Audiences helps you define exactly who you want to understand. Whether you’re starting from scratch or tweaking a ready-made GWI persona, it’s your space to build the audience that fits your goals.
Only users with a Pro plan have access to our Audiences feature. Check our Plans article for more information about our plans and how to check your current plan.
How to create an audience
You can access Audiences from the sidebar menu on the left-hand side of your screen. To create a new audience, click on the pink button on the top right.
Start by selecting your data set from the top left.
Click Add attributes.
Browse data points from your selected data set.
Apply attributes to your audience.
How to group and connect attributes
When you select attributes from different questions, they’ll appear as separate groups in your audience.
Click Add new group to create a new attribute group.
Use the connector between groups or attributes to switch between AND and OR.
Drag and drop individual groups together to form a collective group—this lets you combine attributes from different questions (e.g., “(Men AND Gen Z) AND (Cooking OR Football OR Gaming)”).
How to exclude attributes
You can remove certain people from your audience.
In a group of attributes, open the Include dropdown.
Select Exclude to filter out anyone who matches those attributes.
Note: The Exclude option only works on individual groups where the attributes come from the same question.
How to use count coding
You can control how many attributes apply with count coding. If you've selected several attributes from the same question (e.g., Interests) and don’t want to combine them all using AND or OR—either because it’s not relevant or the sample size is too small—you can use count coding instead.
At the top of the group:
Switch from Any to All or At least.
Choose the number of attributes a respondent must match (e.g., “At least 3”).
This lets you define how many of the attributes must have been selected by respondents.
How to choose your other filters
Waves
A wave is the quarter we collect our data in. By default, the last 4 waves are selected. To update this: Click Waves > use the year checkboxes or dropdowns > Apply
Location
You can select global regions or specific markets. By default, all applicable locations are selected. To update this: Click Locations > Deselect all > pick regions or countries > Apply
When applying filters in the Audience Builder, these show you the audience sample size but are not included as attributes. When applying your audience to your chart, dashboard, or crosstab, you’ll need to re-apply these filters.
If using a saved audience within GWI Spark or GWI Canvas, describe the intended locations as part of your prompt. See here for more information on writing an effective prompt.
How to save your audience
Click Save audience in the top right.
Give your audience a name and confirm.
Use Save as new if you want to keep the original and create a variation.
Once saved, you'll see the sample size and represented universe on the right side of the audience builder—these reflect the filters you've applied.
Now that your audience is saved, you can use it with other platform features: Charts, Dashboards, Crosstabs, GWI Spark, or GWI Canvas to explore how they respond across other questions and attributes.
How to use Instant Insights and Summarize
After you've saved your audience, click Summarize at the top right to generate a quick description of your audience. Click View instant insights to get quick, high-level insights into your audience’s demographics, interests, attitudes, and more.
With View instant insights, you’ll see auto-generated insights across key profiling areas like:
Interests and values
Brand discovery
Media consumption
Attitudes
You can convert these into an interactive dashboard or export them as an image. For the best experience, use Chrome.