Abstract:
An online system receives one or more business rules associated with a third party system that associates online system users with an audience group based on characteristics of the user. When an online system user interacts with content provided by the third party system via a client device, contextual information describing the interaction is communicated from the client device to the online system. By applying one or more business rules to the contextual information, the online system associates the user with one or more audience groups. The online system determines that the user is eligible to be presented with the advertisement based at least in part on the one or more audience groups associated with the user and the one or more of the audience groups specified by the advertiser associated with the advertisement. And if eligible, the online system provides the advertisement to the client device for presentation.