Build an Audience
The oxs-audience-build skill guides the AI assistant through building an OpenXSelect™ audience, a saved group of people your campaign should reach. You describe who you want in plain language, and the assistant does four things. It finds the matching segments and combines them correctly. It tells you how many people the audience reaches and what it costs. It saves and activates the audience only if you approve.
An audience is about who sees the ad. Where the ad runs (publishers, websites, apps, or the location of the ad request) is set on the deal or line item. To set where the ad runs, use Create a Deal or Launch a Campaign.
When to Use It
- Build an audience from a persona or an RFP brief. For example, “Women from 25 to 34 years old in Texas who are into running.”
- Answer a sizing question, such as “How many people are runners in Texas?”
- Get a price for an audience before committing to it.
- Edit an existing audience, or check whether one has finished publishing.
What You Need
The assistant asks for anything missing in a single message.
- Who to reach: any mix of age, gender, location, interests, purchase behavior, life stage, or occupation.
- Who to leave out (optional): for example, existing customers in an exclusion segment.
- Account: the OpenXSelect account the audience belongs to. If you only have one, the assistant uses it.
- Name, description, and activation choice: asked for at the end once you’ve seen the size and price.
A sizing question is enough to get a reach estimate and a price.
How It Works
- Break down the brief. The assistant splits your description into parts: age, gender, location, interests, and exclusions.
- Find the segments. It looks up exact segments for age, gender, and location. For interests, it searches both OpenX’s own segments, which are free, and data-partner segments, which are paid. It keeps only segments that are live and that your account can buy. When there are several good options, it shows you a shortlist with prices.
- Combine them correctly. It builds the audience in the usual way: this age AND this place AND any of these interests. It then reads the result back to you as a sentence so you can confirm if it matches the brief.
- Estimate and price. It shows how many people the audience reaches, by person, device, and IP. It also shows which data partners are paid and the total CPM. Nothing is created at this point, so you can make adjustments.
- Save on your go. With your approval, it saves the audience as a draft.
- Activate on your go. With your approval, it starts publishing the audience. The first publish usually takes 14 to 30 hours. The assistant gives you the audience ID and a time to check back.
Good to Know
| What you say | What the assistant does |
|---|---|
| “People in Texas” | Uses people seen in Texas in the past 90 days. This is part of the audience. |
| “Ads shown in Texas” | Leave it for the deal or line item. This is not part of the audience. |
| “People who read running sites” | Uses interest segments. This is part of the audience. |
| “Ads on running sites” | Leave it for the deal or line item, because it’s related to where ads run. |
- Interests are combined with OR. Someone needs to match just one of your interests. Matching every interest would shrink the audience sharply and could double the price.
- Paid vs free: OpenX segments are free. Partner segments add a CPM, and the assistant quotes the total.
- Changing a live audience: any edit, even a rename, restarts publishing, and deals using it wait until it is completed. The assistant asks you before making the change.
What It Can’t Do
- Create a new lookalike audience. Existing ones can be used.
- Upload your own customer list, such as a CRM file or hashed emails.
- Show the exact overlap between two segments. It can only estimate them separately and together.
What You Get
A summary table with the audience ID, name, status, a plain-language description of who is included, the reach estimate, and the partners with the total price. The assistant also tells you when to check back on publishing, and which skill to use next to attach the audience to a deal or campaign.
Safeguards
- Nothing is saved until you confirm the size and price.
- Audiences are saved as drafts and activated only when you ask for it.
- If a save times out, the assistant checks whether the audience already exists before retrying, so it does not create duplicates.
- Test audiences can be archived once you’re done.
Example Prompts
“How many people aged from 25 to 34 in Texas are into running?”
“Build an audience of parents in California interested in home improvement, and tell me what it costs.”
“Has my audience finished publishing yet?”