Importing Audiences

Freshpaint enables you to securely upload customer lists from external systems and activate them across ad platforms, including Meta, Google Ads, and others, while maintaining full industry compliance.

This guide walks through how to:

1. Set up integrations

2. Import and format your data

3. Create and review your audience

4. Sync Audience to the Ad Platform

1. Set Up Your Integration

Before creating or importing an audience, you’ll need to make sure your Ad Platform Audience integrations are connected.

Go to Audience Integration Setup →

This step applies to all audience Integrations, including Meta, Google Ads, Viant, StackAdapt and more.

2. Where Your Data Comes From

You can import audiences from tools like:

• CRMs (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot)

• EHR systems (e.g., Epic, MyChart)

• Customer engagement platforms (e.g., Customer.io, Braze, Active Campaign)

• Internal databases, reporting tools, or data warehouses

Segment your users in your own system, then export the data as a CSV file with identifiers like:

• ✅ email (required for now)

• 📱 phone_number (coming soon)

3. Importing & Creating an Audience

Once you’ve exported your data:

1. Go to Audiences > Imported Audiences in Freshpaint. Click Import Audience

   
2. Select integrations. This is where the audience will sync (e.g., Meta, Google)

   
3. Upload your CSV file.

   Requirements for an uploaded CSV:

   • File must contain a column labeled email

   • File must be .CSV format

     
4. Name your audience.

   Add a Name, Description and optional Labels for internal clarity

1. Review and set your Ad Platform Alias.

The Alias name is the name sent to the ad platform, we provide a default random name. You are more than welcome to change it when creating a new Audience.

1. Finish import — You’ll now see your audience listed in the Imported Audiences table

4. Send to Ad Platform

Once your audience is ready:

1. Go to the Imported Audiences page

2. Click Send to Destination next to the integration

   
3. Review audience details (especially the ad platform alias)

   

4. Click Send

✅ That’s it! Your audience has been queued for delivery.

1. Once the audience is processed by the ad platform, you will be able to view it in the ad platform’s UI. See below for more about processing times.

Processing Time & Monitoring

• Most audiences sync to platforms quickly, but external platforms (like Meta or Google Ads) may take 24–48 hours to fully process and activate your audience.

• Plan campaign launches after confirming audience availability in your destination platform.

• You can refresh the Imported Audiences page in Freshpaint to monitor sync status.

Best Practices & Reminders

Avoid health context in the alias name

The alias is the only name sent to the ad platform. Never include PHI or any health-related terms (e.g., "diabetes", "cancer", "patients") in the alias, as this could violate platform policies and HIPAA compliance. Learn more.

Exclude your original audience when creating lookalikes

To avoid overlap and ensure your lookalike campaign reaches net-new users, always exclude the initial audience from the campaign targeting.

Name, description, and labels stay in Freshpaint

You can use health context for clarity inside Freshpaint (e.g., labels or internal names), as these never leave the platform.

💡 Need help?

If you're unsure how to format your CSV or how to structure your campaign safely, reach out to our team at [email protected].