Why Minimum Audience Sizes Are a Performance Problem

The Number Isn't Coming From the Law

The number isn't coming from the law. It's coming from the method.

Most health audiences are built using modeling. They predict who likely has a condition, then turn that into an audience.

That's where the minimum comes from.

The smaller the audience, the more it feels like you're identifying a specific person. So vendors create distance by setting a floor. 500k. 1 million. Whatever number makes the audience feel less sensitive.

Key word: feels.

The Minimum Doesn't Fix the Underlying Issue

The minimum doesn't change the underlying issue. The prediction already happened.

For rare disease and specialty brands, this creates a second problem: waste.

The right audience is naturally small. That's not a flaw—that's precision. But if your method requires a minimum, you have to pad it. More people. Less relevance. More waste.

A Different Starting Point

Evidence-Based Cohorting doesn't start by predicting something about an individual. It starts with an observed cohort. No prediction, no minimum.

And because it's built from verified claims data, you know with certainty whether the people you're looking for are actually there.

The Real Question

The real question isn't what minimum your vendor requires.

It's why their method needs one at all.