S3: Signals and audiences

AdCP specialist module S3: Signals and audiences. Signal discovery, activation, privacy controls, and optimization loops with sandbox data providers across six industries.

S3: Signals and audiences

Members only — Requires Practitioner credential. ~45 minutes with Addie. Combines hands-on lab and adaptive exam.

This specialist module tests your mastery of the signals protocol. You’ll work with sandbox signal providers — automotive data, geo/mobility, retail purchase data, identity/demographics, publisher contextual signals, and CDP audiences — to discover signals, activate them, manage privacy, and design optimization loops. Addie adapts the experience to your role in the ecosystem.

Passing earns the AdCP specialist — Signals credential.

Scope of AdCP signals

Before investing time in training, it helps to know what the protocol covers today and where boundaries exist.

• In scope: Identity-derived attributes (income tiers, life stages), behavioral signals (purchase intent, visit frequency), contextual signals (content category, sentiment), geographic audiences (trade areas, store visitors)
• Not yet in scope: Identity resolution and matching (linking devices to people), real-time geofencing triggers (push when someone enters a zone), measurement and attribution pipelines

If your company works in the “not yet” areas, you can still publish the audience segments your data produces — the protocol covers the targeting output even when it doesn’t cover the underlying infrastructure.

What you’ll demonstrate

• Discover and evaluate signals from multiple provider types (data providers, retailers, publishers, CDPs)
• Activate appropriate signals for different campaign objectives
• Understand signal value types (binary, categorical, numeric) and how they affect targeting
• Manage audience activation including privacy considerations and deactivation
• Configure event tracking with sync_event_sources and log_event
• Design optimization loops using signals and delivery data
• Reason about the signals ecosystem — who provides data, who consumes it, and how authorization works

Prerequisite reading

Core signals tasks

get_signals

Signal discovery: find targetable audiences, contextual categories, and measurement data.

activate_signal

Activate signals for campaign targeting or measurement.

Supporting concepts

Signals overview

The signals protocol: audience segments, contextual signals, measurement, and optimization.

Signals specification

Formal specification for the signals protocol.

Data providers

How data providers publish signal catalogs via adagents.json.

Signals ecosystem

How different company types — retailers, publishers, CDPs, identity companies — participate in signals.

Conversion tracking

Event sources, log_event, and attribution setup.

Optimization and reporting

How signals feed into campaign optimization decisions.

Lab exercises

The sandbox training agent includes signal providers representing different ecosystem roles. You’ll work with all of them:

Provider	Type	Signals
Trident Auto Data	Data provider	EV buyers, vehicle ownership, purchase propensity, service due, service history
Meridian Geo	Geo/mobility	Competitor visitors, visit frequency, trade area, commute pattern, dwell time, day-part visitation
ShopGrid Shopper Insights	Retailer	Category buyer, loyalty tier, basket value, new to brand, purchase frequency, brand affinity
Keystone Identity	Identity	Household income, life stage, cross-device reach, credit activity, household composition
Pinnacle News Signals	Publisher	Content category, engaged reader, subscriber tenure, sentiment, page type
Prism CDP	CDP	High LTV, cart abandoner, engagement score, churn risk, cross-device

Exercise 1: Signal discovery

Query the sandbox signals agent for signals matching different campaign objectives. Compare signals across provider types — what does a data provider’s automotive signal look like versus a retailer’s purchase signal?

Exercise 2: Signal activation

Activate signals for a sandbox campaign. Observe how activation keys work and how deployment status changes.

Exercise 3: Audience management

Activate and deactivate signals. Consider privacy: when does a signal need to be deactivated? How does consent affect signal availability?

Exercise 4: Ecosystem scenarios

Addie will present a scenario from a specific perspective — you might be building a signal catalog for a retail media network, choosing signals for an agency’s client campaign, or designing a CDP integration. Apply your protocol knowledge to the scenario.

Exercise 5: Build a signal catalog (provider perspective)

The previous exercises focus on the buyer side — discovering and activating signals. This exercise shifts to the provider side. Construct an adagents.json signals entry for a fictional data provider of your choice (geo, retail, identity, etc.). Your catalog should include:

• At least one signal of each value type (binary, categorical, numeric)
• Descriptive IDs, tags, and metadata following the data provider guide
• An authorized_agents entry authorizing a signals agent to resell your catalog
• restricted_attributes declarations on signals derived from sensitive personal data (e.g., health_data, racial_ethnic_origin)
• policy_categories declarations on signals that carry regulatory implications (e.g., children_directed, fair_housing)

Verify your catalog by checking that the signals appear correctly in get_signals results when queried by tag or description, and that governance attributes are preserved in the signal metadata.

Assessment

Dimension	Weight	What Addie evaluates
Protocol mastery	25%	Complete signals lifecycle (discovery → activation → targeting → deactivation)
Privacy compliance	20%	Handles consent, deactivation, and data governance correctly
Measurement skill	20%	Configures conversion tracking and attribution
Ecosystem understanding	20%	Explains how different provider types fit into signals
Ecosystem scenarios	15%	Constructs valid signal catalogs, understands both buyer and provider perspectives, reasons about activation destinations (agent vs platform)

Passing threshold: 70%.

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“I’d like to start the signals specialist module.”