Published on 2025-06-22T06:28:25Z

What is an Affinity Audience? Examples in PlainSignal and GA4

An affinity audience is a group of users classified by shared long-term interests, preferences, and behaviors. These audiences are derived from browsing patterns, app usage, and content engagement over time. Affinity audiences help marketers deliver more relevant content and ads to users likely to be interested in specific topics or products. They differ from in-market audiences, which focus on short-term purchase intent. In this article, we’ll explore how affinity audiences work in both PlainSignal (a cookie-free analytics solution) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

Illustration of Affinity audience
Illustration of Affinity audience

Affinity audience

Affinity Audiences are user segments based on long-term interests used for targeted marketing in analytics platforms.

Definition of Affinity Audience

Affinity audiences allow brands to reach users based on stable interests—like sports fans or travel enthusiasts—rather than transient behaviors. By grouping users into predefined interest categories, marketers can deliver more relevant content and build stronger brand awareness over time.

  • Purpose

    Affinity audiences enable long-term engagement by targeting users who consistently demonstrate interest in a topic or lifestyle category.

  • How it works

    Analytics platforms analyze aggregated user data—web visits, content interactions, and app usage—to infer stable interests. Users are then bucketed into taxonomy-based segments called affinity categories.

Implementing Affinity Audiences in PlainSignal

PlainSignal offers a cookie-free approach to analytics and audience segmentation, relying on first-party data and privacy-centric techniques. You can define affinity audiences in the PlainSignal dashboard and activate them without third-party cookies.

  • Initializing PlainSignal tracking

    Insert the following snippet into your HTML before the closing </head> tag to enable PlainSignal analytics and audience data collection:

    <link rel="preconnect" href="//eu.plainsignal.com/" crossorigin />
<script defer data-do="yourwebsitedomain.com" data-id="0GQV1xmtzQQ" data-api="//eu.plainsignal.com" src="//cdn.plainsignal.com/plainsignal-min.js"></script>

    • Preconnect tag

      Establishes a quick connection to PlainSignal’s server for faster script loading.

    • Script tag

      Loads the PlainSignal JavaScript library, which collects event data and builds user interest profiles.

  • Configuring affinity audiences

    In the PlainSignal dashboard, navigate to Audiences. Choose from predefined interest taxonomies or upload custom user traits to create your affinity segments.

Implementing Affinity Audiences in GA4

Google Analytics 4 provides built-in affinity audiences based on Google’s data modeling. You need to install the GA4 tag on your site, then define or select affinity segments in the GA4 interface.

  • Installing GA4 tag

    Add this gtag.js snippet to your site’s <head> to start collecting data with GA4:

    <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-XXXXXXXXXX"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
  gtag('js', new Date());
  gtag('config', 'G-XXXXXXXXXX');
</script>

  • Creating affinity audience

    In GA4, go to Admin > Audiences > New Audience. Under Suggested Audiences, select Affinity. Pick relevant interest categories and save to make the audience available for reporting and ad targeting.

    • Select data stream

      Choose the web or app data stream where you want the audience applied.

    • Choose affinity categories

      Browse Google’s predefined affinity lists like “Sports Fans” or “Movie Buffs.”

    • Publish audience

      Save and publish to activate the audience across your GA4 property.

Use Cases and Best Practices

Affinity audiences can drive targeted campaigns, personalized experiences, and privacy-compliant segmentation. Follow these best practices to maximize impact:

  • Campaign targeting

    Serve ads to affinity segments aligned with your product—e.g., show eco-friendly products to the “Green Living Enthusiasts” audience.

  • Personalized content

    Present tailored blog posts, recommendations, or promotions based on users’ known interests to boost engagement.

  • Privacy considerations

    Use first-party segmentation tools like PlainSignal to comply with cookie restrictions and evolving privacy regulations.

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