Audiences guide

The primary rule has the following filter types:

• App 
• Engagement type
• Engagement time frame
• Engagement frequency

• Secondary rules:
  • Filter (reduce) the population selected
  • Are optional
• Each rule has a unique filter type as follows:
• Event 
• Device
• Attribution
• Filter types have different filter parameters associated with them as shown in the table that follows.

• In-app events can be filtered by using the Did event or Did not event 
• The in-app event list updates Daily
• Where the Did event is selected, and the in-app event has attributes associated with it, you can filter by in-app-event attribute value. See the example that follows. 

• Multiple rulesets 
• Rulesets and existing audiences together

If you need to combine a ruleset with an Import Audience do so as follows:

1. Create the audience; for example, A.
2. Create the import audience, for example, Import_B
3. Create a combined audience using Select from my Audiences and combine A with Import_B using the operators.

Audience rule evaluation is performed using an app user identifier. Select from:

• [Default] Advertising ID: Ruleset compliance is assessed using the advertising ID. When compliant with the ruleset, the Advertising ID is added to the audience list. Note: Advertising ID means GAID, IDFA, or equivalent.
• Customer User ID (CUID):

  

  • Ruleset compliance is assessed by grouping advertising IDs (devices) associated with the same CUID together. If the group complies with the ruleset, then the advertising IDs comprising the group are added to the audience. Note: The CUID itself is not part of the audience list.
  • CUID implementation considerations:
    • Ensure that your data is populated with valid CUIDs.
    • App users (devices) without a CUID are ignored.
    • When an advertising ID, is matched to a CUID, historical audience data for the user is updated retroactively and included in audience builds going forward. Note: No change is made to raw data. 
    • If an advertising ID is associated with two different CUIDs, the  CUID most recently associated is used (wins.)

Rulesets consist of one primary rule that defines the global population with optional secondary rules that further filter the population. 

To create a primary rule:

1. Go to Integration > Audiences.
   The Audiences window opens. 

2. Click Add Audience.
   The Audience window opens. The Build tab displays.

3. Enter a unique Audience Name.

4. Select the platform: Android or iOS.

5. [Optional] Select Advanced settings to select the user identifier:
   • [Default] Advertising ID: evaluates rules by advertising ID only.
   • Customer user ID: evaluates rules by grouping devices using the CUID. Use this method after you verify that your data has valid CUIDs.

6. Users of the app: Select the app.

7. Who have select one of the following: engaged, installed, launched the app

8.  Set the time frame filter using one of the following:

   • In the last n days: n is the number of days going backward, starting from today.

   • Between: Enter a specific data range

   • At any time: include all available dates, starting from the first date of available audience data.

9. Do one of the following:
   
   • Click Save Audiences and proceed. Continue to Connect to partners procedure.
     --OR --
     Click Add Filter, to add a secondary filter and continue with the procedure that follows.

To add a secondary filter:

1. Click Add Filer. 

2. Complete the rule fields that display. The fields that display vary according to the filter type selected.
   Note: In-app events can be filtered by using the did use/did not use event types. See secondary rules for more details. See the example that follows this procedure.

3. Do one of the following:
   • Add Filter to add another secondary filter and repeat this procedure.
   • Cancel.
   • Save Audience and Proceed: Continue to Connecting to partners procedure.
   • Combine this ruleset with another ruleset using an operator: AND, OR, EXCLUDE. 
     An additional ruleset panel displays. Use one of the following procedures:
     • New ruleset.
     • Select from my audiences.

You can create new audiences by selecting an existing audience, or by combining an existing audience with new rulesets. Note: It is not possible to select an audience that already includes another audience.

1. Go to Integration > Audiences.
   The Audiences window opens.

2. Click Add Audience
   The Audience window opens. The Build tab displays.

3. Enter a unique Audience Name.

4. Select the audience platform: Android or iOS.

5. Click Select from my Audience.
   

6. Users of the audience: Select an audience. 
7. Do one of the following:
   
   • Cancel
   • Save Audience and Proceed: Continue to Connecting to partners procedure
   • Combine this ruleset with another ruleset using an operator: AND, OR, EXCLUDE. 
     An additional ruleset panel displays. Use one of the following procedures:
     • New ruleset
     • Select from my audiences

Use data from other systems, (BI, CRM)  to prepare lists of advertising IDs.  Imported lists can form part of a ruleset to add additional IDs to the audience or as an exclude list to prevent IDs from being included in the audience.

At the import list stage, select one of the following:

• Overwrite the existing list
• Add to the existing list
• Exclude (remove) from the existing list 

Lists can be imported by file upload in the interface or by API.

https://hq1.appsflyer.com/audiences-import-api/{action}?api_token={api_token}

{
 "import_key": "{mport_key}",
 "platform": "{plaform}",
 "devices": [
             "{device}",
             "{device2}",
             "{devicen}"
            ]
}

HTTP POST 
https://hq1.appsflyer.com/audience-import-api?api_token=
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
body: {
     "import_key": "EKFH2UMC5PPCU8J7M5QQCBPKIH89E6NCOB7XQFWMC",
     "platform": "android", 
     "devices": [
      "a23416b8-a21a-4051-a62f-5d3cb85e16ed",
      "09a14a6b-cce8-44f3-8f77-62eff8b5aa4f",
      "289da41f-0473-4977-89ae-8fc92234a921"
     ]
}

• The audience is sent by upload to one or more selected partners.
• The audience is updated daily and replicated to the partner. AppsFlyer either sends a new list to the partner or notifies the partner which devices to add/delete. The methodology differs from partner to partner but the end result is the same. 
• The following sending options are available:
  • Send the entire audience list to all connected partners.
  • Split the audience and allocate a portion to each partner.
  • Split the audience and allocate a portion to each partner and a portion to a control group.
• (Optional) Send a copy of split audience groups, to an Amazon S3 bucket. This includes the control group where applicable. Note: This is not the same as defining Amazon S3 as a connected partner.
• Download audience lists: The audience list can be downloaded to a CSV file. You can use the CSV file, for example, to send to partners who are not integrated with AppsFlyer.

