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Include and Exclude segments allow you to control which users and behavioral signals are used during the lookalike modeling process.

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Include Segments

By default, Permutive considers your entire audience when looking for lookalikes. Using Include Segments restricts the model to only find similar users within specific cohorts.

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Use Cases

  • Geographic Restriction: Only find lookalikes among users in a specific country.
  • Device Restriction: Only find lookalikes among mobile app users.
Important: You must include a reasonable number of cohorts (typically 10 or more) to give the model enough behavioral signals to learn from.Adding only a single or a handful of cohorts is a common cause of model failure. Without a diverse set of features, the machine learning algorithm cannot identify the unique patterns that define your seed segment.

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Exclude Segments

Exclude Segments tells the model to ignore specific users or signals during training.

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Use Cases

  • Exclude Seed Users: If you want to find only new users who look like your seed, but aren’t already in it, you can exclude the seed segment itself.
  • Remove Noise: Exclude cohorts that are too similar to the seed or contain irrelevant behavioral data.
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Access Model Settings
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During the Create Model workflow, look for the Include or Exclude segment fields.
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Add Cohorts
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Search for and select the cohorts you want to use as filters.
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Build Model
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The model will now only learn from and score users based on these restrictions.
Be careful not to over-restrict the model. If you exclude too many segments, the model may not have enough data to identify meaningful patterns, leading to poor performance or failed builds.