compose audience vs segment builder

[vincenzoie1]

in creating audiences what are the uses cases for choosing compose audience vs segment builder?

thanks

[KotiSyamala]

When choosing between AEP audience creation methods:

Compose Audience: Best for quickly combining existing segments with simple AND/OR/NOT logic. Ideal for marketers needing fast iterations of already-built segments. More suitable for business marketers.

Segment Builder: Best for creating complex audiences from raw data (profile and data lake) with advanced logic, sequencing, and time constraints. Ideal when you need granular control over profile attributes and behavioral patterns. Mostly for technical marketers.

Also used for Federated Audience Composition

[RiteshY18]

@vincenzoie1  points to consider here 

• Audience Composition 
  •  more suited for curating and personalizing audiences based on existing segments.
  • useful for larger audience combining smaller ones 
  • provides options to , split, ranking and overlap audience based on the  specific criteria
  • Has limitation on the number of audience 
• Segment Builder
  •  ideal for creating new audiences from scratch using detailed profile data.
  • perfect for audiences based on specific attributes or behaviors or marketing needs for given use case
  • Provide granule support for segmentation based on the profile and event schema 
  • Not ideal for complex audience 

[AnkitJasani29]

Hi @vincenzoie1 ,

You'd use Segment Builder when:

1. You need granular control over the logic
2. You're starting with raw event or profile data
3. You want real-time evaluation using streaming datasets
   
   

Use Cases:

1. Behavioral Segments

   • Example: Users who viewed a product but didn’t purchase in the last 7 days

   • Built using event datasets like productView, purchase, etc.

2. Demographic & Profile-Based Segments

   • Example: Customers aged 30–40 in New York with Platinum loyalty status

3. Real-Time Personalization

   • Example: Visitors who added items to cart in the last 30 minutes

   • Uses streaming data with real-time evaluation

4. Time-Based or Frequency-Based Logic

   • Example: Users who visited the site 3+ times in the last 14 days

5. First-Time or Lapsed Customers

   • Example: Profiles with no purchases in last 90 days, but had one before

You'd use Compose Audience when:

1. You want to combine existing segments without redefining them
2. You value simplicity and reuse over raw-data complexity
3. You’re building target groups for a campaign or activation

Use Cases:

1. Audience Reusability & Modularity

   • Example: Combine "Frequent Visitors" AND "High-Value Customers"

   • Encourages clean, modular segmentation logic

2. Exclusion Logic

   • Example: Send campaign to "Engaged Visitors" but NOT "Recent Buyers"

3. Campaign-Specific Audiences

   • Example: Campaign targeting = (Cart Abandoners OR Wishlist Adders) AND NOT (Past 7-day purchasers)

4. Region or Channel Specific Roll-Ups

   • Example: "All European Audiences" = France OR Germany OR UK segments

5. Simplify Complex Campaign Logic

   • Compose audience as an "umbrella" over existing tested segments

Feature	Segment Builder	Compose Audience
Define new rules	Yes	No
Combine existing segments	Limited	Yes
Uses real-time data	Yes	No (uses snapshots)
Ideal for	Behavioral or data-driven segments	Campaign audience logic
Reusability	Medium	High
Evaluation type	Streaming or batch	Batch only