Linked Audiences

With Linked Audiences, you can use the relational data you’ve defined in your Data Graph to build audiences and send them to any downstream actions-based destinations.

To learn more about Linked Audiences use cases, see the Linked Audiences Use Cases topic.

Step 1: Build a Linked Audience

Linked Audiences allows you to filter audience targeting logic based on properties such as profile traits, relational data mapped to the Data Graph, events, and existing audience membership.

1. Navigate to Engage > Audiences.
2. Click + New audience, then select Audience.
3. On the Select type screen, select Linked audience, then click Next.
4. Select the conditions to build your audience.
5. Preview your audience, then click Next.

Within the preview, you can see a count of users that meet the audience criteria as well as a sample list of users.

1. Enter an audience name and description.
2. Click Save.

After creating the audience, you’ll be redirected to the Overview page. By default, the audience is disabled. Segment recommends that you take the following actions:

1. Add a destination.
2. Configure and create event selections.
3. Enable the audience.

This triggers a compute for the audience (where the audience conditions run on your data warehouse) and sends events downstream.

Audience conditions

As you’re building your Linked Audience, you can choose from the following conditions:

Conditions	Description
Associated with an entity	Creates a condition that filters profiles associated with entity relationships defined in the Data Graph. With this condition, you can traverse the full nested entity relationship and filter your audience on entity column values. Note: you can only create nested entity conditions up to four levels in depth. For example, an entity condition that queries for relationships between Profiles, Accounts, Credit Cards, and Transactions has four levels of depth.
Where profile trait	Creates a condition that filters profiles with a specific trait.
Part of an audience	Creates a condition that filters profiles that are part of an existing linked or classic audience.
Performed event	Creates a condition that filters profiles on their event history. Users can also filter on event property values.

Error States

As you’re building or maintaining your audience, you may encounter errors or warning messages about possible issues with your audience. For example, when Segment tries to compute your audience, and an entity or entity column from your linked audience definition is missing from your data graph or data warehouse, then you may see an error on the linked audiences overview page in Segment. Additionally, computing your linked audineces is a multi-step process, and sometimes an error can occur in one of the steps of the workflow.

Generally, when an error occurs, Segment will retry that step or Segment will terminate the workflow and try to re-run it again at the next scheduled compute run. If you need more help diagnosing your errors or warnings, reach out to friends@segment.com.

Edit an audience

To edit an audience:

1. Navigate to Engage > Audiences, and select the audience you’d like to edit.
2. Select the Builder tab.
3. Click Edit audience.
4. Edit your audience conditions, then click Save.

After you successfully save, the audience will compute with the new changes during the next scheduled compute. You can alternatively click Compute now to compute the audience right away.

Delete an audience

To delete an audience:

1. Navigate to Engage > Audiences, and select the audience you’d like to delete.
2. From the Overview page, select the three dots icon.
3. Select Delete audience.

Note: deleting an audience can’t be undone. After you delete an audience, the audience will stop computing and data is no longer sent to your downstream destinations.

Compute statuses

Engage displays the following compute statuses for Linked Audiences.

Computation status	Description
Computing	Engage is computing the Linked Audience based on the compute schedule.
Live	The latest compute was successful.
Disabled	The Linked Audience is disabled.
Failed	The computation was canceled or failed to compute. Contact Segment support.

Step 2: Activate your Linked Audience

You can use your Linked Audience to activate any actions-based destination. The steps below provide instructions on how to add a destination to your Linked Audiences, and send an event that best matches your use case. To activate an event, do the following:

• Add an action destination
• Add an event
• Select a destination action
• Configure the event

Step 2a: Add an action destination

To activate your Linked Audience, first add an action destination in Connections.

Step 2b: Add an event

After adding a destination to your audience, configure the data you want to send to the destination. First, select a type of event you want to send to the destination. Events update destinations about changes to your entity or audiences and contain data that can be used in the downstream destination.

You can send events:

• When an entity on a profile changes:
  • Entity Added
  • Entity Removed
• Based on profile audience membership updates:
  • Audience Entered
  • Audience Membership Changed
  • Audience Exited

Entity added

Send a Track event when an entity condition associated with a profile matches the audience condition. With this event, you must select the entity that triggers Segment to send the Track event.

Example:

• Send a reminder to a customer when a credit card associated with their profile has an outstanding balance.
• Notify a traveler when a flight associated with their profile is delayed.
• Notify a customer when a product associated with their profile’s wishlist is back in stock.

Entity removed

Send a Track event when an entity condition associated with a profile no longer matches the audience condition. With this event, you must select the entity that triggers Segment to send the Track event.

Example:

• Send a confirmation to a customer when a credit card associated with their profile has been paid off.
• Send a confirmation to the primary doctor when each of their associated patients completes their annual check up.

Audience entered

Send a Track event when a profile matches the audience condition.

Example:

• Send a congratulatory email when a traveler qualifies for premium status with a mileage program.
• Send a discount to all customers with a particular product on their wishlist.

Audience exited

Send a Track event when a profile no longer matches the audience condition.

Example:

• Send an email to credit card owners to confirm that their credit cards have been paid in full.
• Send a confirmation to a patient when they have completed all their pre-screening forms.

Audience membership changed

Send an Identify event when a profile’s audience membership changes.

Example:

• Update a user profile in a destination with the most recent audience membership.

Step 2c: Select a destination action

Select the destination action to call when the event happens. Ensure the action you selected is relevant to the type of event you previously selected. For example, if you selected Audience membership changed, ensure your action is also an Identify event.

Segment displays available actions based on the destination action you’ve connected with your Linked Audience.

See destination actions to learn more about destination actions, and view available actions for your destination.

Step 2d: Configure the event

After you select an action, Segment attempts to automatically configure the data fields that will be sent to the destination. You can review and adjust these settings before enabling this event.

• Enrich event (optional)
• Map event
• Test event (optional)

Enrich event

Select additional profile traits or entity column values to include when the event is sent. These traits and properties can be associated with the profile or the entity conditions that were defined in the audience definition. As you’re configuring your event, click Show Preview to view a preview of the enriched event based on your profile and entity property selections. For example, if your profiles include traits that are required in your downstream destination, this is where you would make the appropriate selections.

Braze, Iterable, and Customer.io are pre-set destinations, so you won’t need to map your audience to your destination.

Test event

You can optionally send a test event to your destination by clicking Send test event to destination. You can edit the User ID for the test event, and you’ll also see a table with event fields and example values. After sending the test, you’ll receive a response from Segment and the destination, which allows you to see what data sent to your destination may look like.

Send events for current profiles and entities in the audience checkbox

By default, Segment only sends events for new profiles and entities that match the audience conditions. This means that when the event is created, it will not send events for profiles and entities that currently meet the audience criteria. If you want to send events for profiles and entities that currently meet the audience criteria, check this box. This is only available for the entity added, audience entered, and audience membership changed event types.

Step 3: Confirm the payload in your destination

Linked Audiences sends events to your destination after Segment computes the audience.

To confirm your destination is receiving events, Segment recommends that you log in to your destination and perform one of the following:

• Monitor the event activity
• Search for the UserID or Event Name (for example, Entity Added)