How to Build a Custom Audience

A step-by-step guide to building a custom audience in Connect.

We are one of the only marketing partners in the industry with complete ownership of our data on real, verified people. We provide only the best results for your business with no risk of ad fraud by putting control back in your hands by letting you build a custom audience of real people based on your goals.

Build a custom audience of real, verified people by leveraging the following categories:

• Automotive: Our people-based automotive data will allow you to acquire new customers, increase your service department revenue, and move more metal.

• Curated Audiences: Our curated audiences help you find real people interested in your products and services, from CBD users and pet lovers to empty nesters and soccer moms.
• Home & Property: Our household data insights allows you to connect with your audience throughout their daily lives, at any stage of life.

• Political: We analyze people’s digital political behaviors to create robust voter profiles to help you better understand your target voter demographics.
• Health Interest: Our top-ranked health interest data reveals specific health-related topics that individual households have expressed interest in.
• Transaction: With our high-quality purchase data, you can determine the probability of consumers making brand-specific purchases.

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Let’s get started!

Step 1:

Log into Connect

Step 2:

Click the Audience icon on the left side menu.

Step 3:

Click New Audience in the top right corner.

Step 4:

Select a client from the dropdown list,  then click Create a Custom Audience.

Note: Audiences are linked to clients. They are NOT shared between advertisers.

Step 5:

All audience builds start at the geographic level.

Step 6:

When targeting by CBSA, City, State, or County, State, you have two options for entering these values in Connect: 

1. Select from the drop down menu directly in the Audience Builder. 
2. Enter the correct values as provided from the Companion Document. It is recommended that you create your own copy of the Companion Document. 

You must click Select or Enter above the data field for whichever method you choose. The chosen field will be highlighted in light blue. 

Step 7:

Select as many of a single geotargeting setting as needed. Click Add. Then, do the same with your desired audience profile selects. 

Note: Audiences are separated into 2 different targeting segments.

 

Step 8:

When building your audience, you can click and drag keys to switch between AND/OR functionalities.

Step 9:

To switch between including or excluding audience segments, click the icon of a person to the top right of each key.

Step 10:

Once your audience is built to satisfaction, click Get Audience in the top right corner.

Step 11:

Name your audience. Then, (optional) provide a description.

When naming your audience, please keep these guidelines in mind:

• Alphanumeric characters are allowed (letters and numbers).
• Underscores_are_allowed.
• Spaces are allowed, but leading/trailing spaces (at the beginning or end of the text) are not.
• The description field is recommended, but not mandatory. This follows the same rules as the audience name field.

Step 12:

Click Save.

Step 13:

Once you’ve hit Save, you will see a “Count Running” status. Click Reload to populate your total audience count.

Step 14:

If you need to make any changes to the audience (i.e. audience is too small, need more specific targeting, etc.), click Edit on the toolbar at the top to be taken back to the audience builder. 

Step 15:

If you are satisfied with your audience, click Create Audience at the top. You can select between Unique People or Unique Addresses.

What do these mean? 

• Unique People: When creating an audience in the platform, you are, by default, targeting unique people at the individual level.
• Unique Addresses: This lets you target your audience at the household level.

 Step 16a: (Optional)

If you have an audience suppression file, you can upload it by clicking Add Suppression File and uploading a CSV. 

NOTE: Anyone who has unsubscribed from your advertiser’s previous campaigns is automatically suppressed from your current and future audiences. 

Step 16b: (Optional) 

Check off the box if the CSV contains a header row (name, address, email, etc.), map the columns in the suppression file, and then click Save. 

NOTE: Please make sure your header columns do not include any spaces or special characters.

For more information, view our Connect Self-Serve Guide.