What is Audience data and how does it work?

Today, almost all US digital display ad budgets run through programmatic pipes. More than 90% of US digital display ad spend is now bought programmatically and the vast majority of those impressions rely on audience data for targeting.

As the online population passes 5.5 billion internet users, the volume of data being created keeps exploding. Recent estimates say the global datasphere was around 149 zettabytes in 2024 and is on track to reach about 180 zettabytes in 2025 (a zettabyte is a billion terabytes).

The most successful marketers direct their ad budgets into programmatic technology, which is based on audience data. This ad model helps marketers to instantly reach target audiences with personalized ads. And it brings results. Let’s take a closer look at what is audience data and what kind of digital information it includes.

Audience data – definition and sources

Audience data is combined, detailed information about your target audience’s online behavior, which lets you move from blunt, broad targeting to precise, data-driven decisions. The more you know about your customer, the more relevant and timely your offer becomes.

It is the fuel for programmatic campaigns and the first step to launching effective campaigns that deliver higher ROI and better performance. 

Audience data can include information such as:

• Demography
• Purchase intentions
• Interests
• Events
• Popular brands

Armed with that info about your audience, you can start to create messages tailored to your future customers. That’s key for performance, because recent research shows that around half of global consumers are willing to share their personal data if it leads to better, more personalized brand experiences.  Other studies also find that 70–80% of consumers will share data in exchange for things like loyalty benefits, discounts, and special offers, as long as they clearly see the value.

What’s more, audience data is processed and used in advertising in compliance with privacy law, such as the GDPR. It’s important to check what are the sources of processed audience data from your data provider. If you’re looking for a data provider, take a look at our checklist: how to choose a data provider.

What audience data can bring to digital marketing?

There are plenty of methods for data collection that you can use for your business needs. Choose a data provider that offers high-quality services with all privacy regulations kept. OnAudience stays compliant with privacy regulations so all your data is secure.

Let’s see how you can use the collected data:

• Target audience accurately with high-quality data

Thanks to audience data, you can create a personalized marketing message and experience for your target groups. Data providers offer various taxonomies with segments such as Car Lovers, Music Enthusiasts or Christmas Heavy shoppers. Some data companies – and OnAudience is one of them – offer to check their audience segments online.

Check available audience segments

• Create audience segments for targeted ad campaigns

If you collect your data via Data Management Platform, you can set your own segmentation rules that represent characteristics of your target audience and then create custom segments to use it in the campaign or monetize it through global Demand-Side Platforms.

• Increase the ROI of your digital campaigns 

 Audience data allows you to reach a relevant group of users with high-quality content. Personalized ads, tailored – for example – to your target groups’ interests, can help you to easily increase the efficiency of your campaigns, and finally – increase ROI.

• Discover unique insights about your audience behavior

You can analyze stored audience data by generating audience reports with a precise analysis of your visitors. You can check for example, what differentiate your frequent shoppers from regular users and find more potential customers with this unique attribute.

• Find new ad audiences that match your current customer profile

First, collect your data and second – find the digital twins of your best-converting users by looking for similar characteristics among all the users. As a result, you can expand your customer network with new clients.

• Eliminate ad fraud and non-human traffic

Algorithms based on data about your audience, identify bots on your webpage by analyzing your visitors’ browser history or time spent on the website. Discovered bots are eliminated automatically so you don’t waste your campaign budget on bot traffic.

What are the types of audience data?

Audience data can be divided into target groups. Segments are grouped by user attributes or devices. OnAudience provides over 3,000 segments collected from over 200 markets worldwide. You can find your target audience by searching:

1. Mobile & Desktop taxonomy

We collect data from desktop and mobile devices. Desktop data is based on Mobile Advertising ID. Check what types of segments do we offer

Check Mobile & Desktop taxonomy

2. Demography

OnAudience provides data about age and gender of users. You can check how many users aged, for example, 18-24 are available in Germany or USA.

Check Demography taxonomy

3. Interests

To tailor messages to user interests, you can use our Interests segments. If you are looking for audience that loves pets, music or is interested in cars – check our online taxonomy.

Check Interests taxonomy

4. Purchase Intentions

When users are looking for product very often, they are close to buy it. We’re updating our audience data every 7 to 14 days, so thanks to our algorithms we know what users are likely to buy. Find a target group that is looking for a product you’re going to sell.

Check Purchase Intentions taxonomy

5. Brands

Reaching users interested in specific brand can be really effective. Our team created an unique brands taxonomy that allows you to target users that frequently read or watch content about over 270 brands, such as Apple, Samsung or BMW. If you want to reach them on a chosen market worldwide, check our taxonomy.

Check Brands taxonomy

Audience data and compliance with the GDPR

This is highly important to offer reliable, safe and compliant data services, that’s why data privacy is a matter of strategic importance for our company.

That is why we offer only non-personally identifiable information. The data is stored and processed on our Data Technology Platform. Data that comes from cookieless identifiers or MAIDs is getting automatically anonymized by giving a random alphanumeric sequence, thus stored information is impossible to tie with a person who the cookie file belongs to. 

OnAudience products and services comply with GDPR and CCPA Privacy policy. We build our Big Data solutions based on Privacy by Design. Compliance with our products and services was confirmed by the legal analysis of global consulting corporation. We are a partner of TCF 2.0 which helps digital companies ensure they comply with the latest privacy regulations. 

Learn more about using Audience Data by OnAudience

As an owner of the largest database of audience data in Europe, OnAudience is one of the world’s largest data providers which offer packed audience segments (3,000+ segments) and distributes them within the most popular DSPs and audience data marketplaces at the same time.

We offer high-quality data that is:

• GDPR-compliant
• Accurate & up-to-date (confirmed by Nielsen DAR)
• Made up of 3,000+ predefined segments and 25 billion  devices

Access our online taxonomy