Skip to content

Guide 88 · Admin · GA4 + Tag Manager

Create a GA4 audience: build the condition, check the size, and name what it is for

Checked 11 November 2026 · Verification: figures recomputed in Python 3, shown in the downloadable file · Steps traced to Google help and developer pages, opened 11 November 2026 · 7-minute read

An audience is a group of users defined by a condition on the data you collect. Build it in the audience builder, check how many users match, and name it for its use.

Expected signal

After the trace, the audience builder shows the condition, the audience size, and a name that states the use, and the audience is saved under Audiences.

Download the reference: the create audience conditions reference (JSON) (338 bytes, MD5 9900b83b3f648c319f3bae0599c82664). It holds the worked example from this guide with every figure recomputed. The file was built for this guide and checked the same day; it was not exported from a live property.

What you need

  • Marketer access or above at property level.
  • The condition written out before you open the builder: dimension, operator, value.
  • A use for the audience: reporting, or export to a linked product.

The trace

  1. Open Admin, then under Data display click Audiences, then New audience, then Create a custom audience. You need Marketer access or above at property level to open the audience builder.
  2. Start from the condition, not from the template. Google's examples start with a simple idea: users who completed a purchase, or users who viewed a page more than once. Write yours as one sentence before you click anything.
  3. Add the condition in the builder. Pick the dimension or metric, the operator, and the value. For a purchase audience the condition is the purchase event, with a count of at least 1 in the membership duration.
  4. Set the membership duration. This is how long a user stays in the audience after matching. A duration of 30 days means a purchaser from 40 days ago has left the audience. Note the value you chose.
  5. Check the size before you save. The worked example in the download starts from 18,400 users, of whom 3,120 purchased and 486 purchased more than once. Repeat purchasers are 486 / 3,120 = 15.6% of purchasers. If your audience holds 2 users, the condition is too narrow; if it holds everyone, it is not a segment.
  6. Save with a name that states the use, such as Repeat purchasers for email. Then open the audience list and confirm it is there. Audiences populate as users match; a new audience does not fill with past users at once.

Dead ends

DEAD END — AN AUDIENCE WITH NO USE. An audience built for no report and no export sits unused. Name the use before you build, and delete audiences whose use has ended.

DEAD END — A CONDITION THAT MATCHES EVERYONE. A condition of session count at least 1 matches every user. The audience adds nothing to a report that already covers all users.

DEAD END — EXPECTING PAST USERS INSTANTLY. Audiences accumulate users as they match the definition. A new audience starts small and grows; it does not backfill the whole history.

End state

The worked example counts 3,120 purchasers out of 18,400 users, and 486 of them, 15.6%, purchased more than once. The audience is saved, named for its use, and its membership duration is noted.

Sources

Checked 11 November 2026. The click paths above are the ones in Google's help and developer pages, opened 11 November 2026. No step in this guide was run inside a live Analytics property or a live Tag Manager container, because both need a Google sign-in and this site does not sign in as anyone. The figures on this page were recomputed in Python 3 and are shown in the downloadable file, which was checked the same day. Google moves menu items without warning; if a path on this page no longer matches, the linked help page is the current map.