In SharePoint, Audience Targeting is a feature that lets you show content, like news, quick links, and navigation links, only to specific groups of users.

Common Use Cases

• Showing HR announcements only to employees in a specific region
• Displaying certain company events only to full-time employees and not the entire staff
• Tailoring quick links to relevant departments (e.g., Finance links for Finance staff)
• Creating region-specific navigation menus within the Hub
• Hiding links to private or confidential sites from the Intranet navigation menu

Benefits

• Delivers relevant content to the right audiences, improving communication effectiveness
• Reduces information overload by hiding non-essential content from users
• Enhances user engagement by tailoring news, links, and events to specific groups
• Streamlines navigation by showing only pertinent menus and links
• Supports departmental or regional needs without creating separate sites
• Improves intranet usability and adoption through a personalized experience

Key Considerations

• Audience Targeting can be enabled on the following content/web parts: Navigation Menu, Events Web Part, News Web Part, HCWP Web Part, Quick Links Web Part
• Audience targeting is not the same as permissions. Audience Targeting hides content from non-targeted users, but does not restrict access – permissions must still be configured separately
• Audiences must be Microsoft 365 Groups or Entra ID (Azure AD) security groups – individual users cannot be targeted directly