Adobe Campaign and Audience Manager Integration: Setup and Status

The Adobe Campaign and Audience Manager integration lets you share audiences between the two products. You import Audience Manager segments into Campaign as lists for targeting. You can also export Campaign target populations as shared audiences that other Adobe solutions use. The integration runs on Adobe's shared audiences service and matches people through Experience Cloud IDs. Each sync takes 24 to 36 hours.

This post explains what the integration does, the People core service alternative, what Adobe documents for Campaign v8, and how setup works. It also covers Audience Manager's current status, the Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform (Real-Time CDP) path Adobe now points customers towards, and the pitfalls. If you searched for an Adobe Campaign Audience Manager integration, it covers both the classic shared-audiences route and the newer Real-Time CDP one.

What does the Adobe Campaign and Audience Manager integration do?

It moves audience membership, not customer records, between Campaign and Adobe Audience Manager (AAM). That distinction shapes everything else.

Adobe's documentation describes two directions:

• Import. Shared audiences or segments from other Adobe solutions come into Campaign through lists, so you can target them in deliveries and workflows.
• Export. A Campaign workflow targets a population and saves it as a shared audience with the "Update shared audience" activity. Other Adobe solutions can then use it, for example for advertising or on-site personalisation.

Matching relies on two identifier types. A Visitor ID reconciles Adobe visitors with Campaign recipients. A Declared ID reconciles any data with Campaign records through a predefined reconciliation key, such as a hashed customer ID.

A typical use looks like this. Audience Manager builds a segment of people who searched for winter coats on your site but didn't buy. Campaign imports it as a list and sends those people a reminder. In the other direction, Campaign exports a "lapsed customers" list so the media team can suppress or target them in paid channels.

What is the People core service, and do you need Audience Manager?

You don't always need a full Audience Manager licence. Adobe documents the integration as working with either Audience Manager or the People core service. Adobe's Campaign Standard documentation says the People core service is also known as the Profiles & Audiences core service.

The People core service sits behind the Audience Library. Adobe lists three sources of audiences there: ones created in the library, Adobe Analytics segments published to it, and Audience Manager. Campaign can import shared audiences from the library and export lists to it.

When you request provisioning, Adobe's Campaign Standard documentation asks you to state which one you use: Audience Manager or the People service. It also asks whether you own an Audience Manager licence, so answer carefully.

There's a trap if you switch later. Adobe warns that if you start on the People core service and then add Audience Manager, you need an Audience Manager consultant. Otherwise you risk losing the ID syncs you've collected.

A note on names: Adobe's interface documentation now calls the wider suite Adobe CX Enterprise (formerly Experience Cloud). Campaign's screens and these integration pages still use Experience Cloud terms, so this post does too.

What does Adobe document for Campaign v8?

For Campaign v8, Adobe points to the Campaign Classic v7 documentation. The v8 "Connect Campaign with your solutions" page sends readers to the v7 docs for audience sharing. Those v7 pages carry an "Also applies to v8" badge. Adobe's v8 implementation guidelines also list "Campaign - Audience Manager / People core service" as a multi-solution integration.

The v7 audience sharing page sets one prerequisite above all. You need Adobe's Identity Management System (IMS) in place to share audiences. In Campaign v8 that's standard, because users sign in with their Adobe ID.

The same page also shows the choice you now face. Adobe lists two options. You can send Adobe Experience Platform audiences to Campaign by connecting Real-Time CDP. Or you can integrate Campaign with Experience Cloud audiences or Audience Manager. Both are documented. Which one fits depends on what you license and where your audiences are built.

Moving from Campaign Standard to v8? Adobe's transition notes say it migrates Audience Manager configurations and data for customers who used the integration.

How do you set up the integration?

Setup starts with a request to Adobe, then four configuration steps in Campaign. Adobe provisions the integration and sends you the details you need to finish.

