Using Audience Insights to Understand Your Users

To get a better understanding of the users on a list—who they are and how they engage with your messages—use Audience Insights.

Audience Insights displays actionable behavioral and demographic audience data from lists you’re already using, so you can gain deeper understanding of distinct user groups and learn how they’re interacting with your brand.

For example, Audience Insights can help you understand where the users on a given list are located, the locales they prefer, and the mobile devices and email domains they use. Additionally, it can tell you which actions those users are taking, such as making purchases or unsubscribing. With this information, you can make informed decisions about which lists to use with which campaigns.

You can also add custom insights for any event (custom or system) and user profile field to your Audience Insights panel, so you can gain specific information about the selected users that is relevant to your business.

# In this article

# Viewing Audience Insights

Audience Insights is available for all of your lists, but it provides the best data for lists of users that have received and engaged with campaigns.

To see insights for a list:

1. Go to Audience > Lists.
2. Click the name of a list to open it.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page.

There are four tabs at the bottom of this page:

• Users Matching Criteria - Displays all users currently in the list in a table format.
• Behaviors - Displays behavioral metrics generated from user profile events.
• Demographics - Displays demographic data for the list.
• Referenced In - Displays where the list is referenced in Iterable campaigns, journeys, and other lists.

# Viewing all users in the list

In the Users Matching Criteria tab, you can see all users currently in the list in a table format. Each row shows a user and their user profile field values.

To customize this view, select the columns to display in the Columns dropdown in the top right of the Users Matching Criteria tab.

# Viewing behavioral metrics for a list

The Behaviors tab displays behavioral metrics generated from user profile events, such as total and unique purchases, revenue, average order value, conversion rate, and unsubscribe rate.

In addition to the standard insights listed below, you can also add custom behavioral insights to track what metrics are most important to your business.

# Standard behavioral insight metrics

Insight name	What it means	How it's calculated
Total purchases	How many total purchases the users in this list made.	Total count of purchases by all users in the list for the selected date range.
Unique purchases	How many unique purchasers in this list.	Total count of unique purchasers in the list for the selected date range.
Revenue	The total amount spent by users.	Total spend by all users in the list for the selected date range.
Average order value	The average amount spent on one order, in dollars.	(Revenue) / (Total purchases)
Conversion rate	The percent of users in the list that have a custom conversion event for any campaign. (System events, including purchases, are not included in this calculation.)	(Total custom conversion events) / (Number of users to whom each campaign is sent)
Unsubscribe rate	The percent of users in this list who unsubscribed from marketing messaging.	(Total unsubscribed) / (Total sent)

If a user converts multiple times on the same campaign, it counts as one conversion in the conversion rate. However, if a user converts on multiple campaigns, each conversion is counted.

For instance, if you send three campaigns (two emails and one SMS) to a list of 1,000 users, Iterable will count 3,000 total sends (1,000 for each campaign). Each user counts as an individual send for a campaign, even if the same users are present in each list.

Suppose the two email campaigns are configured to track addItemToCart custom events, and the SMS campaign is tracking an appDownload custom event. If 250 users add items to their cart from the first email campaign, 300 add items to their cart from the second email campaign, and 50 of the SMS users download your app, then the conversion rate for those users is calculated as 20%, where (250 + 300 + 50) / (1,000 + 1,000 + 1,000) = 20%.

# Viewing behavior metrics for a date range

To show metrics for a specific date range, use the date picker (found next to the Behaviors heading in the All Time dropdown). The date range you select only applies to your session of Audience Insights—the next user to view insights will see All Time.

# Viewing conversion rates for a list

Conversion rate is the percent of users in the list that have a custom conversion event for any campaign. (System events, including purchases, are not included in this calculation, even when purchase is used as a conversion event.)

# Viewing the highest converting campaigns for a list

To see the five campaigns with the highest conversion rates for this list of users, check out the Highest converting campaigns section of the Conversion rate insight card in the Behaviors tab.

To change the date range for the listed campaigns, use the All Time dropdown. The list updates to show the campaigns with the highest conversions per delivery during that time frame.

You can use this engagement data to fine-tune future messages, which can result in higher engagement and more conversions for these users. For example, you might find that the users in this list engage more with campaigns promoting weekly sales than with newsletters, and then adjust your newsletter to include a promotional offer.

# Viewing demographic data for a list

To view demographic data for this list, check out the Demographics section of Audience Insights. This data is generated from user profile fields stored on each user's profile, and includes information about devices, domains, Brand Affinity, locales, and location.

In addition to the standard demographic insights, you can add custom demographics insights based on user profile fields that exist in this project.

Use this information to compare lists and understand if different demographic characteristics are associated with different levels of engagement. Then, adjust your marketing strategy as needed.

