What are Static List Audiences?

Sometimes you need to reach a group that isn’t defined in your Human Resources Information System (HRIS), like conference attendees, project teams, or custom stakeholder lists. Static List Audiences make it easy to target these fixed groups using curated lists, so you can quickly connect with the right people regardless of how their data is structured. Previously, this process required manual copy-and-paste work..

• Simple, Dedicated Static List Creation: Create, update, and reuse audiences from curated lists—without relying on attributes, or writing and troubleshooting queries.
• Automated Error Handling: Built-in checks eliminate manual troubleshooting and improve accuracy and confidence.
• Optimized for Scale: New static list audience type to enable significant reduction in audience page and list load times.
• Flexible Permissions: Allows distributed communicators to reach any user in their list without broad system-level access or risk of accidental user provisioning.

Before You Start

This article assumes you are signed in to Creator Studio and have a role (Brand Super Admin or Community Admin) with permissions to create and manage audiences. (See also Permissions in this article.) To learn more about audiences, refer to our collection of audience articles.

Use Cases

1. Reduce Operational Overhead: Eliminate reliance on user imports and complex queries, reducing errors, duplicate users, and support escalations.
    
2. Manage Large Audiences at Scale: Create and maintain large audience lists without performance issues or system limitations.
    
3. Fast, Self-Service Audience Creation: Quickly build audiences for one-time or specific campaigns (e.g., cross-functional teams, event attendees) without technical expertise. Reach audiences not captured in HR data (e.g., flu shot recipients, doctors across geographies) using curated lists.
    
4. Receive Timely, Relevant Communications: Get more accurate and timely messages based on real-world groupings, improving engagement and awareness.

Permissions

When creating a static list audience, there are two permissions to be aware of: Static List Audiences and Trusted Static List Audience Publisher. The Static List Audience permission determines who can create and manage static list audiences, while the Trust Static List Audience Publisher permission (disabled by default for standard roles) is designed only for use with custom roles and determines which users can publish to static list audiences regardless of their restrictions.

Static List Audiences

• Enabled by default for Brand Super Admins and Community Admins. 
• Also available as a permission for any custom role. Create Audiences is a prerequisite permission.
• Allows the user to create, edit, and archive static list audiences.
• No user scope restrictions are applied to static list audiences.
  
  

Trust Static List Audience Publisher

• Not enabled by default for any standard roles.
• Available as a permission for any custom role. Static List Audiences is a prerequisite permission.
• Allows users to publish campaigns to all users in their static list audience regardless of their user scope restrictions.
  
  Note: The user must be the campaign creator and the audience creator to achieve this outcome.
  
  

Create a Static List Audience

1. To create a static list audience, either click the global Create button or the + Audience button on the Audiences page. Selecting the Dynamic Audience option will take you to the existing audience builder.
   
   
    
2. Select Static List Audience.
   
   
    
3. Give your audience a name (required) and click Create.
   
   
    
4. Click Import a list.
   
   
    
5. From here, you can upload your file. Select the identifier for your list: Email (default) or Employee ID, and then click Select File to select your .csv.
   • .csv is currently the only supported file type.
   • The relevant column must be the first column. Only a single column with an identifier of either Email or Employee_id is required. If more than 1 column is provided, the import will still run successfully; the remaining columns will just be ignored.
   • You can include up to 50,000 records per upload.
   • No header is needed. If a header is provided, it will be treated as a record and identified as an Excluded Identifier.
     
     
      
6. Click Import.
7. After selecting import, we check for and automatically remove trailing spaces. We also run an auto net difference check to check for the following:
   • Existing users - only existing users can be added to the audience.
   • Excluded Identifiers
     • Invalid Format - If Email is selected as the identifier type, any record not formatted as an email will not be added. You can correct the formatting and add the user once it’s corrected.
     • Duplicate in File - If a record is found more than once in the file, the duplicate user will not be added. No action is needed.
     • Not Found in System - If the identifier does not match a created user in the community, it is ignored. Once the user is provisioned, they can then be added.
       
       
        
8. You can download a .csv of any Excluded Identifiers so you can make any necessary changes. Click the Back button to upload and import your corrected file.
9. After reviewing any Excluded Identifiers, select Add to audience to create your audience.

Edit a Static List Audience

On the audience builder page for the created audience, you can search for individual users, and remove users as needed.

To add additional users in bulk, select Import > Append. This addition will adhere to the same net difference check. Any users already in the audience will not be added and will be identified as duplicates.

You can also replace the entire list by selecting Import > Replace. This will replace the current audience with the new users.

Convert an Existing Audience

You can convert an existing audience into a static list audience. This is recommended for any audience where a specific list of individuals was selected or it was created via copy and paste in the advanced query builder. To convert an existing audience, select More > Convert to Static List. This will place the audience into a processing state, but will not prevent users from accessing it or using it in campaigns.
 

FAQ

Does this replace dynamic segmentation? Will existing methods of creating static  list audiences be deprecated?

No, this complements dynamic segmentation. While dynamic audiences are ideal for rule-based targeting, Static List Audiences provide a flexible solution for cases where attributes are insufficient or unavailable. Existing methods of creating list audiences will still be available.

How does this improve data quality and accuracy?

Automated error handling reduces formatting issues, unmatched users, and duplicate creation, resulting in more accurate audiences and greater confidence in targeting.

Is there a limit to the size of a static list audience?

Static List Audiences support adding 50,000 users at a time but there is not technically a limit to the size of the audience.

Are restrictions applied?

Campaign creator restrictions will continue to work as expected - restrictions of the campaign creator are applied at the time of publish. Restrictions will not be applied when the static list audience is created. 

What happens if a user on the static list exists in multiple communities? Are those users matched only to the user record in the current program?

Yes, users are only checked against their community-specific record.

Can Static List Audiences be used to target users who do not have company email addresses and sit outside of HRIS files or are they limited to existing active users within Firstup?

No, they cannot. Static List Audiences are limited to existing Firstup users.

If I want to import a larger static audience file, will there be a more significant delay and will there be a prompt informing me of the delay?

Yes, users will see a loading state banner if an audience of >1000 members is added, informing the user that it may take up to 30 minutes. In the meantime, the audience can still be used.

Are there any scenarios where including a user in a static list could impact licensing, or change how that user is counted?

No, there are no scenarios where including a user in a static list will impact licensing. 

Are metrics (opens, clicks, reach) for Static List Audiences calculated the same way as for dynamic audiences?

Yes, there is no change.

What pain points will Static List Audiences help remedy?

• Audience lists not loading: Reported issues with audience lists taking hours to load, or not loading at all, impacting campaign delivery and audience management.
• Frustration with the Advanced Query Builder UX: Reported frustration with the manual Copy & Paste method, as well as troubleshooting requests for the Advanced Query Builder.
• Challenges with user import: Requests to separate user import from audience creation, citing challenges with creating new users unintentionally, permissions roadblocks, and audience maintenance.
• Duplicate users: Requests for a way to easily remove duplicate users in bulk and identify them by data source.