User-Level Targeting

User targeting helps you deliver more relevant ads by tailoring them to known characteristics, behaviors, or audience memberships of individual users. Whether you're looking to improve ad performance, increase relevance, or enable high-value audience-based selling, user targeting gives you the tools to reach the right people at the right time.

Kevel supports multiple approaches to user targeting—from native segments defined in Kevel Audience or external systems, to custom user data stored and queried dynamically. This page outlines the available methods and how to choose the one that best fits your goals.

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Preferred Method: Segment Targeting

Segment targeting using Kevel Audience or a synced external system (like a CDP) is the recommended approach. It enables centralized audience management, simplifies campaign setup, and scales cleanly across use cases.

Overview

User-level targeting refers to targeting that knows information about the particular individual seeing the ad. This data is tied to a persistent ID called the UserKey, which is passed in the key value of the user object of the Decision API request. This information is stored in Kevel's UserDB in JSON format.

User targeting can be done in two main ways:

1. Segment Targeting (Recommended) – Define user segments in Kevel Audience or a synced external system, then apply those segments directly in campaign targeting.
2. Classic UserDB Targeting – Store and query user-specific data (such as interests or behaviors) through the UserDB API.

The main use cases of classic UserDB-based targeting are:

• Interest / Behavioral Targeting
• Demographic / Custom Properties Targeting
• Retargeting
• Excluding Ads Based on Behavior

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UserDB

Learn more about UserDB documentation, and view the UserDB API endpoints.

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Segment targeting is typically easier to manage and scale.

If you're using interest, property, or retargeting data via UserDB, consider transitioning to Audience-based segments for a more streamlined setup.