To connect an audience to a partner:

1. In the Audience builder window, select the Connect tab.
   The list of partners displays. 

2. Select a partner.
   The connect to partner window displays.
   

3. Do one of the following:
   • Select Existing Connection.
     --OR --
   • Select Add a new connection and follow the partner-specific instructions for the selected partner. 

4. Select one or more connections for the partner. Selecting multiple connections means that the audience is sent to the partner multiple times. 

5. Click Save Connections.
   The partner is added to the list of partners. 

6. Do one of the following:

   • To select an additional partner, repeat this procedure.

   • Split Audience: To split the audience with optional control groups follow the instructions in the section that follows.
   • Close: The connection is complete. The audience is sent to the partners daily. Note: In this configuration, the entire audience is sent to all connected partners daily. 

Split audience

Split Audience enables advertisers to split the audience from two to ten partners. Each partner is allocated a unique part, by percent, of the audience. When Split Audience is enabled, it means that a user is uploaded to only one partner.

Advertisers split audiences for a variety of reasons like A/B testing, target a user from a single channel, etc.

You can modify split audience configurations after creation, meaning that you can change the allocation between partners, remove, and add partners. Take into consideration that allocation modifications can impact the validity of A/B or other test measurements. For this reason, we display an alert message, before you can make a modification.

Control groups

A portion of the audience can be sent to a control group. The control group is not sent to any partner. Use the control group to compare the behavior of targeted users relative to the control group. 

Send copies of split audience lists to S3 

CSV files containing the split audience lists and control group can be sent to an Amazon S3 bucket. The directory and file name structure is as follows:

• Directory structure: 

   \YYYY-MM-DD\audienceID_audienceName_timestamp\

• Filename: The name of the partner or control group. Note: If the connection to the partner fails, and the file is not uploaded then the parnter_name will have the suffix failed. Example: partner_name_failed.csv 

Creating a split audience configuration and control group

Before you can split the audience:

• Define the audience in the Audiences Build tab.
• Connect your audience to selected partners in the Audiences Connect tab.

To create a split audience configuration:

1. Click Split Audience.
   The Set Audience Percentages window displays.
2. Enable Split audience
3. (option) To enable a control group: Select Enable Control Group 
4. Fill in the audience allocation, in percentage, for each partner and if needed for the control group. 
5. Click Apply.
   The percentage allocated to each partner is displayed. 
   

   

6. (Optional) Send split groups to S3: Sends the audience list in CSV files to an Amazon S3 bucket. (See above for details.) 

7.  Click Close.
   AppsFlyer sends the split audience to the designated partners once a day.

You can modify the split audience allocation as follows:

• Modify the current allocation 
• Remove a partner
• Add a partner

When you modify the allocation between partners, the entire audience is redistributed between the partners. Note that this could impact the validity of A/B or other test measurements. In addition, modification resets the existing audience allocation.

To modify a split audience configuration:

1. Go to Integration > Audiences.
2. Select the audience to be modified.
3. Go to the Connect tab.
   The split audience allocation displays.
4. Select one of the following:

Go to Integration > Audiences to view and manage your Audiences.

In the Audiences window, you can view information about audiences, add an audience, use the actions and bulk actions controls. These features are described here. 

In the Audiences window you can view the following information: 

• Audience name
• Size: number of users in the audience
• App name 
• Upload to: names of partners to whom the audience is sent. 
  • If split audiences are enabled the icon displays next to the list
  • If a control group is enabled this is indicated by the control group icon. 
• Upload Status has the following indicators:
  
  • Success and the last upload time 
  • Failure, click View Details to see the reason the upload failed

Actions control 

Select an audience Action control to perform one of the following: 

• View history displays the upload history of that audience. Audience updates daily, you can view the size differences of the user list throughout its lifecycle:
• Upload now sends the audience to the connected partners
• Download as CSV to download the audience device ID list in a CSV file.
  • There is a separate file for each partner.
  • The download file is available after the audience has been calculated. It can take some time for this to happen after you create or modify an audience. 
  • Download files are limited to 5 million records. For larger files, write the file to an S3 bucket or use SFTP. 

• Duplicate allows you to make a copy of the selected audience definition. (Option) remove one or more of the existing partners. Note: Audience names do not have to be unique. When you duplicate an audience you should give it a unique name. 

• Delete

Bulk actions

The Bulk actions control enables you to carry out the same action on multiple audiences. To use Bulk actions, select two or more audiences and a Bulk action: 

• Upload now sends the audience to the connected partners.
• Show audience overlap: displays the audience overlap between the selected audiences,
• Delete the selected audiences 

• One positive condition is required to create the base audience. It can then be reduced by further negative conditions. For example, installed the app AND did not do af_purchase event.
• Windows Phone not supported.
• Audience names cannot be changed on the connected partners’ side.
• Nested event values not supported.
• When creating an audience, at times, not all the events appear. Only the top 100 are displayed, however, when you begin entering an event name, all the events are shown.
• Clicks and impressions data only contain devices which have an advertising_id/idfa on their original click URL. The devices of users from SRNs, which don't use external attribution links, are not included in the clicks data for audiences.
• When using the Total Revenue filter within the query builder, the Estimated Audience Size is not available. This does not affect the Audience creation and the Audience list.
• You cannot combine audiences created by import with other audiences or rulesets.  
• Download file size limited to 5 million records.