Audience Members

Audience members are the people (or accounts) in your system who can receive messages. You identify them once, attach attributes and identities, and then send messages or run workflows against that audience profile.

What an audience member is

An audience member is a durable profile keyed by an externalUserId — your application’s stable identifier for the end user (for example, user_123 or acct_456).

Members typically include:

• Identities: how to reach the user on a channel (for example, an email address).
• Attributes: arbitrary data you want to use for targeting and personalization (for example, plan, locale, isTrial).
• Preferences: the user’s opt-in/out settings, usually by category and channel.

How it fits into the system

• Messages target a specific audience member (externalUserId).
• Templates can personalize content using member attributes.
• Segments group members based on attributes.
• Broadcasts send to many members at once (often via a segment).
• Workflows run an automated sequence for a specific member.

This means the “first mile” of any ChimeKit integration is almost always: identify your members reliably.

Getting started

1. Choose a stable externalUserId (don’t use an email address unless it never changes).
2. On login/signup (or whenever you have a known user), call the identify endpoint:
   • Dashboard-driven flows can start with a manual test member.
   • Programmatic flows should use the Server SDK or /sdk/v1/audience/identify.
3. Add identities (like email) and attributes as soon as you know them.

Where to go next

• Send a single message to a member: Messages.
• Manage preferences and opt-outs: Messaging Channels and Messages (Categories).
• Trigger automated sequences: Workflows.