Choosing an Audience (Who Gets a Campaign)
When you send a one-off campaign (a broadcast — see Sending Campaigns), you choose who it goes to. This article explains the audience options in plain terms — no code — and shows how to target things like “everyone who bought Product X” or “people on my newsletter list.” For the technical query language behind these, see Product Audiences & Segments.
Campaigns are marketing. A campaign is a marketing-class email, so it respects the marketing unsubscribe — anyone who opted out of marketing won’t receive it, automatically. If you want to email product owners about an update (a changelog, a fix) without it counting as marketing, that’s a support email, not a campaign — see Automated Support & Changelog Emails. The difference matters: support emails use a separate opt-out, so a customer can stop your marketing while still getting important product updates.
Table of Contents
The built-in audience options
When you compose a campaign, the Audience selector offers these without any code:
Subscribers on a list
The simplest option: everyone subscribed to a list you choose. Use this for “email my newsletter subscribers” or “email everyone who signed up via the coming-soon form.”
All active subscribers
Everyone with an active subscription, across all lists. Use sparingly — a message relevant to everyone is rare, and broad sends get more unsubscribes. Most of the time a specific list or product audience converts better.
Owners of a product
Everyone who bought a specific WooCommerce product. Two useful toggles:
- Include bundle owners — also include customers who got the product as part of a bundle, not just those who bought it directly. Usually you want this on, so a bundle buyer counts as an owner.
- Direct buyers only — the opposite: only people who bought this exact product on its own.
This is how you email “everyone who owns Scalability Pro” about, say, a related offer.
Going further: combined conditions
The three options above cover most sends. For anything more specific — “bought X but not Y,” “bought in the last 30 days,” “on my newsletter list and owns a product” — the campaign audience also accepts a custom query that combines conditions.
You don’t normally write these by hand. The building blocks (documented in Product Audiences & Segments) include:
- on a specific list
- owns a product (with/without bundles)
- prefers a newsletter category
- purchased in the last N days
- purchased between two dates
- owns a product with a particular custom field
…combined with all of (every condition must match), any of (at least one matches), and not (exclude).
Worked examples
| You want to email… | How to express it |
|---|---|
| Everyone who bought Scalability Pro | Audience → Owners of a product → Scalability Pro |
| Everyone who bought Scalability Pro but not Super Speedy Search | all of: owns Scalability Pro and not owns Super Speedy Search |
| Everyone who bought Scalability Pro in the last 30 days | all of: owns Scalability Pro and purchased-in-last-days = 30 (for that product) |
| Newsletter subscribers who also own any product | all of: on newsletter list and owns product |
| Bought Product A or Product B | any of: owns A or owns B |
Time-based “bought X in the last Y days” sends are common enough that they’re better as an automated rule than a manual campaign. If you find yourself re-sending the same “bought in the last 30 days” blast, consider an automation instead of doing it by hand each time — see Automations & Onboarding Drips.
Previewing who’s included
Before sending, the campaign shows the recipient count after the marketing suppression mask is applied — i.e. the actual number who’ll receive it, with marketing-unsubscribers already removed. Always glance at that number; if it’s wildly higher or lower than you expect, your audience condition probably isn’t what you intended.
Marketing vs. support — pick the right tool
| You’re sending… | Use | Respects which opt-out |
|---|---|---|
| A sale, a newsletter, “bought X, here’s an offer” | Campaign (marketing) | marketing unsubscribe |
| “Your plugin updated — here’s the changelog” | Support email | product-update unsubscribe |
| A receipt, password reset, licence key | Transactional (sent automatically by the relevant feature) | none (always sent) |
Choosing correctly isn’t just tidiness — it decides which unsubscribe applies, and therefore whether a customer who’s tired of your marketing still receives an important product update (they should). See Email Categories, Unsubscribes & Suppressions.
