Audience Discovery finds the groups on
your site that convert far above average. This sends the people in one to Meta, TikTok or Google, so
the platform can build a custom audience from them — and then a lookalike: more people who
behave like the ones already converting for you.
They are sent continuously, as people match. This is not a one-off file.
What happens, end to end
Four steps, and the last two happen in the ad platform rather than in Personyze. That split is the thing people get
wrong.
| Step | Where | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Discovery finds a rule. A weekly pass mines your own data for groups that convert far above average. The member list rebuilds daily. | Personyze — automatic |
| 2 | Push to ad platforms. One button on the card creates a real-time campaign targeting that audience, with the sender already added and the destinations already ticked. Everyone who matches is sent as an event. | Personyze — one click, then publish |
| 3 | The platform builds a custom audience keyed on that event name. In Google, a GA4 audience, which reaches Google Ads over the link you already have. | Meta · TikTok · GA4 — you |
| 4 | And a lookalike from that. | Meta · TikTok only |
Before you start — three things, and all three fail silently
This is the most useful section on this page. Each of these produces a campaign that runs, reports success and
reaches nobody.
| Check | What it is | Where |
|---|---|---|
| The destination is connected | An access token from the platform’s Events Manager | Settings → Integrations → the Meta or TikTok card |
| Ad platform matching is on | The cookies and click ids the platform recognises people by | The same card |
| For Google: a GA4 Measurement ID | There is no Google Ads destination — see below | Settings → Integrations → Google Analytics |
The push drawer checks all three and tells you which are missing, so you do not have to hold this list in your
head.
visitors who ever gave you one — measured at 461 of 1,356 people on a real account, so roughly a third. The
browser and click ids reach the rest. Without that switch the push still works and still reports success; it simply
reaches a third of the people. See Ad platform matching.
Sending an audience
- Audiences → Discovered audiences, and find the card.
- Push to ad platforms.
- Tick the destinations that are ready.
- Create the push campaign — it opens a new real-time campaign, already targeting that
audience, with the sender action already added and the destinations already ticked. - Publish it. Nothing is sent until you do.
platform exactly. It looks like
PZ_Audience_41, and it never changes for that audience —renaming it would orphan whatever you built on it.
Building the lookalike
Meta
- Events Manager → your dataset. The
PZ_Audience_…event should appear within a few minutes of the
campaign going live. - Audiences → Create audience → Custom audience → Website → choose that
event. - Create audience → Lookalike audience → that custom audience as the source.
Meta needs at least 100 people from one country in the source before it will build a lookalike.
TikTok
The same shape: Events Manager for the event, then Audiences → custom audience from website activity, then
Lookalike.
Google — and this is the part that surprises people
There is no Google Ads destination. The route is: Personyze sends the event to GA4
→ you build a GA4 audience on that event → it flows to Google Ads over the GA4 ↔ Google Ads link you
already have.
audience feeds Smart Bidding and optimised targeting instead, which is how Google now expands reach.
If somebody asks for a “Google lookalike”, this is the honest answer.
Under-performers, and why they are worth sending
Discovery also finds the mirror image: groups that convert far less than average. Those cards have their
own button, Push as suppression.
Every platform can exclude a custom audience from a campaign. That is how you stop paying to reach
a group that never converts — and it is often the faster win of the two, because it saves spend immediately
rather than needing a new campaign to work.
What this is not
- It is not a list upload. Personyze does not create a Custom Audience in your ad account and does
not upload a customer file. It sends events; you build the audience over there. That is why it needs no App Review and
no ad-account permissions. - Nothing is ever removed. You do not own the list, so there is nothing to clean up — the
platform re-derives the audience from the event stream on its own retention window. To exclude people who have since
converted, exclude a second audience in the ad platform. - It is outbound only. Nothing is read back from the ad platform into Personyze.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Almost always |
|---|---|
| The event never appears in Events Manager | The campaign was never published, or the audience has nobody in it today. |
| The event appears but the audience stays tiny | Ad platform matching is off — only the third of people with an email are being sent. |
| Meta will not let you build a lookalike | Fewer than 100 people from one country in the source. |
| “the recipient has no email” in the campaign log | Expected for anonymous visitors, and harmless once matching is on — they are matched on a cookie instead. |
| The GA4 audience exports to Google Ads and matches nobody | The _ga client id is not being captured — switch on Ad platform matching on the Google Analytics card. |
Related
- Audience Discovery — where these audiences come from.
- Meta, TikTok & Google — connecting each one, and what Ad platform matching captures.
- Send Event to Analytics — the action the push campaign uses.