# Standard demographic insight metrics

Insight name	What it means	How it's calculated
Brand Affinity™	Percentage breakdown of Brand Affinity™ score for users in this list. Requires the brandAffinityLabel user profile field, which is automatically determined by Iterable based on the user's behavior.	(Brand Affinity™ score category) / (Total # of Brand Affinity™ scores)
Email domains for users in this list	Percentage breakdown of different email domains used by the users in this list. Requires the email user profile field.	List of domains by type.
Devices	The type of device used. The devices array is passed to the user's profile when that user accesses your app, and your app uses an Iterable SDK or API to register the device.	List of devices by type.
Locale	The locales stored on the users' profiles. Requires the locale user profile field with a value.	(Each locale) / (Total # of locales).

# Viewing user locations on a map

To see where the users in a list are located geographically, scroll to the bottom of the Demographics tab and select the By Location option on the left side of the tab. This section contains a map that is populated with location dots that represent the geographical locations of users in the list.

User locations in the map are based on the city user profile field.

# Viewing where a list is used in Iterable

To see where a list is referenced in Iterable campaigns, journeys, and other lists, go to the Referenced In tab.

• Name - The name and ID of the campaign, journey, or list.
• Medium - The message medium for the campaign or journey.
• Type - The reference type (campaign, journey, list).
• Status - The status of the campaign or journey.
• Last modified - The date, time, and user who last modified the list, as well as when the list was originally created.

# Tracking custom insights

In addition to Iterable's default insights, you can add custom insights for custom and system events and user profile fields to see data that's relevant to your business goals.

For example, to learn if these users open your emails and subscribe to your newsletter, add a custom behavioral insight for the Email Open event, and another for the custom event you use to track newsletter subscriptions.

# Adding custom insights

You can select up to four custom behavioral insights and four custom demographic insights. If you've reached the maximum number of custom insights in a section, you must remove an insight to add another.

Custom insights are shared across all lists in your project, which means you could see insights added by other users in your project.

To start adding custom insights:

1. With Audience Insights open, go to the Behaviors or Demographics tab.

2. Click Track Another Behavior (behaviors) or Track Another Profile Field (demographics).

3. Choose how you would like the data to display:

   • Behaviors:

     • Show Total Count - Displays the insight as a whole number.
     • Show per User - Displays the insight as a rate per user, which can be a whole number or a decimal. A user is only ever counted once, even if they convert multiple times on the same conversion event.

   • Demographics:

     • Show with Chart - Displays the insight in a round chart.
     • Show as Table - Displays the insight in a table layout, with the user profile field values on the left and the count of each user with that value on the right.

4. Select the system event or user profile field you want to use as a custom insight.

   • Behaviors: Select a system event or custom event.
     • Custom events that are deactivated in Iterable (in Data Schema Management) aren't displayed in the list.
   • Demographics: Select a user profile field.
     • Hidden user profile fields (configured in Data Schema Management) aren't displayed in the list.

   For each event or user profile field, you can only create a single insight card. For example, you can't create two insight cards for a user profile field to view as a chart and as a table.

Once you click on a field or event name, a new card is created in the insights tab. Some data points can appear immediately, but others can take up to an hour to appear. When you notice a processing delay, check back later to see your custom insight data.

# How custom insights are calculated

Custom insights are determined using the calculations in the table below.

Custom insight	How it's calculated
Behaviors (custom and system events)
Show total count	A count of all occurrences of the event, for this list of users, in the set time range.
Show per user	(Total events) / (Number of users in the list)
Demographics (user profile fields)
Show with chart	(Users whose profiles contain the user profile field) / (Total users in the list)
Show as table	The user profile field name and the number of users whose profiles contain the user profile field.

# Removing custom insights

You might remove an insight because you don't need it anymore, or you are at the limit for the section and want to add another.

To remove a custom insight, hover over it and click the X, then Remove insight.

# Using insights to improve customer engagement

With Audience Insights, user data can help you make informed decisions and improve the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. Check out these use cases for ideas!

# Examine trends to help identify churn risks

To identify potential churn risks, take a look at metrics like conversion rate and Brand Affinity™ score. Do you notice particular lists with lower-than-average conversion rates? You might want to send them specialized campaigns. Similarly, are there lists of users who have neutral or negative Brand Affinity™ scores? Consider sending those users campaigns containing incentives, like a discount code, to increase their brand engagement.

# Use location data for precise campaign timing

With location data, you can see the geographical locations of the users in the selected list. This can help you craft relevant messaging for the users depending on where they live, local current events, regional preferences, and more.

# Follow unsubscribes and adjust campaign send frequency

If you notice that a particular list is unsubscribing at a higher-than-average rate, those users could be receiving too many messages. You may want to look at how often that list is receiving campaigns (in the Referenced In tab), and adjust based on your findings.

# Want to learn more?

For more information about some of the topics in this article, check out this Iterable Academy course. Iterable Academy is open to everyone — you don't need to be an Iterable customer!

• Product Bite: Audience Insights