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# What is Audience Retention and how do I set it?

## Audience Retention controls how long a visitor stays in your Custom Audience after they trigger the event you're tracking.

When you build a Custom Audience using rules, Meta needs to know how long to keep a matched visitor in that audience before "aging them out." Audience Retention is the setting that controls this window.

1. In our app, go to **Audiences > Custom Audience** tab and click **Create**.

2. Fill in your **Audience Name**, **Ads Account**, and **Pixel Selection**, then select the **Filter data** card and click **Next**.

3. Choose your **Select Filter Type** (**URL Based** or **Event Based**) and set up your **Create a Rule** conditions.

4. Below the rule builder, drag the **Audience Retention** slider to the number of days you want. You can choose anywhere from **1 to 180 days**. The default is **60 days**.

![](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/e/b/1/4/eb146ac45ce84800/image_1c9jn7m.png =1050x592)
**What does this number actually do?** A visitor who matches your rule stays in the audience for that many days from the day they triggered the event. After that, if they don't trigger the event again, they drop out of the audience automatically.

**Which number should I pick?**

* A **shorter retention** (for example, 7–14 days) keeps your audience focused on recent, highly relevant visitors — useful for time-sensitive offers or flash sales.
* A **longer retention** (up to 180 days) keeps more people in the audience for longer, which is useful for broader retargeting or building a bigger Custom Audience to use as a source for a Lookalike Audience.

5. Click **Create** to save your Custom Audience with this retention setting.

If you choose **Do not filter data** in step 1 instead of **Filter data**, the Audience Retention slider won't appear — that path creates the audience directly with a default retention of 60 days.

That's all — your Custom Audience will now sync to Meta with the retention window you set.