> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.focaldata.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Defining your audience

> Define who to recruit and assess whether they can be reached

This step translates your target audience into executable recruitment criteria and gives a realistic assessment of whether that audience can be reached on panel. The audience and feasibility agents work as a pair — they actively reason about audience definitions, recruitment logic, and practical constraints rather than just formatting your inputs.

## How feasibility works

For panel-based projects, the platform assesses feasibility by:

<Steps>
  <Step title="Interpreting the audience definition">
    Translating your description (market, age range, behaviours, attributes) into concrete eligibility criteria.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Estimating incidence rate (IR)">
    Using heuristics, prior knowledge, and historical data to approximate how common this audience is in the general population. This estimate drives cost and timeline calculations.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Checking panel reachability">
    Determining whether the configured panel (e.g. Prolific) can reasonably supply this group. The agent understands, for example, which panels are 18+ only, or which markets have enough supply for rapid recruitment.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Providing a feasibility summary">
    Including an indicative incidence rate, cost and timeline guidance, and any warnings or recommendations.
  </Step>
</Steps>

When you propose an audience that's difficult or impossible to reach, the system flags it and recommends adjustments.

## Screening vs profiling

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Screening questions" icon="filter">
    Determine eligibility. Once the audience is confirmed feasible, the agent begins creating screener questions for it.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Profiling questions" icon="user-tag">
    Do not determine eligibility. They capture descriptive context — demographic or attitudinal detail — that helps interpretation and segmentation in analysis.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

Profiling is most valuable when purposeful: enough to explain differences between groups you care about, without turning the project into a complex quant-style design.

## Iterating on your audience

Iteration is normal as you refine the definition based on feasibility feedback.

| Issue                        | Example prompt                                                                                                                   |
| ---------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Incidence too low            | "The IR looks too low. Broaden the age range to 25–45 and change the purchase requirement from past 3 months to past 12 months." |
| Unnecessary exclusions       | "Remove the exclusion for people who've participated in research recently. That's making this too narrow."                       |
| Sample vs timeline trade-off | "If we reduce the sample from 50 to 30 interviews, how much faster would fieldwork be? Show me cost and timing for both."        |
| Refining profiling           | "Add profiling questions about household composition and employment status — we'll need those for segmentation."                 |

<Tip>
  This is often where routing decisions become clear: ultra-narrow B2B targets, complex quota needs, or markets with limited panel supply may need a managed route rather than self-service.
</Tip>

## Using your own audience

Using your own audience is possible within the system. To set this up, reach out to your Focaldata account manager. Own-audience and universal-link projects skip the feasibility agent and follow a fixed per-respondent pricing model.