Create audience criteria groups

Effective marketing campaigns rely on precise audience targeting.

This article explains how to leverage the section logic (using AND and OR operators) to reach the right customers, and an overview of each of the criteria groups available.

Section logic

One audience section can contain up to one of each criteria group, and each audience can contain up to 10 sections.

In each section, criteria groups are linked by an AND operator, meaning all criteria in that section must be met.

Sections are linked by an inclusive OR operator, which means a customer can belong to section A, section B, or both A and B.

To learn more about how to create an audience using criteria groups, see Create an audience.

Example

You are creating a campaign targeting opted in customers who: 

• Recently added a product to their cart.
• Have a birthday this month.

The target audience differs depending on the logic used.

Using AND logic

In section A, you click Add Criteria Group and add a customer behavior criteria to include customers who added products to their cart in the last seven days.

You then click Add Criteria in section A and add a customer attribute to include customers whose birthday is this month.

This audience targets customers who added a product to their cart and who have a birthday this month.

Using OR logic

In section A, you click Added Criteria Group and add a customer behavior criteria to include customers who added products to their cart in the last seven days.

You then click OR and add a customer attribute criteria to add a customer attribute to include customers whose birthday is this month. This creates section B.

This audience targets customers who did the following in the last seven days:

• Added a product to their cart OR
• Have a birthday this month OR
• Added a product to their cart and had a birthday this month.

Channel & eligibility

Email and SMS/MMS eligibility are customer-level attributes that ensure customers are getting the campaigns that they are permitted to receive.

When creating an audience, channel eligibility always includes both email and SMS/MMS eligibility statuses.

For more information on eligibility, see Understanding email eligibility and Understanding SMS/MMS eligibility.

The email channel supports the following modifiers:

• Most recent email unsubscribe
  • Target customers who have unsubscribed from email campaigns within a certain time period.
  • For example, engage customers who unsubscribed from emails in the last 30 days with an SMS/MMS campaign.
• Most recent email opt-in
  • Target customers who have opted in to receive email campaigns within a certain time period.
  • For example, send a welcome email to customers who opted in within the past 24 hours.

The SMS/MMS channel supports the following modifiers:

• Most recent SMS unsubscribe
  • Target customers who have unsubscribed from SMS/MMS campaigns within a certain time period.
  • For example, engage customers who unsubscribed from SMS/MMS in the last 30 days with an email campaign.
• Most recent SMS subscribe
  • Target customers who have subscribed to SMS/MMS campaigns within a certain time period.
  • For example, send an anniversary campaign to those who have been subscribed for a year. 

If you do not include any eligibility statuses in the audience, the audience defaults to include all statuses. For more information on how to include all statuses, see Add all eligibility statuses.

SMS/MMS eligibility for email audiences

Email campaigns can target customers based on their SMS/MMS eligibility. Customers may have multiple phone numbers associated with their Customer Profile, each with their own eligibility status.

The customer’s overall SMS/MMS eligibility is determined by the eligibility of all phone numbers.

The following table represents how eligibility is treated if more than one phone number is associated with the Customer Profile.

Email eligibility for SMS/MMS audiences

SMS/MMS campaigns can target customers based on their email eligibility. Customers can only have one email address associated with their Customer Profile.

Customer Attributes

Customer attributes are details about a customer's profile that are collected using a site campaign, Bluecore integration, or data import.

You can collect as many attributes as you need, such as loyalty status, as well as the standard customer profile fields:

• Email
  • Customer's email
• First name
  • Customer's first name
• Last name
  • Customer's last name
• Birthday
  • Customer's birthday

Customer date attributes can reference specific or relative dates so you can send more precise campaigns based around birthdays, loyalty membership date, or other dates captured on the Customer Profile.

For example, you could send out a birthday campaign the month before a customer’s birthday, a birthday email on their actual birthday, and a follow-up one month after.

Additional date filters include but are not limited to:

• Before or after a specific date, such as customers who signed up for a loyalty account before 1/1/2025.
• Before or after a relative date, such as two days ago or two weeks from now.
• Between a relative timeframe, such as between three to four weeks from now, such as loyalty points that expire in three to four weeks.
• A date that recurs on the day of the current, next, or previous month, regardless of the year.

Customer behaviors

Audiences can be segmented based on customer behaviors, like their engagement with email and/or mobile or website product interactions.

There are standard behaviors that you can use, and custom behaviors can be created as needed.

The following behaviors can be used in both email and phone number audiences:

Product filters

Additional product attributes can be added as filters to narrow down which products a customer interacted with, for example by category or by color.

There are standard product fields that are on all products that can be leveraged for further filtering:

• Id
  • The product's SKU
• Name
  • The product's name
• Price
  • The product's price
• Created
  • The created date. In an audience, this is leveraged by selecting a timeframe the product was created after, in hours, days, weeks, months, or years
• On sale
  • Indicator if the product is on sale
  • If true, the product is on sale. If false, the product is not on sale
• Out of stock
  • Indicator if the product is out of stock
  • If true, the product is out of stock. If false, the product is in stock
• Url
  • The URL to the product where it can be purchased
• Image
  • The URL of the image

Some product filters, such as price or out of stock status, can be refined to use a time frame so it refines the audience by the value is at the time of the customer behavior event or at the time of the campaign send.

If you need to capture more product attributes, you can create custom ones.

Channel Preference

The channel preferences section uses a predictive, machine learning model to filter any audience by customers who prefer email, SMS/MMS, have no preference, or whose preferences are unknown.

Channel preferences are displayed on a linear bar, with the highest email preference at the beginning, no preference in the middle, and high SMS/MMS preference last.

To include customers who have only one channel captured, select the option under Customers without a preference. The selection defaults to the type of audience you have created.

For example, an email audience defaults to email and an SMS/MMS audience defaults to SMS/MMS.

Static Email List

The static email list allows you to select a previously uploaded email list.

Predicted Customer Lifetime Value

The predicted customer lifetime value (PCLV) targets customers based on the predicted total amount they may spend in the next two weeks. You can filter your audience by the top percentage, percentage range, or the bottom percentage.

Lifecycle Stage

The lifecycle stage filters customers down to their predicted lifecycle stage that’s based on their past activity. You can choose from the following lifecycle stages:

• Non-buyers
  • Customers who have not yet made a purchase
• Active buyers
  • Customers who have made a purchase within their typical buying cycle
• At-risk buyers
  • Customers who are nearing the end of their typical buying cycle and who have not yet made a purchase
• Lost buyers
  • Customers who did not make a purchase within their buying cycle and may never purchase again

Likelihood to Take Actions

Customers can be targeted by how likely they are to take the following actions in the next two weeks.

• Likelihood to convert
  • How likely a customer is to make a purchase
• Likelihood to unsubscribe
  • How likely a customer is to unsubscribe to email notifications
• Likelihood to open
  • How likely a customer is to open an email
• Likelihood to click
  • How likely a customer is to click a link within an email

Product Preferences

Using product preferences constructs an audience based on predictions about the products that customers are interested in.

• Highest category preference
  • Target customers by their highest category preference within a defined list of categories
  • Highest category preference groups must be created first
• Category preference
  • Target customers who have a preference to a specific product attribute, like color or size
• Discount preference
  • Filters customers by their preference to purchase with or without a discount
• Replenishment preference
  • Finds customers who purchased a product that is eligible for replenishment with a specific timeframe