# How can we help? ## Search ## Overview The Audience Builder empowers you to create dynamic segments of contacts for sending messages, searching contacts, and filtering analytics reports. This powerful tool gives you the ability to configure a wide range of audiences, from the broad—such as _All contacts under the age of 30_—to the highly specific—such as _All women in the 23-26 age range who live near San Diego and have browsed a specific product within the past two weeks_. You can then use [Audience Trend reports](https://support.cordial.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005364907) to visualize the population of an audience over time. ## Create an audience Before you can create an audience in Cordial, you need to have contact and event data flowing into your account. [Learn more about our data platform](https://support.cordial.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005361107). 1. To create an audience, log in to Cordial and navigate to **Contacts > Audiences** and select **New**. 2. The Audience Builder will appear. 3. Drag or click audience rules from the **Rules** dropdown on right to build dynamic audiences based on real-time data. Contact results for your selected rules will display above **Contact Results** at the top of the Audience Builder. 4. Once you've configured your audience, select **Save** from the **Actions** dropdown in the upper right. ## AND/OR operators Multiple data sources can be combined to create complex rules and rule sets using include/exclude with [AND/OR operators](https://support.cordial.com/hc/en-us/articles/7534448256397-Audience-Rule-Definitions#operatorDescriptions): - Contact attributes - Channel addresses - Channel subscribe status - Dates - Cart items - Orders/purchases - List membership - Supplements - Message system events - Custom events ## Audience counts Audiences are dynamic in nature, and audience counts can vary over time due to changes in contact attribute values such as purchases, custom events, and subscribe/unsubscribe events. If you want a static audience of contacts that doesn't change, you can add the contacts to a list and build an audience based on list membership. During message creation, audience counts automatically exclude invalid contacts and contacts with a subscribe status of `unsubscribed` and `none`. As such, you might see different counts of the same audience during message creation compared to searching contacts. - You can [read our FAQ article about when a contact's email is flagged as invalid here](https://support.cordial.com/hc/en-us/articles/217421247). ## Search contacts with audience rules Audience rules can be as simple as _match an email address_ or as complex as _All females with a Gmail address that purchased red shoes on a mobile device within the past 7 days_. You can then save your audiences to use when creating messages, viewing Audience Trends data, or filtering analytics reports. - You can find a [complete list of Cordial's audience rules and their definitions here.](https://support.cordial.com/hc/en-us/articles/7534448256397) All audience segments must contain at least one inclusion rule and cannot be saved if only the exclusion rules are defined. To build an audience based primarily on exclusion rules, select the **All Contacts** checkbox followed by the desired exclusion rules. ## Example audience segment In the following example, we'll search for contacts that: - Belong to the `Newsletter` list - Have opened a message in the last 30 days - Have not clicked a link in the last 30 days 1. Navigate to **Contacts > Search Contacts** to view the Audience Builder. Select the **Lists** rule from the **Rules** dropdown on the right. 2. For **List assignment**, select the option for **Matches any** and type the name of the list in the list field. 3. Add a new rule for **System Events > Open** and select the options for **Have event, Any message,** and **Within the past 30 days**. 4. Add a new rule for **System Events > Click** and select the options for **Do not have event, Any message type,** and **Within the past 30 days.** 5. If you have contacts that match this audience, you will see the contact count update in real time. ## Save an audience Once you've created an audience using audience rules, you can save the audience. When you save an audience, any changes made will not affect automations, drafts, or scheduled messages where this rule was previously applied. 1. In the upper right corner of the Audience Builder, click the **Actions** dropdown and select **Save**. 2. Give the audience a name, an optional description, and choose whether to enable [Audience Trend analytics](https://support.cordial.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005532168-Audience-Builder#! "When enabled, the audience will be available in audience trend reports where you can view the population of an audience over time."). You can save a maximum of 100 audience rules with Audience Trend analytics enabled. ### Save as You can also edit an audience rule and save it as another audience rule. 1. Access a previously saved audience rule by navigating to **Contacts > Audience Rules**. 2. Click on the desired audience, make any edits, and choose **Save** or **Save As** from the **Actions** dropdown. ## Use saved audiences You can use your saved audiences in several areas of the platform: - During message creation - Event data reports - Event Dashboard charts - Audience Trend reports ### During message creation To use a saved audience during message creation: 1. Log in to Cordial and navigate to **Messages** and select **Create New Message** or **Drafts**. 2. From within your message, select **Edit** in the **Audience** pane. 3. At the top of the Audience Builder, select the **Load An Audience** button and choose a saved audience rule. ### Event data reports You can filter event data reports using audience rules. 1. Navigate to **Analytics > Event Data Reports**. 2. Choose to filter **By audience** and select the desired audience in the dropdown. ### Event Dashboard charts You can filter event dashboard charts using audience rules. 1. Navigate to **Analytics > Event Dashboards** and create or edit a chart. 2. In the **Filter by audience** dropdown, select the desired audience. ### Audience Trend reports You can use saved audience rules to generate an Audience Trend report. Audience Trend analytics must be enabled for the audience before it can be used in an audience trend report. 1. Navigate to **Contacts > Audience Rules**. 2. Hover over the arrow and choose **Enable Audience Trend Analytics**. 3. Navigate to **Analytics > Audience Trends**. 4. Use the **Select audience(s)** dropdown to choose the desired audiences to include in your report. ## Remove an audience You can remove saved audiences by following these steps. 1. Navigate to **Contacts > Audiences**. 2. Hover over the arrow next to the desired rule and select **Remove Audience**. 3. You can also select multiple audiences and remove all selected audiences. When you remove an audience, only the rules will be deleted. The contacts within that audience will not be deleted. Also note that when an audience is removed, it will not affect automations, drafts, or scheduled messages where the rule was previously applied.