Overview

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.

Audience Creation Methods

1. CDP Integration

Customer Data Platform (CDP) integration is the most powerful method for leveraging your existing audience infrastructure.

Key Benefits

1. Precision Targeting and Audience Segmentation: Create detailed audience segments based on customer behavior, preferences, purchase history, and engagement patterns.

   High-Value 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

   Tip

   These targeted segments typically see 2-4x higher conversion rates compared to broad targeting.

2. Automatic Synchronization: CDP segments sync automatically with Topsort daily, ensuring your campaigns always target the most current audience data without manual intervention.

3. Real-Time Data Activation: Audience segments are immediately available for campaign targeting, enabling dynamic and responsive advertising strategies.

2. Custom Audience Building

Build sophisticated audiences using inclusion and exclusion logic:

Inclusion Sets

Define users who should be included based on specific criteria:

• Purchase behavior: “Include users who purchased electronics in the last 30 days”
• Browsing activity: “Include users who viewed premium brand pages”
• Engagement patterns: “Include users who opened 3+ marketing emails”

Exclusion Sets

Refine your audience by excluding unwanted segments:

• Recent purchasers: “Exclude users who bought the promoted product in the last 7 days”
• Competitor customers: “Exclude users currently subscribed to competitor loyalty programs”
• Budget constraints: “Exclude users from high-cost acquisition campaigns”

Tip

Advanced Example: Electronics enthusiasts ready for premium purchases

• Include: Users who viewed electronics categories AND have purchase history >$500
• Exclude: Users who purchased electronics in the last 14 days OR are in current electronics campaigns
• Result: High-intent, high-value prospects not currently being targeted

3. Predefined Audience Libraries

Access curated, high-performing segments optimized across multiple campaigns:

• Industry-standard behavioral segments
• Seasonal shopping audiences
• Cross-category affinity groups
• Demographic and geographic segments

How Audience Targeting Works

Topsort’s audience targeting system processes data through several interconnected components:

• Segments API ingests audience data from CDPs and processes userID hashing 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.