Step 1: external accounts

Adobe configures two accounts, importSharedAudience and exportSharedAudience, for moving audience files. Adobe's v7 page carries an important change here. If your accounts still use the demdex FTP addresses (ftp-in.demdex.com and ftp-out.demdex.com), you need to move to the Amazon S3 connector. You then enter the S3 server, access key, secret key and region for each account.

Step 2: the data source

Audience Manager has an out-of-the-box "Recipient - Visitor ID" data source, and segments created from Campaign belong to it. In Campaign, go to Administration, Platform, AMC Data sources. Enter the data source ID and Audience Manager destination ID that Adobe provides. If you use Declared IDs, a second data source is mapped to the Declared ID definition.

Step 3: the tracking server

Visitor ID matching depends on your tracking domain. Adobe says the Campaign tracking server's domain should be a sub-domain of the clicked URL or of your main website. It must also be registered on your domain as a CNAME (alias) record. If tracking runs on an unrelated domain, matching fails quietly.

Step 4: the Visitor ID service

Your websites need the Experience Cloud ID service. To sync Declared IDs, Adobe says to call setCustomerID with the integration code AdobeCampaignID. That value must match the reconciliation key you set in step 2.

Test it before you rely on it

Adobe's knowledge-base guide for this integration recommends testing end to end with a small segment, and it's good advice. Build a test segment of a few dozen staff or seed customers who you know have logged in and clicked an email. Export it from Campaign, wait for the sync, and check it appears in Audience Manager. Then import an Audience Manager segment and compare the list count with what you expected.

If the numbers are far apart, the cause is almost always identity. Check the tracking domain, the Visitor ID service on your site and the Declared ID call before you change anything else.

How do you import and export shared audiences?

Once provisioned, both directions take a few clicks. The waiting is the slow part.

To import, go to Profiles and Targets, then Lists, and choose "Create a shared audience". Select an audience from the list, choose the data source and save. A technical workflow then imports it. Adobe says you need the Audience Library product in the Admin Console and administrator rights in Audience Manager to do this.

To export, build a targeting workflow and add the "Update shared audience" activity after your targeting. Pick an existing audience or create a new segment name, choose the data source and save. The activity has two outputs: recipients exported successfully, and recipients that couldn't be matched to a Visitor ID or Declared ID.

What happens	What Adobe documents
Import from Audience Manager	24 to 36 hours to synchronise
Import of an Adobe Analytics audience	Must be shared to Audience Manager first, adding 12 to 24 hours; up to 60 hours in total
Export from Campaign	24 to 36 hours before it's usable in other solutions
Each sync	The imported audience is replaced completely
What can be imported	Segments only; no traits, rules or key-value pairs
Records without an Experience Cloud ID	Ignored on import and export

The practical upshot: this integration suits audiences that change slowly. A weekly or monthly segment works well. A "browsed in the last hour" audience doesn't.

Is Audience Manager still supported, and what does Adobe recommend now?

Audience Manager is still documented and maintained. Its user guide was last updated on 21 May 2026, and we found no published end-of-life date on Experience League. But Adobe's direction is clear from its own pages.

Adobe's Audience Manager product page now spends most of its space on Real-Time CDP. One heading reads "Technology is moving forward. Your strategy should be too."

Experience League also has a practitioner guide called "Evolution from Audience Manager to Real-Time CDP". It helps teams sort their Audience Manager segments into three groups:

• Segments that can move to Experience Platform through the Audience Manager source connector.
• Segments whose rules work in Real-Time CDP but whose data may not be available there.
• Segments that can't be recreated because the functionality is missing.

That guide also flags a limit to plan around. Customers using real-time segments in Audience Manager may be restricted by Real-Time CDP's current limit of 500 streaming segments. For people-based destinations such as Facebook, Google Customer Match and LinkedIn, Adobe strongly recommends moving activation to Real-Time CDP.

So if you're starting fresh with Campaign v8, the question is whether you need Audience Manager at all. If you already run it, the integration still works, but plan where your audiences will live in two or three years. Our post on Adobe Real-Time CDP explains what the platform covers.

How does the Real-Time CDP path to Campaign work?

