Audience management overview
Explore Audience APIs to create, manage, analyze, and activate shopper audiences.
Walmart Connect Audience APIs help partners build, manage, and analyze audiences using Walmart first-party data to support Onsite Display advertising.
Use these APIs to create custom audiences, activate Brand Audiences, estimate audience size, and understand audience characteristics. Audiences are applied through behavioral targeting at the ad group level.
This guide explains the available audience types, how audience workflows work, and which APIs support each stage of audience management.
Availability
Supported for Onsite Display only.
How audience management works
Audience management brings together audience creation, management, analysis, and activation.
Custom audience creation is asynchronous. After an audience is submitted, Walmart Connect processes its definition before making it available for targeting. Supporting APIs help partners estimate audience size, retrieve audience information, validate readiness, and analyze audience characteristics.
The workflow below illustrates how these capabilities work together.
1. Plan
Choose an audience strategy and evaluate potential reach.
Audience Size2. Create
Submit a custom audience definition or Brand Audience request.
Audience Creation APIs3. Manage
Monitor processing, retrieve audience information, and confirm availability.
List Audiences / Brand Audience Status4. Analyze
Explore eligible audience characteristics and refine targeting strategies.
Audience Intelligence5. Activate
Apply an available audience through ad group behavioral targeting.
Ad Group Targeting APIsAudience Size and Audience Intelligence are optional planning and analysis tools. Availability and eligibility vary by audience type.
ImportantSuccessful audience creation does not mean the audience is immediately available for targeting. Confirm the audience status is
AVAILABLEbefore applying it to an ad group.
Choosing an audience type
Walmart Connect supports custom audiences and Brand Audiences. The right approach depends on the advertiser's goals, available data, and desired targeting strategy.
| Audience type | How it works | Common use cases |
|---|---|---|
| Rule-based | Uses historical purchase and browse behavior | Retention, win-back, cross-sell, retargeting |
| Brand Affinity | Uses predictive models to identify shoppers with brand affinity | Customer acquisition, competitive conquesting |
| Item Propensity | Identifies shoppers likely to purchase specific products | Product launches, seasonal promotions |
| Lookalike | Identifies shoppers similar to an existing audience | Prospecting, audience expansion |
| Advanced | Combines existing audiences using inclusion, exclusion, AND, and OR logic | Highly specific audience strategies |
| Brand Audiences | Uses brand-associated shopper behavior and predefined audience strategies | Loyalty, re-engagement, brand growth |
Custom audiences
Custom audiences are created and managed programmatically. Three primary approaches are available:
- Rule-based audiences: Build segments using historical purchase or browse activity, with optional demographic and geographic filters.
- Predictive audiences: Use Walmart machine learning models to identify likely future buyers, shoppers with brand affinity, or customers similar to an existing audience.
- Advanced audiences: Combine existing audience segments using Boolean logic to refine targeting.
For implementation details, see the Rule-Based Audience, Predictive Audience, and Advanced Targeting Audience guides.
Brand Audiences
Brand Audiences are available to eligible brand owners and support predefined audience strategies based on their brand relationships.
Unlike custom Brand Affinity audiences, Brand Audiences are associated with brands owned by the advertiser and support historical, lapsed-buyer, and predictive audience strategies.
Brand Audience creation follows a separate asynchronous workflow and may take 1–4 calendar days during initial setup.
For eligibility requirements and implementation guidance, see Create Brand Audiences.
Audience Management APIs
Audience APIs support different stages of the audience lifecycle. Use the table below to identify the appropriate workflow and documentation.
| Workflow | API | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Create | Create Custom Audience | Build rule-based, predictive, or advanced audiences |
| Create | Create Brand Audience | Generate Brand Audiences for eligible brand owners |
| Manage | Update Audience | Modify custom audience metadata or definitions |
| Manage | List Audiences | Retrieve existing custom audiences, metadata, and status |
| Plan | Audience Size | Estimate audience size and evaluate reach |
| Analyze | Audience Intelligence | Understand targetable audience characteristics and composition |
How support APIs fit into audience management
Three APIs help partners evaluate and manage audiences throughout the lifecycle.
List Audiences
Retrieve existing custom audience information, including audience IDs, definitions, metadata, and processing status. Use this API to populate partner interfaces, synchronize audience records, and validate readiness.
Audience Size
Estimate the size of supported custom and advanced audiences to evaluate reach before activation. Use this API when comparing audience strategies or assessing highly segmented audiences.
Audience Intelligence
Analyze the composition and characteristics of an audience available for targeting. This API supports audience discovery, planning, and targeting refinement.
Audience Intelligence is available for custom-built Display audiences without demographic or geographic overlays.
Audience Intelligence is not campaign reportingAudience Intelligence describes the audience available for targeting, not the shoppers reached by a campaign or its delivered performance.
Before you begin
Before building audience management workflows, confirm that:
- You have a valid
advertiserIdand appropriate advertiser account access. - You've selected the audience type that supports the advertiser's targeting goals.
- Required source audiences or item sets are available. Item sets used in audience definitions must be in
BUILTstatus. - Your integration can handle asynchronous audience creation and status validation.
- You understand any audience-specific eligibility requirements or restrictions.
Audience readiness and activation
Before applying an audience to ad group targeting, confirm that audience processing has completed and the audience is eligible for use.
For custom audiences, use the List Audiences API to verify that the status is AVAILABLE.
Once the audience is ready, it can be selected through the appropriate behavioral targeting workflow.
For more information, see the Behavioral Targeting Guide.
Related pages
Updated 13 days ago