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Segments

Segments are new to Audience Manager 2011. A Segment defines Contact preferences, interests and characteristics that represent a target audience of known Contacts accessing content on your Web sites.

You can use Segments as follows:

  • In Outbound E-mail, you can create a Dynamic Distribution List based on a Segment.
  • In Audience Manager, on the presentation server implementers can get the list of available Segments through the Outbound E-mail Content Delivery APIs.

You can base a Segment on another Segment so that you can create generic Segments and progressively more specific Segments to create a chain of filters whereby each filter in the chain further refines the selection.

You define a Segment using filters. These filters are the same as those used to define Dynamic Address Books and Dynamic Distribution Lists. Whereas Address Books and Distribution Lists are used to manage groups of known Contacts and therefore contain a list of Contacts that match the filter, Segments define content audiences and therefore do not contain Contacts. You organize Segments into Folders. Segments are BluePrinted down the BluePrint hierarchy but you cannot localize Segments.

Synchronization Targets

The Content Manager Server and presentation server require synchronization to ensure Contact and Tracking information are kept in sync. A Synchronization Target allows you to configure a URL (and username/password) to a presentation server where Contact and Tracking synchronization is implemented. Synchronization Targets have been updated to also synchronize Segments. Segments are synchronized before Contacts for immediate use.