Audiences and Insights
Act on the data.
Audiences and Insights is a free Digital Marketing Academy lesson on CoddyKit — lesson 4 of 4. You can read the complete lesson below for free — then practise it hands-on in the browser with a built-in code editor and a 24/7 AI tutor. It is part of the Digital Marketing Academy learning path, one of 4 lessons in the course, and your progress syncs across the web and the CoddyKit app.
What Audiences Are
An audience is a group of users who share conditions you define, such as behavior, demographics, or events triggered.
Audiences power remarketing in Google Ads, personalization, and focused reporting. They are central to turning GA4 data into action.
Audience example:
name: "Cart Abandoners"
conditions:
include: event add_to_cart
exclude: event purchase
membership duration: 30 daysCreating an Audience
Build audiences in Admin > Audiences > New audience. Start from a template, a suggested audience, or a blank custom build.
You combine conditions with AND/OR logic, set inclusion and exclusion rules, and define membership duration up to 540 days.
New audience:
Include users when:
Session source = google AND
Event = sign_up
Exclude users when:
Event = purchase
Membership duration: 90 daysScopes in Conditions
Audience conditions respect scope just like segments. Across all sessions, within the same session, or within the same event.
Scope changes meaning. Two events in the same session is stricter than the same two events across the user's lifetime.
Condition scoping:
Across all sessions: view_item AND add_to_cart
(any time in user history)
Within same session: view_item AND add_to_cart
(must occur together in one visit)Sequence Audiences
Sequences require steps to happen in a specific order, optionally within a time constraint.
Use them to capture intent journeys, like viewing pricing then starting checkout within 10 minutes, which a simple AND cannot express.
Sequence audience:
Step 1: page_view (page = /pricing)
then (within 10 minutes, same session)
Step 2: begin_checkout
Indirectly followed by allowed: yesThe 24-48 Hour Rule
Audiences are not retroactive for all uses. They start populating from creation and backfill up to 30 days only for users who match.
Plan ahead: create audiences you will need before campaigns launch. Allow 24-48 hours for sizes to stabilize in Ads.
Audience timing:
- membership begins at creation
- backfills last 30 days where possible
- Google Ads sync: ~24-48h to populate
- minimum size for Ads remarketing appliesPredictive Audiences
GA4 uses machine learning to predict future behavior, exposed as predictive metrics: purchase probability, churn probability, and predicted revenue.
When data thresholds are met, you can build predictive audiences like Likely 7-day purchasers directly from suggestions.
Predictive metrics:
purchase_probability
churn_probability
predicted_revenue
Predictive audience example:
"Likely 7-day purchasers"
= top 10% purchase_probabilityPrediction Eligibility
Predictive metrics require enough data. You need a minimum number of positive and negative examples within a recent window.
Roughly 1,000 returning users triggering and not triggering the predictive event over 28 days are needed before models become available.
Eligibility (approx):
- 1,000+ returning users who triggered
purchase/churn in last 28 days
- 1,000+ who did not
- model retrains and may go unavailable
if data drops below thresholdAudience Triggers
An audience trigger fires a GA4 event the moment a user joins an audience. This lets you mark high-value moments.
For example, fire an engaged_shopper event when a user enters the Cart Abandoners audience, then mark that event as a conversion.
Audience trigger:
audience: "Cart Abandoners"
on membership -> log event:
event_name: engaged_shopper
optionally mark engaged_shopper
as a conversionGenerated Insights
GA4 Insights surface automatically detected anomalies and trends using machine learning, shown on the Reports home and Insights hub.
They flag spikes, drops, and changes you did not query for, like a sudden rise in conversions from a referral source.
Automated insight examples:
"Conversions up 38% week over week"
"New users from organic search dropped"
"Revenue spiked from /summer-sale"
Found in: Reports snapshot > InsightsCustom Insights
Beyond automatic ones, you can create custom insights: rules that watch a metric and alert you when a condition is met.
Set a segment, metric, evaluation frequency, and threshold, then receive email alerts so you catch problems without checking daily.
Custom insight:
evaluation: Daily
segment: All users
metric: Conversions
condition: has anomaly OR
drops more than 20% vs expected
notify: email to marketing@company.comActivating Audiences
Audiences become valuable when activated. Link Google Ads to push audiences for remarketing and bidding.
You can also use audiences in Explorations as segments and trigger personalization. Always respect consent and privacy rules when activating.
Activation paths:
- Google Ads remarketing lists
- Explore (as comparison segment)
- audience triggers -> conversions
- export to BigQuery for modeling
Respect Consent Mode & regional rules.Quick Check
Test your understanding of predictive features.
Recap
Audiences group users by conditions, scopes, and sequences, with membership durations and a populate delay. Predictive audiences use ML metrics when data thresholds are met.
Audience triggers create events, automated and custom insights surface changes, and activation through Google Ads or Explore turns data into action.
Frequently asked questions
Is the “Audiences and Insights” lesson free?
Yes — the full text of “Audiences and Insights” is free to read here on the web, and the Digital Marketing Academy course includes 4 lessons in total. To practise it interactively (a built-in code editor and a 24/7 AI tutor) and unlock the rest of the Digital Marketing Academy course, upgrade to CoddyKit PRO.
What will I learn in “Audiences and Insights”?
Act on the data. You practise Digital Marketing Academy with hands-on code you run directly in the browser, and a 24/7 AI tutor answers your questions as you work through the lesson.
Do I need any experience to start Digital Marketing Academy?
No prior experience is required. Digital Marketing Academy on CoddyKit is structured for beginners through advanced learners; this is — lesson 4 of 4, so you can start here or from the beginning and move at your own pace.
How long does the “Audiences and Insights” lesson take?
Most CoddyKit lessons take about 5–10 minutes. Each one is bite-sized and interactive, so you make steady progress and pick up exactly where you left off across the web and the app.
Can I write and run code in this Digital Marketing Academy lesson?
Yes. Every Digital Marketing Academy lesson includes a built-in code editor, so you write and run real code right in your browser and get instant AI feedback — no local setup required.
All lessons in this course
- GA4 vs Universal Analytics
- Events and Conversions
- Exploration Reports
- Audiences and Insights