaluated at page load, so users already mid-session keep their previous classification until they refresh or navigate. If you updated an audience and expect rule behavior to change instantly, either force a hard reload or wait for natural traffic to reach the page again. Browser caching of the Activate config can also delay propagation by a minute or two.
Audience appears in dropdown but doesn't fire experience
Check whether the experience has additional targeting conditions on top of the audience. Both the audience and the rule-level conditions must match for the experience to trigger. If you think only the audience should matter, remove any extra conditions on the rule and test again.