Individual contacts can be found directly by name or email address using Marketing - Contacts - Dashboard. If you want to reach a certain group of contacts - an audience - you search for them based on certain rules. You do this in Marketing - Contacts - Audiences. You put together a search and the result is a list of contacts that meet the rules at that time. You can save the search, so that you can apply this search again at a later time.
Rules
You make rules that the target group must comply with. First, you indicate whether the target group must meet all the characteristics or whether it must have at least one of the characteristics. You choose this by selecting 'Any' or 'All'.
Any = The target group must meet at least one of the characteristics
All = The target group must meet all characteristics
A simple example is finding contacts that match one rule such as buying a ticket for a certain event. But you can make much more extensive searches where the target group meets multiple rules.
An example where you choose 'All':
All contacts who have purchased tickets for a specific event
AND
Being older than 18 years
AND
Attended more than 5 events this year
AND
Who have the opt-in 'Notify me of upcoming events'
You can invite this loyal group of visitors to a similar upcoming event and give them a reward.
Set of rules
The target group will not always (have to) comply with the same rules. Some characteristics can cover the entire target group (all) and for others it is sufficient to meet at least one of the conditions (any). In that case you do not add a new rule, but a 'Set of rules'. These are at least two lines that are grouped together in the search. This can be done for up to three levels, so you can also add a new set of rules within a set of rules.
You want to inform contacts about an upcoming hip hop event, event A. The event is similar to a number of previous events, events B, C, D, E, F, and you expect ticket buyers for those events will also be interested in event A. You need them to have given permission to be contacted, so they also need an opt-in. If a contact didn't have tickets for event B, C, D, E or F but has indicated they like hip hop, event A is also interesting for them.
So, a contact has:
No tickets purchased for event A
AND
The opt-in 'Notify me of upcoming events'
AND
Tickets purchased for:
Event B
Event C
Event D
Event E
Event F
OR
interest in 'Urban & hip hop'
Several attributes within a rule
You can select multiple search options within a rule. For example, you enter contacts who bought tickets for not one event, but for three specific events.
Do you want everyone to have bought a ticket for all three events or do you want a ticket for one of the selected events to suffice? You indicate this with the third field on the line, choosing from the following:
For one or more of; At least one of the following search values. It may be more, it may be for all search values.
For all of; Contacts must match all search values.
For none or; Contacts do not have all these search values.
For numbers, you will come across the following options:
Is; The value must be the same.
Isn't; The value should not be the same.
Is more than; The value must be greater than.
Is less than; The value must be less than .
Is more than or equals to; The value must be greater than or equal to.
Is less than or equals to; The value must be less than or equal to.
For dates you choose from:
From; From (so including the chosen date).
To; Up to and including (so including the chosen date).
On; On that specific date.
Not on; Not on the chosen date.