# Using Audience Builder

HTML version: [Using Audience Builder](https://support.gladstonesoftware.cloud/gooperator/using-audience-builder)

## Problem
You need to build an audience in Audience Builder, a filtered list of members, so that a communication job can send marketing or operational emails, SMS or push messages to the right people.

## Resolution

1. **Check prerequisites**
   - Audience Builder is a paid feature and must be enabled. Contact your account manager if it is not.
   - The new Audience Builder needs the **advanced comms** module enabled by Gladstone support. Without it, **Create new audience** in Operator opens the old data queries page.

2. **Open Audiences**
   - Log in to Operator as a staff user and go to `Automation Portal > Audiences`.
   - Select **Create New Audience**.

3. **Name the audience and choose its type**
   - Enter the **Audience Name**. Names must be unique; saving fails otherwise.
   - Select the **Audience Type**:
     - **Operational** (custom operational): important notices that go to everyone, for example membership or booking information. No opt-in is required.
     - **Marketing** (advertising, promotions, newsletters): requires opt-in. You must also choose a **marketing subscription** (formerly called a campaign); only members opted into that subscription are returned. New subscriptions can be added here with a name and description. Members already opted into marketing are opted into the new subscription automatically.
   - Select **Next**.

4. **Choose sites (optional)**
   - Multiple sites are allowed. This returns members whose home site it is, or who have had activity (bookings, attendance) at that site in the last 12 months.
   - It also filters the drop-down values (for example, home site, site-specific memberships) to the selected sites.

5. **Add filters**
   - Use the left panel. Open a category, select a **Filter**, choose a **Condition** (options depend on the filter, for example *is any of*, *is not any of*, *is before/after*) and select or enter a **Value**.
   - There are three categories:
     - **Contacts**: profile, demographics and status, for example age, status, price level, home site.
     - **Memberships**: current and former memberships, how many, purchase and end dates.
     - **Activity**: bookings, visits to site, activity and amount spent.
   - You do not need to use filters in all three categories.
   - Every filter is listed in [Audience Builder: Available Filters Reference](../kb/audience-builder-available-filters-reference.md).

6. **Combine filters with AND/OR**
   - **AND**: the contact must meet all the grouped filters. **OR**: the contact need only meet one filter or group.
   - When filters come from several categories, a contact must match at least one group in **each** category that has filters. For example, "Current Member" AND "membership ending within 1 week" includes only those matching both; age ≥ 18, status is any of Current or Casual, and an active Premium membership type.
   - Each filter looks at data individually: with membership status and membership type filters, a member with two memberships can match if one meets the status and the other the type.

7. **Narrow to specific memberships or activities (if applicable)**
   - Some filters let you pick specific memberships or activities (always multi-select and optional). Leave them blank to apply the filter to all memberships or activities.
   - Filters with this option: Memberships *Purchase date* and *Membership ends*; Activity *Booked date*, *Booking date*, *Bookings made*, *Bookings missed* and *Dishonoured bookings*.
   - These are **nested conditions**. For example, *Membership ends* takes a future date, a duration and a duration type, plus a membership type group or specific type. Selecting a type (for example, Annual) returns only annual memberships ending in, say, three months, not all memberships ending then.
   - *Membership purchase date* (at a previous date) works the same way, for example a follow-up email a week after a Premium membership is bought.

8. **Submit and review the sample**
   - Select **Submit** to see a **Sample Audience** (up to 50 members) and the total count. Adjust the filters if needed.
   - A result of zero does not mean the filters are wrong, only that nobody matches right now.
   - Use **Column filter** to change which details show. The sample always shows the default columns; other columns (membership, activity and member fields) depend on the filters used. Any available column is also available as a **placeholder** in the email or SMS.
   - Use **Export** to download a CSV of all matching members and the available data.

9. **Save the audience**
   - Select **Save**. The audience can now be used by a Custom audience email template and communication job (see [Audience Builder](audience-builder.md)).

## Notes

- Audiences are evaluated live each time they are submitted or a job runs, with no syncing delay. The sample is a snapshot and may differ from the members who actually receive a message later.
- **Audience list**: shows each audience's sites and which communication job uses it. From here you can **export**, **clone** (copy with the same type and filters, to make variants quickly, for example one per membership type group) or **delete**. You cannot delete an audience that an email template or communication job uses.
- Multiple memberships with the same description (for example, one per site) appear as duplicates in drop-downs. Select a site on the audience to narrow them down.
- **Duplicates**: the sample can show a member more than once if several records match, and exports may still list a member more than once. Duplicates are removed before sending, so each member ID receives the message only once. (Other guidance says the sample itself strips duplicate members, so check on your own data.)
- Relative dates such as "yesterday" are not available as a filter value yet (only fixed dates), which limits daily automations. This is in development.
- **Marketing consent**: customers give marketing consent when joining on Go (email is the only channel offered there; see [Go Join Joining Settings in Operator](go-join-joining-settings-in-operator.md)), and staff record channels and campaigns on the record's **Preferences** (see [Editing Contact Details and Online Accounts in Gladstone 360](../gladstone360/editing-contact-details-and-online-accounts-in-gladstone-360.md)). Marketing audiences only return members opted into the chosen marketing subscription; operational messages can go to anyone. Check on the test site how a Go Join opt-in appears in Preferences before relying on it for a marketing audience.
- The email subject is set on the email template, not the audience.
- Related: [Audience Builder FAQ](audience-builder-faq.md); [Audience Builder Best Practice Examples](audience-builder-best-practice-examples.md); [Business Rules and Communication Jobs in the Gladstone Go Automation Portal](the-automation-portal-and-sms-in-gladstone-go.md).