Refine Audience Side bar and Opportunity Dashboard

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The Refine Audience Side Bar

Updated feature – Fall 2025

The Refine Audience Side bar now includes a redesigned grid that makes it easy to compare your Target report file to a Benchmark file, select look alike segments, and then extract audiences for activation in DSPs.

What is new

Side by side grid for comparison
Clear columns for Comparison Source, Addressable Households, Addressable Audience Pool, and Extract Audience so you can scan differences quickly.

Segment selection
Use Select Segments at the top of the Side bar. The pill shows your current count (for example, “Selected: 57”). Your selections drive the Insights pages and your audience extraction.

Audience extraction
Use the Extract Audience links in the Target and Benchmark rows to send audiences to your DSPs and destinations.

Net Of audience
Add an extra audience file that is created from a CRM or sales data list of your existing customers to calculate Net Of values that remove overlapping households from postal codes shared with your existing audience. Net Of values display in row-level “net of” lines beneath the Target and Benchmark.

Refine Audience default report tools.

Compare your Target to a Benchmark in the grid

  1. Open an Insights Report and expand the Refine Audience sidebar.
  2. Review the Select Segments control at the top and adjust as needed.
  3. In the grid, confirm your Target File title (for example, My Target Audience File). This is your report’s Target.
  4. In the Select benchmark dropdown, choose your Benchmark File (for example, CMA Toronto). The Benchmark row displays updated counts.

Columns in the grid

  • Comparison Source: Target File, Benchmark File, and Net Of lines
  • Addressable Households: Count of households for the current selection
  • Addressable Audience Pool: Size of the device ID or digital audience pool aligned to those households
  • Extract Audience: Row-level links to extract the Target File or Benchmark File audiences

Select segments by clicking Select Segments and applying your choices. Target metrics update.

Net Acquisition Audience Opportunity (Net Of)

Purpose

Move beyond broad estimates to a live count of incremental, addressable households by subtracting existing customers from your Target and Benchmark. Results update in real time as you refine segments, so you always see the current net market that can still be acquired.

How to set it up

In the Existing Audience, Members area, open Select Custom Net and choose your Net Of file (for example, Existing Customers in a Service Area).

Net Of values appear as row-level lines beneath the Target and the Benchmark:

  • Target net of: shown in black.
  • Benchmark net of: shown in green.
Refine Audience advanced Net Of report tools.

How it works

The Net Of audience subtracts overlapping households from both the Target and the Benchmark using postal code alignment with your Net Of file.

Use a file exported from your CRM (or a similar system) that lists your existing customers by postal code. It’s normal for postal codes to appear multiple times, those duplicates reflect multiple customers in the same postal code and enable the Net Of calculation (subtracting those overlaps from the addressable postal codes in your Target and Benchmark files).

The grid shows two Net Of figures side by side so you can compare incremental Target opportunity and Benchmark context.

Net Of Calculation Example (Simplified)

  • Target households for Segment A: 12,000
  • Benchmark households for Segment A: 40,000
  • Net Of file households overlapping Segment A postal codes: 3,000
  • Net Of Target: 12,000 − 3,000 = 9,000
  • Net Of Benchmark: 40,000 − 3,000 = 37,000

This indicates there are about 9,000 addressable households in Segment A beyond your existing customers in the same postal codes.

Displayed net of values

For each of Target and Benchmark you will see:

  • Addressable Households (net of overlap)
  • Addressable Audience Pool (net of overlap)

Important

Net Of adds informational lines under Target and Benchmark. Extraction links are available for the Target and Benchmark rows. Net Of lines are informational and do not include extraction links unless there is a significant enough addressable homes count to export.

The Opportunity Dashboard

The Opportunity Dashboard is the top-level page of the Insights Report. It shows segments on the Market Opportunity Chart based on index, penetration, and the Geographical Benchmark. 

Watch this video to understand how the Market Opportunity Chart works:

Opportunity Dashboard benchmark example

The Opportunity Dashboard visualizes which market segments offer the largest opportunity in your target market and how your Audience File compares to that opportunity. Use the Market Opportunity chart to decide which segments to target and to access more detailed insights about them.

Using the Segment Selector in the Context of Insights

The Segment Selection feature, available from both the Refine Audience sidebar and the Opportunity Dashboard, is used for two purposes:

  1. The selected segments are applied throughout the Insights Reports. For example, if you select five segments in the top-right quadrant of the Market Opportunity Chart, the rest of the Insights Report shows attributes for the rows in your Audience File that fall within those five segments. This supports deeper insights for a narrower target and can inform decisions such as Heat Maps for where targets live and creating Carrier Walk files for Direct Mail campaigns.
  2. The selected segments can be used with the Audience Extractor in the Refine Audience sidebar. Click Extract Audience, choose whether to extract for the benchmark file or the target file, and then submit the audience for media activation in intelligentVIEW.

Note: In Reporting Insights, segment selection applies only to the Target Audience File, not the benchmark. For example, if you select segments A1–A5 in the Refine Audience sidebar, the reports show those segments in the Target File values while the benchmark remains unchanged. This allows comparison of selected segments against the full geographical benchmark.