How to: Build Salesforce Audiences

How to build Salesforce audiences

How to build Salesforce audiences

Use Salesforce audiences to:

• Generate new business using target account lists
• Accelerate pipeline using accounts with open opportunities
• Expand existing accounts using customer account lists
• Exclude audiences such as existing customers, competitors or employees

Get started from the Audiences page in the left navigation. Start a new audience, then choose one of the Salesforce options under Your Tech Stack.

Building a Salesforce audience has five parts:

1. Choose the audience type
2. Choose the Salesforce accounts (or contacts)
3. Refine with contact and company criteria
4. Decide whether to keep it up to date with Daily refresh
5. Name and create the audience

Choose the audience type

Three Salesforce audience types are available. In the picker they appear as cards with a Dynamic badge.

Salesforce Accounts

Build account lists based on account, opportunity or contact Salesforce filter criteria. The account list from Salesforce is used to query Metadata's identity graph (MetaMatch) for the contacts related to those accounts.

Salesforce Contacts

Build contact lists based on account, opportunity, contact or lead Salesforce filter criteria. The contact list from Salesforce is supplemented with additional email addresses found in MetaMatch to increase the audience match rate.

Salesforce Accounts (LinkedIn Native Targeting)

Build account lists based on account or opportunity Salesforce filter criteria, or a Salesforce list view. The account list is uploaded directly to LinkedIn as a matched-company audience.

Choose the Salesforce accounts

There are three ways to choose the accounts (or contacts) for the audience.

Salesforce List View

Prerequisites: the list view must include Account Name and Website (as the first two columns), and it must be shared with the Salesforce integration user — a list view that isn't shared with that user simply won't appear in the dropdown.

1. Click Salesforce List View.
2. Click the Select Account View List dropdown.
3. Select the list view.
4. Click Add Selected.

New Salesforce Criteria

Generate account or contact lists from filter criteria. Fields come from your Salesforce Account, Opportunity, Contact and Lead objects.

1. Click New Salesforce Criteria.
2. Click + Add Field, select the field to filter by, choose an operator, and enter the value to compare against.
3. Repeat for any remaining fields.
4. Use Filter Logic to configure the order of operations.

   Note: Filter logic accepts boolean operators (AND, OR) and parentheses.

5. Click Run to estimate the list size.
6. (Optional) Use the Save Criteria field to name and save the criteria for reuse.
7. Click Save.

Saved Salesforce Criteria

1. Click Saved Salesforce Criteria and select a saved criteria set.
2. Click Add Selected.
3. (Optional) Update the Salesforce fields and filter logic.
4. Click Run, then Save.

Refine with contact and company criteria

Use contact and company criteria to further refine and improve the quality of your audience.

• Salesforce Accounts — contact criteria are based on MetaMatch fields (Seniority, Job Function, Job Title, Location). Metadata applies them when querying MetaMatch for the contacts related to your Salesforce account list. You can also use Limit contacts per company to cap how many contacts are pulled per account.
• Salesforce Accounts (LinkedIn Native Targeting) — contact and company criteria are based on LinkedIn's own targeting fields and are applied by LinkedIn at campaign launch. Company (firmographic) fields include Industry, Employee count, Company Name and Revenue; contact fields include Location, Job Title, Job Function, Seniority, Skills, Groups, Interests, Behaviors and Followed Companies.

Daily refresh (Dynamic)

Enable Daily refresh (Dynamic) so the audience updates itself from the most recent Salesforce data each day. Turn it off to build a one-time (static) audience from a snapshot of today's Salesforce data.

Name and create the audience

1. Click Create Audience.
2. Enter the audience name (up to 50 characters) and confirm.

The audience is created and you're returned to the Audiences list, where you can track its status per channel.

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Frequently asked questions

Which channels can I use a Salesforce audience on?

The Salesforce Accounts and Salesforce Contacts types can sync to any of your connected channels — LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Google Ads and Display. The Salesforce Accounts (LinkedIn Native Targeting) type targets LinkedIn only, because it uploads the account list directly to LinkedIn.

My audience shows "Below limit" or isn't serving. Why?

Each channel has a minimum matched-audience size before it will serve — 300 matched members on LinkedIn and 100 on Facebook (Google Ads also applies a floor). If the matched size is under the channel's minimum, the audience is flagged below limit and won't serve on that channel. Broaden the criteria to increase the match size.

My Salesforce list view doesn't appear in the dropdown.

Two things to check: the list view must be shared with the Salesforce integration user (an unshared view won't be returned), and it must include the Account Name and Website fields. Also note that list views aren't available while Daily refresh (Dynamic) is on — use Salesforce criteria for a dynamic audience.

How long until my audience is ready?

The two MetaMatch types (Salesforce Accounts, Salesforce Contacts) need an extra 1–2 hours to process, and then each channel updates on its own schedule (typically 12–48 hours). The audience keeps its status on the Audiences list while it processes.

What's the difference between a dynamic and a static audience?

A dynamic audience (Daily refresh on) re-pulls from Salesforce every day, so it stays current as accounts enter or leave your filter. A static audience (Daily refresh off) is a one-time snapshot of today's Salesforce data and doesn't change unless you rebuild it. Dynamic audiences must be built from criteria, not a list view.

How do I exclude existing customers, competitors or employees?

Build the exclusion list as a normal Salesforce audience (for example, a criteria set for current customers), then attach it in the Exclude section when you set up the campaign's target group. The audience itself is built the same way — it's the campaign that decides whether it's used to include or exclude.

Which Salesforce objects and operators can I filter on?

Criteria can be built from your Account, Opportunity, Contact and Lead objects, using operators such as equals, contains, greater/less than, in/not in, between, includes/excludes (for multi-select picklists), and is/is not null. Combine multiple fields with AND, OR and parentheses in Filter Logic.