Custom Audience Setup Guide Private Beta

Set up Custom Audience as a destination in RudderStack.

4 minute read

The Audiences feature is in Private Beta, where we work with early users and customers to test new features and get feedback before making them generally available.
Reach out to Customer Success if you are interested in enabling this feature for your workspace.

Use this guide to set up a Custom Audience destination in RudderStack.

To sync a saved audience to your Custom Audience destination, see How to Sync Audiences to Custom Audience.

Setup

Go to Collect > Destinations > New Destination.
Search and select Custom Audience.
Creating a source is optional. Click Continue to skip this step.
Configure the following settings to specify how RudderStack connects to your API and complete the setup:

Setting	Description
Name	A unique name that identifies this destination in your workspace.

Audience delivery API configuration

Setting	Description
Enter base URL	Specify the root URL for your API (for example, `https://api.example.com`). All requests are sent to this URL.
Specify authentication	Choose how RudderStack authenticates with your API. See Authentication section below for details.
Custom headers	This optional setting lets you add extra key-value headers to every request (for example, `Content-Type`, `X-API-Version`).

Authentication

Method	Description
No authentication	None — use this for public endpoints only
Basic Auth	Enter a username and password
API Key	Specify a header name (for example, `X-API-Key`) and API key value
Bearer Token	Enter a bearer token value

Endpoint configurations

Configure how RudderStack adds, updates, and removes audience members:

Setting	When it runs
Add record	A user enters the audience
Update record	A member’s mapped attributes change. Tip: Set Use Add record configuration to Yes to reuse the same method, path, template, and fields as Add record.
Remove record	A user leaves the audience

Action-specific settings

Each action’s (add/update/remove record) settings follow the same structure.

HTTP method and endpoint path

Setting	Description
HTTP method	`POST`, `PUT`, `PATCH`, `GET`, or `DELETE` for this action.
Endpoint path URL	Path appended to the base URL. It supports simple interpolation with connection values, for example `/audiences/{{connection.audienceId}}/members`.

The resolved URL is the base URL plus the evaluated endpoint path.

Batch size

Setting	Description	Default value
Batch size	Maximum records per HTTP request for this action. Range 1–5000	5000

Request body template

Define the JSON body sent to your API. The template follows JSONata syntax.

Templates are validated when you save the destination. An invalid syntax is rejected with an error that identifies the action and issue.

A sample request body template is shown below:

{
  "audience_id": $$.connection.audienceId,
  "elements": [$$.records.{
    "userIds": [
      {"idType": "SHA256_EMAIL", "idValue": sha256_email},
      {"idType": "GOOGLE_AID", "idValue": google_aid}
    ],
    "firstName": first_name,
    "lastName": last_name,
    "nested": {
      "org": "static_value"
    }
  }]
}

Global objects available at runtime

Object	Description
`$$.records`	Array of records in the current batch (after field processing and hashing)
`$$.connection`	Sync connection metadata, including `audienceId`

Allowed operations

Object and array construction
Path expressions ($$.records, $$.connection.audienceId)
Iteration with { ... } — for example, $$.records.{ "email": email, "user_id": user_id }
String, number, and boolean literals
Number() casting where needed, for example,$number($$.connection.audienceId)

Template example

A template for generic batched members is shown below:

{
   "audienceId": $$.connection.audienceId,
   "users": [$$.records.{
    "email": email,
     "user_id": user_id
  }]
}

Template fields

After you define a template, RudderStack extracts field names referenced under $$.records and lists them under Template fields. Click Refresh to re-scan the template, or Manage fields to configure each field.

Field setting	Description
Name	Destination-side field name used in the template
Required	If enabled, you must map the field to a warehouse column during sync setup
Static	If enabled, the value is a literal you provide while adding a sync
Hash	Hash algorithm applied before the template runs. You can choose between None, SHA256, SHA512, or MD5.

If you rename or remove template fields after syncs exist, make sure to update mappings on each affected sync manually.
See Troubleshooting for more information.

Request preview

Use Fetch preview to build a sample HTTP request from test records.

Preview does not send traffic to your API.

Choose how many sample records to include (for example, 1 record).
Edit sample data if needed.
Click Fetch preview to see the resolved method, URL, headers, and JSON body.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Resolution
Template is rejected on save	The syntax is outside the allowlisted operations — the error message names the action and position
Unexpected payload shape	Use the Fetch preview with the same sample records and action type (`INSERT`, `UPDATE`, or `DELETE`) to verify the payload shape

Next steps