When to use 'audiences' versus 'refined audiences'

[gpolkin1]

Sorry to revive an old thread but I have the same question as the original poster and don't feel like the response on that thread was clear.  

Given both the 'audience' and 'audience refinements'  get applied, what difference does it make if I put criteria in which area of the UI? 

For example, if I am running a global mbox and I want the test to run where:

• Landing Page URL Contains '/membership' AND current page URL contains '/product' 

Does it matter where I embed this logic?  In the 'audience'? In the 'audience refinements'?  One criteria in one and one in another?  

Is there an order of operations being applied?  Is speed of execution a factor?

Fairly confused at this point.

[Gaureshk_Kodag · Accepted solution]

Hi @gpolkin1 

Audience that you setup in targeting tab are activity level audience. Audience refinement is recipe level audience.

Activity level audience are checked while entering into activity, recipe level audience is used to qualify for particular mbox modifications.

[Perrin_Ennen]

Hi @gpolkin1,

if you have only one location with e.g. the target-global-box. In your case it doesn't matter if you configure your audience in audience or audience refinements. But activities can also be much more complex and then it is very important how the individual audiences are created. It should also be mentioned that there is also the possibility to create multiple audiences (experience audiences) for a variant, e.g. in A/B tests.

I think it's important to work from the outside in - and only use audience refinements when I really need to use them. Even though sometimes you have the freedom to configure it either way. This also helps me to keep the overview especially when you work with a lot of activities and adjust older ones even after months.

[tszat]

@Gaureshk_Kodag answered your question but I echo @Perrin_Ennen about working from the outside in. I always try to resist using audience refinements as a last result unless it really makes sense to separate audience qualification criteria for ease of management. I've found refinements to come in handy for items that might be temporary or need to be tweaked often without touching the 'core' audience. eg. I use them all the time to isolate an activity to a lower environment.