Real-Time CDP sends audiences to Campaign through a dedicated destination called Adobe Campaign Managed Cloud Services. Campaign can send delivery and tracking logs back through a matching source connector.

Adobe's Experience Cloud Audiences destination page makes the routing explicit. It sends Real-Time CDP audiences to Audience Manager and Adobe Analytics. For Adobe Campaign, though, Adobe strongly recommends the dedicated destination card.

The Campaign destination has firm limits. It needs Campaign 8.4 or higher. By default you can activate up to 25 audiences, with up to 20 mapped fields each. Activation runs no more often than every three hours. The destination supports people audiences from Experience Platform's Segmentation Service. It matches on identities such as a custom external ID, the Experience Cloud ID (ECID) or hashed email.

It also does something the classic integration can't: profile sync. Adobe documents a "Profile sync (Update only)" mode that updates attributes, such as opt-in values, for profiles already in the Campaign database.

Question	Audience Manager or People core service	Real-Time CDP destination
Campaign versions	Campaign v8 and Classic v7 (shared audiences)	Campaign v8, version 8.4 or higher
What moves	Segment membership only	Audience members plus up to 20 attributes
Speed	24 to 36 hours per sync	Batch; three hours at the shortest
Data back to Adobe	Exported Campaign lists as shared audiences	Delivery and tracking logs via the source connector
Licence needed	Audience Manager or People core service	Real-Time CDP

Which route should you choose?

The right route depends on what you already own and how fast audiences must move.

• Stay on Audience Manager if you license it and your segments rely on its third-party data or modelling. A day or two of sync time must be acceptable.
• Use the People core service if you mainly share Adobe Analytics segments, don't need a full data management platform, and it's in your contract.
• Choose the Real-Time CDP destination if you license Real-Time CDP and want attributes as well as membership. It also suits audiences that must refresh several times a day.

Weighing a Real-Time CDP project? Our guide to evaluating Real-Time CDP partners covers what to ask before you commit.

What goes wrong with Campaign and Audience Manager integrations?

Most problems come from identity, timing and permissions. These are the ones to plan for.

• No match, no member. Records without a Visitor ID or Declared ID are ignored. If few customers log in or click tracked emails, expect small audiences.
• Wrong tracking domain. Visitor ID matching needs the tracking server on a sub-domain of your website or clicked URL.
• Old FTP accounts. Integrations still on demdex FTP addresses need moving to Amazon S3.
• Missing permissions. Without an Adobe ID login, the Audience Library product and Audience Manager admin rights, the "Create a shared audience" option may not appear.
• Expecting speed. A 24 to 36 hour sync, or up to 60 hours via Adobe Analytics, rules out time-sensitive campaigns.
• Overwriting. Each sync replaces the imported audience, so don't add records to it by hand.
• Mapping from the wrong side. Adobe's knowledge-base guide, written for an older Campaign version, advises never mapping segments to the Campaign destination from the Audience Manager interface. Share them from Campaign's side instead.
• Multiple domains. Adobe's Campaign Standard documentation notes that Campaign doesn't support ECID-based reconciliation across multiple websites with different domains.

For identity-heavy work like this, ask your implementer to show you a working end-to-end test before go-live.

What to do next

Work through these steps before you commit to a design:

• Check what you license: Audience Manager, the People core service, Real-Time CDP, or a mix.
• List the audiences you want in Campaign and how fresh each needs to be.
• Confirm your Experience Cloud ID service and Declared ID setup, including how many customers log in.
• If your accounts still use demdex FTP, plan the move to Amazon S3.
• For new work, compare the Real-Time CDP destination before building on Audience Manager.
• Test with one small segment in each direction and time the sync.

If you're earlier in the project, our Adobe Campaign implementation guide shows where audience sharing fits. For site-behaviour remarketing without Audience Manager, see Adobe Campaign integration with Adobe Analytics.

To find firms with this mix of skills, start with the Adobe Campaign partner finder or the Real-Time CDP partner list. The Adobe Campaign request for proposal (RFP) template helps you compare proposals.