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ActivationAudiencesOverview

Audiences

Audiences are groups of entities defined by conditions on computed attributes, entity attributes, and entity relationships. They are the primary mechanism for targeting specific groups of entities for activation through syncs.

What Is an Audience?

An audience is a set of filter conditions that define which entity instances (e.g., users, accounts) belong to the audience. When evaluated, Zeotap compiles these conditions into a SQL query, executes it against your warehouse, and produces a membership list — the set of entity keys that match.

For example, an audience called “High-Value Churning Customers” might be defined as:

  • lifetime_value greater than 500 AND
  • days_since_last_purchase greater than 60 AND
  • order_count greater than or equal to 3

Every entity that satisfies all three conditions is a member of the audience.

The Audiences list, showing three saved audiences with their parent model, type and status

How Audiences Work

Audiences are warehouse-native. The filter conditions you define in the UI are compiled into SQL WHERE clauses and executed directly against your warehouse. No data is extracted or copied — the computation happens entirely inside your warehouse.

Audience evaluation pipeline

The audience membership list is stored in a table in your warehouse’s Zeotap schema and updated on each evaluation. Syncs read from this membership table to determine which records to add, update, or remove from destinations.

Key Features

Visual Filter Builder

The filter builder provides a visual interface for constructing audience conditions. You can:

Size Estimation

Before activating, you can estimate how many entities match your audience definition. The estimate is a COUNT(*) run against your warehouse and cached for five minutes, so you can iterate on a filter without launching a query on every keystroke.

Preview

Audience preview lets you see sample members of the audience — actual entity records that match the filter conditions. This helps you validate that the audience definition captures the right entities before syncing to a destination.

Templates

Templates are audience definitions your workspace saves and reuses. Applying one opens the builder with its filter already in place, ready to adjust.

Batch and realtime audiences

Everything above describes a batch audience: it is compiled to SQL, evaluated in your warehouse on a schedule, and activated through syncs.

Adding a condition on a Realtime Event — performed Add to Cart in the last 30 minutes — makes it a realtime audience instead. That is a different kind of audience, not a setting on this one:

Batch audienceRealtime audience
Membership is computedin your warehouse, on a scheduleper person, at the moment you ask
You read it bysyncing it to a destinationcalling the Membership API
It can be referenced elsewhereyes — canvases, orchestrations, A/B tests, priority listsno
Conditions can combinefreelyone attribute side and one realtime side

The All / Realtime / Batch filter above the audiences list narrows it to one kind. Realtime audiences are enabled per workspace, so you may not see the filter at all.

Audience Lifecycle

1. Define

Create an audience by setting a name, selecting an entity type, and building filter conditions with the visual filter builder. You can also set a description and tags for organization.

2. Estimate and Preview

Before saving, use size estimation to check the member count and preview to inspect the matching rows. Iterate on the filter conditions until the audience captures the right entities.

3. Save and Evaluate

When you save the audience, Zeotap compiles the filter conditions into SQL and executes the full audience query to materialize the membership list. The audience is now live and ready for activation.

4. Activate

Create one or more syncs to send the audience to destinations. Each sync runs on a schedule, comparing the current membership list to the previous one to determine adds and removes.

5. Monitor

Track audience size over time, view evaluation history, and monitor sync statuses from the audience detail page. Zeotap records the member count after each evaluation, letting you spot trends and anomalies.

Audience Properties

PropertyDescription
NameHuman-readable label for the audience
Entity TypeThe entity type this audience targets (e.g., User, Account)
Filter ConditionsThe set of AND/OR conditions that define membership
ScheduleHow often the audience is re-evaluated (manual, hourly, daily, weekly, custom cron)
Member CountThe number of entities currently in the audience
StatusActive, Paused, or Error
TagsOptional labels for organization and filtering

API Reference

Audiences are managed through the Zeotap REST API. Every path below is workspace-scoped — {id} is your workspace ID. See Base URL for your instance’s API base URL and Authentication for the required Authorization and X-Workspace-ID headers.

# List all audiences
GET /api/v1/workspaces/{id}/audiences
 
# Get a single audience
GET /api/v1/workspaces/{id}/audiences/{audId}
 
# Create an audience
POST /api/v1/workspaces/{id}/audiences
 
# Update an audience
PUT /api/v1/workspaces/{id}/audiences/{audId}
 
# Delete an audience
DELETE /api/v1/workspaces/{id}/audiences/{audId}
 
# Estimate audience size
POST /api/v1/workspaces/{id}/audiences/{audId}/estimate
 
# Preview audience members
GET /api/v1/workspaces/{id}/audiences/{audId}/preview
 
# List the syncs that activate this audience
GET /api/v1/workspaces/{id}/audiences/{audId}/syncs

An audience has no evaluate call of its own — membership is computed inside your warehouse when a sync runs, so you materialise an audience by triggering one of its audience syncs. To check the definition without activating anything, use estimate for a count or preview for sample members.

Next Steps

Last updated on
EvaluationCreating an Audience