Audience expansion

Description

Audience expansion is a mechanism that automatically adds new profiles to a campaign from the segments of activities included in it. This mechanism increases campaign reach and keeps its audience up to date without manually updating the initial segment.

Each campaign is created using a static segment that defines its target audience. However, inside a campaign, each activity can be configured for any segment, even if it does not intersect with the main one.

For example, a campaign targets the "Loyal customers" segment, but inside it you create a mailing aimed at the "New registrations" segment. Without audience expansion, these users will not receive the message because they are not part of the campaign audience. But if audience expansion is enabled for this mailing, the system will automatically add recipients from "New registrations" to the campaign and distribute them between the test group and the local control group, if LCG is enabled.

Key limitations

Only activities of this campaign — you cannot select a mailing or scenario from another campaign
Only non-completed activities — activities with the "Completed" status cannot be selected
Only profiles from the campaign’s Profile database — even if the activity segment contains profiles from other databases, only profiles from the campaign’s database will be added
Only new profiles — only profiles not yet in the campaign audience will be added

How audience expansion works

Audience expansion enriches the campaign with new profiles directly from the audience of launched activities. Its core principles:

When an activity is launched, the system determines its audience (segment or entire base) and automatically adds profiles that are not yet part of the campaign;
New participants are immediately distributed between the test group and the control group;
Users outside the campaign’s profile database will not receive the message;
If a profile appears in the segments of several audience expansion activities within the same campaign, it is added only once. Its group assignment (test or control) is fixed at that moment, preventing accidental reassignment later;
Audience expansion works only for active campaigns.

caution

Audience expansion adds profiles to the static segment of the campaign (its initial audience). Any recalculation of that static segment removes all profiles added through audience expansion.
To avoid this, it is not recommended to enable "Update segment daily" for the campaign segment.

Profile addition process

For every profile in the activity audience, the system checks:

Profile database match:
The profile must belong to the same profile database as the campaign.
Otherwise, it will not enter the campaign audience and will not receive the message.
Campaign participation:
The system checks whether the profile is already in the campaign audience.
- If yes — it receives the message (unless it's in LCG).
- If no — it is distributed into the test or control group based on LCG settings.
  Profiles placed into the test group will receive the message; those placed into the control group will not.

Usage example

Scenario without audience expansion

The campaign uses the CRM_Base profile database and the Loyal customers segment (100 profiles).
A broadcast is created with the segment New registrations (50 profiles). These users are not part of the campaign and do not intersect with the main segment.

When the broadcast is launched, no one receives the message because there is no overlap — these profiles are not in the campaign.

Scenario with audience expansion

If you add this broadcast to the Audience expansion list in the campaign settings, the system includes all recipients from New registrations in the campaign.
After that, profiles are automatically distributed between the test group and the local control group.