Overview

Audience can combine anonymous profiles identified by browser or app ID with known profiles identified by email or another unique identifier. That lets teams build audiences across both anonymous and identified activity, instead of limiting segmentation to customers who have logged in.

Data can come from web and app activity, first-party systems, campaigns, and second- or third-party sources. Piano supports collection through tags, server-to-server integrations, and APIs; its APIs can also ingest online and offline customer data, with flexibility to change the data-field structure. This range can suit organizations with varied inputs, but brings implementation and data-management work that may be unnecessary for teams with simpler needs.

Key features

Segmentation and enrichment

The Segment Builder creates subsets of anonymous or known users for targeting, analytics, and export, including look-alike segments. Piano's content crawler uses NLP and LLM processing to classify content by entity, sentiment, and subject without manual tagging. That can help teams use content context in segmentation without relying on manual classification.

Activation and integrations

Audience segments can be used for targeting in Piano Activation. Documented direct connections include Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Ads, Google Ad Manager, Xandr, Equativ, Adform, Platform161, and Nativo, giving teams several routes to advertising platforms and networks.

Audience can share segments and selected profile attributes with Piano Composer, and export profile attributes to Piano Analytics. Composer can use Audience segments for tests and personalized experiences, but the connection must first be configured by Piano's Support Team. The integration also has limits of up to 100 profile attributes and up to 100 custom segments per site group, subject to per-type limits. This makes the Piano ecosystem useful, but the required setup and caps matter for teams planning extensive Composer use.

Data exports and security

The Integration Designer lets teams select and transform fields, then send outputs to an endpoint, file, S3 bucket, or SFTP site on a chosen schedule. Third-party destinations include Amazon S3, sFTP, and Google Cloud Storage, which supports scheduled delivery into other systems. Piano says its Information Security Management System is based on ISO/IEC 27001:2022.

Pricing

Piano Audience is paid, with custom pricing. The product page invites prospective customers to request a demo rather than offering a self-serve plan. That makes it a considered purchase for organizations evaluating a broader data and activation workflow, not an option for buyers who need a published price to compare or a free tier to start with.

Platforms

Piano Audience is available on Android, iOS, web, and API. Its implementation guidance covers mobile SDK integration alongside web tracking scripts, event tracking, and data imports, making mobile data collection part of the implementation rather than a separate platform limitation.

Who it's for

Audience is aimed at digital businesses using customer information for personalization, analytics, and exports to other systems. It is a stronger fit for teams that need to join anonymous and known profiles, ingest varied data, and activate segments across Piano and external destinations. Organizations seeking to track users across the Web should note that Piano says it does not do so; it supports consistent first-party behavior across multiple domains managed by one organization without third-party cookies.

Pros and cons

Pros: Combines anonymous and known profiles, giving teams a basis for segmentation beyond logged-in users.
Pros: Supports web, app, first-party, campaign, and other data inputs, including online and offline API ingestion.
Pros: Content classification and scheduled, field-transformed exports can reduce manual work in audience preparation and delivery.
Cons: Custom pricing and a demo-led sales path make budget comparison and self-service evaluation harder.
Cons: Piano Support must configure the Composer connection, and its profile-attribute and segment caps may constrain some workflows.
Cons: It does not track users across the Web, so it is not the fit for teams seeking that capability.

Alternatives

BlueData is worth considering for buyers who want a freemium option and a free trial, with a stated free allowance of one web user, one mobile user, 1 GB of storage, and 500 submissions per month.

Permutive is another paid option for teams needing Android, iOS, and web support.

Adform DMP may suit teams seeking a paid API and web platform with dedicated pricing arranged under a separate agreement.

Admixer DMP, ArcSpan AMS, and Audigent are also paid alternatives.

Diskover is a paid API, self-hosted, and web option with an annual platform fee and unlimited seats or users; its AI connector and industry add-ons are sold separately.

Kubico may fit buyers looking for a custom commercial structure with activation-volume tiers, performance pricing tied to qualified FTDs, and no per-seat licensing.

Verdict

Choose Piano Audience if your digital business needs to combine varied customer data into segments for analytics, personalization, and export, particularly within the Piano ecosystem. Its breadth of ingestion, enrichment, and activation is the main reason to consider it; custom pricing, Support-dependent Composer setup, integration caps, and the absence of cross-Web tracking are the main reasons to look elsewhere.

	FirstHive	Piano DMP
Free plan	No	No
Free trial	No	No
Paid from	—	—
Open source	No	No
Platforms	Web	Android, api, iOS, Web
Real-time profiles	Yes	—
Identity resolution	Yes	—
Audience activation	Yes	—
Data ingestion	both	—

FirstHive vs Piano DMP

FirstHive

Piano DMP