Create an audience

Enterprise plan

Available from 17.0.0

Customer data platform

Needed permissions: owner, manage, edit & publish or edit

Video tutorial: watch on YouTube

In today’s digital age, businesses have access to an enormous amount of data, and using that data can be a challenge. That’s where audiences come in. An audience is a group of users and visitors who share common attributes or behaviors relevant to your business. In Customer Data Platform (CDP), creating audiences can help you better understand your customers and shape campaigns around their needs and interests. This not only improves your remarketing efforts and reduces the cost of ads but also enhances the customer experience, increases conversions and revenue, and builds stronger and better customer relationships.

In this article, we’ll show you how to create an audience and how to use it later.

Before you start

Here are some important things to keep in mind before you start:

  • Audiences start collecting profile data after they are created or edited. They don’t use historical data.
  • You can enrich user profiles by importing data from third-party tools, like CRMs, support platforms, email marketing tools and so on. Read more
  • Segment-based audiences may be missing some dimensions from Analytics because audiences use real-time data and can only include dimensions collected before the session ends.

Create an audience

To create an audience, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Menu > Customer Data Platform.
  2. Navigate to Audiences.
  3. Click Add an audience.
  4. Now you can pick one of the following options:
    • Suggested audience: You can choose it and then tailor it to your needs.
    • Existing audience: You can copy an existing audience and then adjust it the way you want.
    • Analytics segments: You can select an existing segment and then build an audience based on it. Just note that not all segment conditions will be available in CDP because audiences use real-time data and can only include dimensions collected before the session ends.
    • Create custom audience: You can build your audience from scratch.
    Audiences in Piwik PRO
  5. Name your audience and add a description.
  6. Set the membership duration. The membership duration determines how long a visitor or user can stay in the audience after they become inactive (don’t perform any events) or no longer meet the set conditions.
    Audiences in Piwik PRO

    Note: The maximum membership duration is 540 days.

    Example: The membership duration is set to 30 days. If a user hasn’t met the audience conditions during this time, they will be removed from the audience. Even if a user has met the conditions, they will still be removed from the audience if they haven’t been active (hasn’t performed any event) for the past 30 days.

  7. Set the conditions for your audience. Example: Users who haven’t signed up for our product and are using an Apple device.
    Audiences in Piwik PRO

    Note: Some user attributes can be Last  or First. Attribute values can change over time. Last means it’s the most recent detected value, and First means it’s the first detected value.

  8. We’ll show you the estimated number of profiles in your audience. We estimate this number based on the latest 7-day dataset from Analytics. However, profile data will be collected once this audience is created and historical data won’t be used.
    Audiences in Piwik PRO

    Note: If you’re using attributes that aren’t available as dimensions in Analytics, the estimated value will be 0.

  9. Click Create.
  10. Well done! Your audience is ready and will now start collecting profile data.
  11. In the next step you can:

User attributes and event dimensions

User attributes are dimensions that describe a user or visitor, such as device, location, traffic source and so on. When you set up a session custom dimension, it’s automatically available in CDP as a custom attribute.

Event dimensions describe the behavior of users or visitors, such as the page URL they visited, the custom event they performed or the goal they completed. It’s important to note that event dimensions in CDP rely on real-time data, which means they can only include dimensions that have been collected before the session ends. By using event dimensions, you can build targeted audiences based on visitor behavior.

Here’s a list comparing analytics dimensions with event dimensions and user attributes in CDP.

Session

Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Events in session
Session time
Page views in session
Outlinks in session
Downloads in session
Site searches in session
Custom events in session
Content impressions in session
Content interactions in session
Goal conversions in session
Orders in session
Abandoned carts in session
Product detail views in session
Adds to cart in session
Removes from cart in session
Unique page views in session
Unique outlinks in session
Unique downloads in session
Unique site searches in session
Unique custom events in session
Unique content impressions in session
Unique content interactions in session
Goals converted in session Goals
Google Click ID
Session exit URL Last visited page URL
Session exit title
Session entry URL First visited page URL
Session entry title
Session second URL
Session second title
Session bounce
Timestamp
Local hour

Event

Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Event type Event type
Page URL Page URL
Page title Page title
Outlink URL Outlink URL
Download URL Download URL
Search keyword Search keyword
Search category Search category
Search results count Search results count
Custom event category Custom event category
Custom event action Custom event action
Custom event name Custom event name
Custom event value Custom event value
Content name Content name
Content piece Content piece
Content target Content target
Previous page view URL
Previous page view title
Next page view URL
Next page view title
Time on page
Page generation time
Goal name Goal name
Goal revenue Total goal revenue

