Choosing an audience for your email

The Audience step is the second step of the campaign composer, where you decide who receives the email.

Two modes: all contacts or custom

At the top of the Audience step you choose between two modes.

All contacts sends to every contact in your organization (minus anyone who has opted out or is suppressed). Use this for announcements intended for your whole list.

Custom activates the Include and Exclude panels, where you can narrow the audience to specific groups and remove others.

The Include panel

The Include panel defines who you want to reach. It has two parts you can use together or separately.

Saved segments appear as chips you can select. Each chip adds everyone who currently matches that segment's rules. You can select more than one; contacts who qualify for any of the selected segments are included. See Building contact segments for how to create and manage saved segments.

Additional filters let you add conditions on the fly without saving a segment first. The filter builder works the same way as the segment builder in your CRM. These ad-hoc filters are AND-joined with your saved-segment selection, so a contact must satisfy both to be included.

If you leave the Include panel empty in Custom mode, the audience defaults to all contacts, the same as choosing All contacts mode.

The Exclude panel

The Exclude panel works like the Include panel but removes contacts from the audience. You can select saved segments to exclude, add ad-hoc filters, or both. Any contact matching the Exclude panel is removed from the final recipient list, even if they also matched the Include panel.

A common use: include your entire member segment, then exclude anyone who already donated this month.

The live audience count

As you make changes, the Audience step shows two numbers: the number of contacts who satisfy your include and exclude logic, and a smaller number representing who will actually receive the email after opt-outs and suppressed contacts are removed. The counts update as you adjust the filters; a brief calculating indicator can appear while a larger audience is tallied. The second, smaller number is the one to plan around.

How the audience is evaluated

The audience you build in the composer is saved as a filter definition on the campaign. When you send or schedule, OrganizeOS re-evaluates that definition against your current contacts. Anyone who joins a matching segment after you configure the audience but before the campaign sends is included automatically. Opt-outs and suppressions are checked again at send time, not just at preview time. For the full send flow, see Sending an email campaign.

Why this matters

Choosing the right audience protects your sender reputation and keeps members from receiving irrelevant email. Every contact you send to who did not expect the message is a potential unsubscribe or spam complaint, both of which reduce your future deliverability. Using saved segments keeps your targeting repeatable and auditable, so your team can see exactly who was included in each campaign without reconstructing filters from memory. The live deliverable count lets you catch targeting mistakes before you send, rather than discovering them in low open rates afterward. Taking a moment to verify the audience at each send is one of the highest-leverage habits you can build as a campaign organizer.