An Audience is everyone who has signed up, through a sign-up form, to get your surveys and Collections by email. Think of a citizen panel, a customer panel or the people who visited your stand at an exhibition: people outside your organisation who said yes to being asked now and then. Each hive has one Audience.
Who can do this: Admins set everything up and see who is in the Audience. Managers can filter it, save Audience groups and send. Details are in the table below.
How it works
- Make a sign-up form. An Admin creates it under Admin > Audience > Sign-up forms and puts its link or QR code where people will see it: on a Page, on your website, on a poster or on a tablet. See Sign-up forms: how people join your Audience.
- People sign up. They give their email address, and perhaps their birth year, and confirm by clicking a link in an email. Only then do they count.
- Pick who to send to. Everyone in the Audience, or an Audience group, which is a saved selection such as everyone born 2001 to 2010. See People and Audience groups.
- Send. Open a survey or a Collection, go to its Share tab and click Send to audience. See Send a survey or Collection to your Audience.
- Hear back. Answers stay anonymous. You see how many people took part in each email, and you can send the results or an update to the same people.
What an Audience is not
It is not a Group. Groups decide who can see what in your hive. An Audience never gives anyone access to anything. It only says who gets an email. See Creating and managing user groups for Groups.
It is not People. Someone who signs up becomes a Guest of your hive and sees only what is shared with them. If they are already a member, they keep their role. A person who is in your hive only because they signed up:
- is left out of People, search and the Dashboard’s people count;
- does not count towards your licence;
- is removed from the hive again if they leave the Audience.
Admins find these people under Admin > Audience. If you later invite them or give them a role, they become ordinary members.
Who sees what
| Admins | Managers | Members and Guests | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Admin > Audience, and who is in it | Yes | The numbers and the filter, not the names | No |
| Sign-up forms | Create, edit and delete | No | No |
| Audience groups | Create, edit the filter, add and remove people by hand | Create and edit the filter, not add by hand | No |
| Send to audience | Yes, for what they manage | Yes, for what they manage | No. A member who manages a survey sees the button turned off with “Ask an Admin or Manager to send it”. |
| Sent (every email and how many took part) | Yes | Yes | No |
| Export of the Audience | Yes | No | No |
Good to know
- Answers stay anonymous. Everyone in one email gets the same link, so nobody’s answer is tied to their name. You see how many people took part in each email, and once an email has 5 answers you can look at the results for just that email.
- People can always leave. Every email has a link that deletes their details in one click. See Signing up and leaving: what people see.
- A confirmed address only. Someone who signs up but never confirms is not in the Audience, and their details are deleted after 7 days.
- Emails come from your hive. The sender’s name is your hive’s name, and the footer says which sign-up form the person used.
- Nothing goes out by accident. You see the email first, can send a test to yourself, and confirm the number of people before it is sent. Emails can’t be taken back.
Common questions
Can I add people to an Audience myself, from a list? No. People join by signing up and confirming their own email address. That is what makes it safe to email them.
Can the same person be in more than one Audience group? Yes. An Audience group is only a selection, and a person can be in as many as match.
Can people see which Audience group they are in? No. Audience groups are for you. People never see them.
Do I need an Audience to share a survey with a link? No. The share link and QR code work without one. See Sharing a survey and Sharing a collection with a link. An Audience is for when you want to email people who agreed to hear from you.