User

Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Visitor ID Visitor ID
User ID User ID
Cookie ID Cookie ID
Returning visitor
Session number
Days since last session
Days since first session
Days since last order

Traffic

Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Source Source
Medium Medium
Source/Medium Source/Medium
Keyword Keyword
Channel Channel
Referrer URL Referrer URL
Campaign name Campaign name
Campaign ID Campaign ID
Campaign content Campaign content

Device & platform

Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Operating system Operating system
Operating system version Operating system version
Browser engine Browser engine
Browser name Browser name
Browser version Browser version
Browser language Browser language
Device type Device type
Device brand Device brand
Device model Device model
Resolution Resolution
Resolution width Resolution width
Resolution height Resolution height
PDF plugin
Flash plugin
Java plugin
Director plugin
QuickTime plugin
RealPlayer plugin
Windows Media Player plugin
Gears plugin
Silverlight plugin
Cookie support
IPv4 address IPv4 address
IPv6 address IPv6 address

Location

Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Continent Continent
Country Country
Subdivision Subdivision
Subdivision 2 Subdivision 2
City City
Designated market area
Latitude Latitude
Longitude Longitude
Provider Provider
Organization Organization

Website performance

Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Time until DOM is ready Time until DOM is ready
Time to interact Time to interact
Time of redirections
Domain lookup time
Server connection time
Server response time
Page rendering time
Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Consent form view source Consent form view source
Consent form interaction type Consent form interaction type
Consent scope Consent scope
Consent action Consent action
Analytics consent Consent to analytics
AB testing personalization consent Consent to A/B testing and personalization
Conversion tracking consent Consent to conversion tracking
Marketing automation consent Consent to marketing automation
Remarketing consent Consent to remarketing
User feedback consent Consent to user feedback
Custom consent 1 Custom consent

Ecommerce

Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Abandoned cart value
Order ID Order ID
Unique item count (deprecated) Unique item count
Revenue Total revenue
Subtotal Revenue (Subtotal)
Tax Revenue (Tax)
Shipping Revenue (Shipping)
Discount Revenue (Discount)
Shopping stage
Product name
Product SKU
Product brand
Product variant
Product price
Product quantity
Product revenue
Product category
Product category (Level 1)
Product category (Level 2)
Product category (Level 3)
Product category (Level 4)
Product category (Level 5)
Unique product count

Custom dimension

Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Event custom dimension * (1 to 200) Event custom dimension * (1 to 200)
Session custom dimension * (1 to 200) Session custom dimension * (1 to 200)

Custom variable

Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Event custom variable key * (1 to 10)
Event custom variable value * (1 to 10)
Session custom variable key * (1 to 10)
Session custom variable value * (1 to 10)

Google Search Console

Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Search engine keyword
Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
Customer ID (Google Ads)
Customer Name (Google Ads)
Campaign ID (Google Ads)
Campaign Name (Google Ads)
Ad Group ID (Google Ads)
Ad Group Name (Google Ads)
Ad Group Ad ID (Google Ads)
Ad Group Ad Network Type (Google Ads)
Ad Group Keyword Match Type (Google Ads)

SharePoint

Analytics dimension Event dimension or user attribute
SharePoint display name
SharePoint office
SharePoint department
SharePoint job title
SharePoint shares in session
SharePoint likes in session
SharePoint comments in session
SharePoint promotions in session
SharePoint creations in session
SharePoint edits in session
SharePoint deletions in session
SharePoint opens in session
SharePoint uploads in session
SharePoint item views in session
SharePoint item attachment views in session
SharePoint item shares in session
SharePoint action
SharePoint object type
SharePoint content type
SharePoint author
SharePoint author's display name
SharePoint author's office
SharePoint author's department
SharePoint author's job title
SharePoint file url
SharePoint file type

About profiles

CDP collects information from visitors who come to your site and combine it into profiles. A profile is like a description of a person and includes things that can identify them, such as a user ID, visitor ID or cookie ID. It also includes information that describes them, like what type of device they use, where they are located, and how they found your site.

When CDP recognizes a user ID, the person is labeled as a user in their profile. If there is no user ID detected, they are labeled as a visitor instead.

To view a visitor’s or user’s profile, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Menu > Customer Data Platform.
  2. Navigate to Audiences.
  3. Pick the audience you want to work with.
  4. Click Profiles.
    Audience profiles in Piwik PRO
  5. View profile details.
    Audience profiles in Piwik PRO

Note: You can enrich user profiles by importing data from third-party tools, like CRMs, support platforms, email marketing tools and so on. Read more

Watch more tutorials on YouTube:

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