Topsort’s audience targeting capabilities enable precise campaign targeting by leveraging your first-party data and behavioral insights to reach the right users at the right moment.
What Are Audience Segments?
Audience segments are groups of users defined by shared characteristics, behaviors, or attributes that make them valuable targets for specific advertising campaigns. Rather than showing ads to everyone, segments allow you to focus your advertising spend on users most likely to engage and convert.
Key Benefits
Higher Campaign Performance
By targeting users based on their demonstrated interests and behaviors, campaigns achieve significantly better conversion rates and return on ad spend.
Improved User Experience
Users see more relevant ads that align with their interests and shopping patterns, creating a better overall experience on your platform.
Increased Revenue Per Advertiser
Advanced targeting capabilities command premium pricing, with retailers typically seeing 25-40% higher revenue per advertiser compared to basic demographic targeting.
Competitive Advantage
Sophisticated audience targeting capabilities attract higher-quality advertisers and enable more strategic partnerships.
Audiences Tab
The Audiences tab in the marketplace Admin Dashboard provides a centralized place to view and manage all audience segments available to your account. Each audience displays its name, source type, and user count. All audiences, regardless of how they are created, are available to all vendors within the retailer environment and can be used as boosters in the campaign creation flow for every ad format.
Audience Creation Methods
There are two broad methods for creating audience segments in Topsort:
1. Create from CDP
Customer Data Platform (CDP) integration lets you leverage your existing audience infrastructure by syncing segments directly into Topsort. CDP segments sync automatically on a daily basis, ensuring campaigns always target the most current audience data without manual intervention. Once synced, segments are immediately available for campaign targeting.
Common Segment Examples:
- New Customer Acquisition: First-time buyers, site visitors who haven’t purchased
- Customer Retention: Lapsed users (30+ days since last visit), repeat purchasers
- Category Affinity: Buyers from specific categories (healthcare, electronics, beauty)
- Behavioral Segments: Cart abandoners, high-value customers, seasonal shoppers
- Competitive Conquest: Users who purchased from competitor brands
2. Create from Audience Builder
The Audience Builder lets marketplace users create and manage audiences directly in the UI. From the Audiences tab, click Create Audience to choose from three audience types:
Upload via CSV
Upload a CSV file of opaque user IDs directly from your computer. Once processed, the audience appears in the Audiences table with its calculated size and becomes available to all vendors for campaign targeting.
Behavioral Audiences
Create audiences based on consumer behaviors. Add include/exclude filters based on the last time a user viewed, clicked, or purchased specific products or any products within specific categories, within the last 7, 30, or 90 days. Include filters can be combined with ANY (or) or ALL (and). Exclude filters are combined by ANY (or).
Combined Lists
Create a new audience by combining previously uploaded lists using logical rules. Include blocks let you add up to two groups (each with up to 3 lists) using Any (union) or All (intersection) logic, connected by OR. An optional exclude block removes users from the final audience.
How Audience Targeting Works
Topsort’s audience targeting system processes data through several interconnected components:
- Segments API ingests audience data from CDPs and processes
userIDhashing for privacy - Audience Builder combines first-party CDP data with real-time behavioral data
- User Store maintains current segment memberships with continuous updates
- Campaign API enables audience selection during campaign creation
- Auction API performs real-time audience matching during bid requests
This architecture ensures audience data remains current while enabling split-second targeting decisions during live auctions.
Offsite Activation
Topsort can sync audiences directly to offsite channels like Google Ads, Meta Ads, and DSPs. These audiences can then be used on offsite campaigns created via API or the UI.
Activation Strategies
Boosting
Dynamically adjust bid values based on audience membership to prioritize high-value users while maintaining broader reach.
Filtering
Apply hard exclusions to ensure ads only reach precisely defined target audiences, maximizing conversion rates for focused campaigns.
Both strategies can dramatically improve campaign performance when applied correctly.
Getting Started
Ready to implement audience targeting? Start by exploring the detailed guides:
Setup & Integration
Learn how to implement CDP integration, build custom audiences, and integrate with Topsort’s APIs.Activation Strategies
Discover boosting vs filtering techniques and advanced targeting examples to maximize campaign performance.Management & Best Practices
Explore governance, optimization strategies, and revenue maximization techniques for long-term success.Advanced audience targeting enables precise campaign targeting that drives both advertiser success and sustainable platform revenue growth.