When a promotion has an audience cap, the most impactful customers should receive it, not a random selection. Audience Cap Optimization gives marketers control over who gets allocated a promotion when the eligible audience exceeds the defined cap.

Instead of random selection, you can now rank eligible customers by any historical attribute (such as Return on Customer (ROC), Lifetime Value (LTV), or a custom metric) so that when the cap is reached, the promotion is allocated to the most valuable or most relevant customers first.

Step-by-Step: How to Set Up Audience Cap Optimization

Step 1: Open Your Promotion

1. Navigate to Plan > OptiPromo > Promotions.
2. Open an existing promotion or create a new one.
3. Progress through the promotion setup steps until you reach Budget & Constraints.

Step 2: Set an Audience Cap

1. In the Budget & Constraints step, locate the Audience Cap & Alerts section.
2. Under Audience Cap, click + Add Cap.
3. Select a Timeframe (e.g., Daily, Lifetime) and enter your maximum recipient count in the Cap of field.

Step 3: Choose Attribute-Based Audience Sorting

1. Below the Audience Cap table, locate the Choose Audience Sorting method section.
2. Select Attribute based. This replaces random selection with attribute-driven prioritization.
3. Use the Select Attribute dropdown to choose the customer attribute you want to rank by (e.g., ROC, LTV, or any custom attribute configured for your account).
4. Use the Sort dropdown to set the sort direction. Select High to Low to allocate the promotion to the highest-value customers first.

Step 4: Complete and Activate

1. Continue through the remaining setup steps and click Next to reach the Summary.
2. Review your configuration and activate the promotion.
3. When the promotion runs and the eligible audience exceeds the cap, Optimove will automatically sort customers by your chosen attribute and allocate the promotion to the top-ranked customers first.

How Audience Cap Optimization Works

Audience caps are an important guardrail for budget and margin control. But when the eligible audience is larger than the cap, random allocation leaves value on the table.

• Without optimization: When the eligible audience exceeds the cap, recipients are chosen randomly from the eligible pool.
• With optimization: Eligible customers are ranked by your chosen attribute in descending order. The top N customers (up to the cap) are selected for allocation.
• Tied values: Where multiple customers share the same attribute value, allocation among tied customers is handled randomly within that tier.

Why This Matters for ROI

Promotional budget spent on lower-priority customers is a common source of margin leakage. By directing limited promotion slots toward the customers most likely to generate incremental impact (based on real CRM data), Audience Cap Optimization helps maximize return on every promotion you run.

Use Case Examples

• Deposit bonus campaigns: Cap a promotion at 5,000 recipients but rank by ROC, so the players most likely to drive profitable activity always receive the offer first.
• Reactivation promotions: Prioritize lapsed customers by predicted LTV to focus reactivation spend where it will have the greatest long-term impact.
• VIP reward allocation: Use tier status or spend history as the prioritization attribute to ensure your highest-value customers are always first in line.
• Retail loyalty offers: Rank by purchase frequency or average order value so limited promotional slots go to your most engaged shoppers.

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