---
title: "User/Audience Data Concepts"
slug: "useraudience-data-concepts"
updated: 2024-03-15T17:49:31Z
published: 2024-03-15T17:49:31Z
canonical: "help.yahooinc.com/useraudience-data-concepts"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.yahooinc.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# User/Audience Data Concepts

User data can be represented and uploaded in various formats to suit your use case, preferences, and backend implementations.

DataX provides the following format options:

1. **“datax-audience”**: This is the recommended “one-stop-shop” format to upload segments, attributes, and scores using the same JSON format via a single POST on the /audience resource. You can upload any possible mix of segments and attributes on a per-user (urn) basis using this format and API.
2. **“datax-segment”**: An alternate way of uploading a single segment, if you don’t prefer the more versatile “datax-audience” format. This is a simple text format - essentially a list of users (urn) provided against a POST on /audience/segment/{your-segment-id}
3. **“datax-attribute”**: An alternate way of uploading a single attribute, if you don’t prefer the more versatile “datax-audience” format. This format is a JSON key-value pair of user-id (urn) and attribute-value provided via a POST on /audience/attribute/{your-attribute-id}

The tables below provide examples and format for each of these APIs.

> [!NOTE]
> Note
> 
> 1. Timestamp (ts) can also be provided at a meta data level, for the entire upload, in all three formats.
> 2. Expiry (exp) can also be provided at a meta data level, for the entire upload, in all three formats.

![](https://cdn.us.document360.io/098e3080-9ea6-4eb4-acdb-13b988f387a2/Images/Documentation/aud-attribute-segment.png?sv=2026-02-06&spr=https&st=2026-11-11T23%3A52%3A58Z&se=2026-11-12T00%3A52%3A58Z&sr=c&sp=r&sig=BhkEVkIi3vH7g51XjmmEyHsRvEokn9H4ziq1Ud0cXxE%3D)

### Example: Post user/audience data using curl

Once the taxonomy is established, “YaRetail” could upload user updates as shown below, using the curl http client as an example:

```plaintext
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" \
-F 'metadata={"description":"Hourly Refresh","extensions":{"urnType":"IXID"}}' \
-F 'data=@yahooUpdate201305050515.bz2;type=application/octet-stream' \ datax.yahooapis.com/v1/audience
```

Where yahooUpdate201305050515.bz2 may have the following updates (records for 5 users shown):

```plaintext
{"urn":"df32sx-","seg":[{"id":"YA1"},{"id":"YA2"}],"att":[{"id":"MA1","val":"25"}]}
{"urn":"hnsu72-","seg":[{"id":"YA3"}],"att":[{"id":"MA1","val":"35"}]}
{"urn":"zq23n7-","seg":[{"id":"YA4"},{"id":"YA2"},{"id":"YA1"}]}
{"urn":"quufy2-","seg":[{"id":"YA3"},{"id":"YA1"}],"att":[{"id":"MA1","val":"22"}]}
{"urn":"x.224k-","seg":[{"id":"YA2"}],"att":[{"id":"MA2","val":"3","ts":1376329529}]}
```

DataX will send back a 202 Accepted response with the following sample MetaData+ in JSON:

```plaintext
{
        "resourceType" : "datax-audience",
        "resourceId" : "130815T013759Z232589138",
        "createTime" : "2013-15-06T12:26:12Z",
        "description" : "YaRetail Refresh",
        "links" : [{
                        "rel"   : "self",
                        "href" : "https://datax.yahooapis.com/v1/link/s/y1G8sE9foJgj7tGEJV-"
                },{
                        "rel"   : "describes",
                        "href" : "https://datax.yahooapis.com/v1/link/uy5fasadda13kqojrtunwd-"
                }],
                "status" : {
                        "state" : "PROCESSING",
                        "lastUpdateTime" : "2013-15-06T12:26:12Z"
                },
                "extensions" : { "urnType" : "IXID",
                        "view" : "INCREMENTAL",
                        "links" : [{
                                "rel"   : "https://datax.yahooapis.com/rels/taxonomy",
                                "href" : "https://datax.yahooapis.com/v1/link/rw5fasr4akqoawjrtkhaQ-"
                                },{
                                "rel"   : "https://datax.yahooapis.com/rels/audience-stats",
                                "href" : "https://datax.yahooapis.com/v1/link/op54asr4akawjr87jhaQ-"
                                },{
                                "rel"   : "https://datax.yahooapis.com/rels/process-failed",
                                "href" : "https://datax.yahooapis.com/v1/link/anutnd782kaddliyn92F-"
                                }]
        }
}
```

You could use the “self” link to re-fetch this metadata for an updated status. The metadata structure also provides an error list on failure (not shown in this example).