Lesson 6 of 30 · 8 min
Define an audience you can reach
Make targeting specific without making delivery impossible.
Separate the buyer from the targetable audience
A buyer description can include motivations and pain points. A media audience must translate those ideas into signals a platform can actually use, such as geography, role, behavior, context, or first-party membership.
Specific is good; tiny is not
Every added filter reduces the reachable pool and can raise cost. Start with the few signals most connected to the objective, then let creative and measurement do part of the qualification work.
Write the audience as a sentence a stranger could apply
If two planners would build different segments from your audience definition, it is not finished. "Homeowners aged 30-55 in the top 20 metros who searched for roof repair in the last 30 days" can be built by anyone. "Busy modern families" cannot.
Check that the audience can actually be delivered
Before committing, sanity-check the addressable pool against the budget and flight length. An audience of 40,000 people cannot absorb a large budget without punishing frequency, and platforms will either under-deliver or quietly broaden your targeting to spend it.
Takeaway
Target the broadest audience that still makes the message meaningfully relevant.
Check yourself
No score, no signup — pick an answer to see why it's right.
Question 1
What is the best response when a target audience becomes too small to deliver?
Question 2
Which audience definition is ready to hand to a buyer?