Naming Convention Best Practices

What This Is

Consistent naming conventions make your workspace easier to navigate, simplify reporting, and help your team understand the purpose of any campaign, audience, or asset at a glance. Use a consistent format across all objects in your workspace, and avoid abbreviations unless your team uses them consistently. A good name should be descriptive enough that someone new to the project can understand its purpose without needing to open it.

This guide covers recommended naming formats for campaigns, plays, audiences, buying circles, and cohorts. A good name should answer these questions at a glance:

• Who is being targeted?
• What is the objective?
• How are they being targeted?
• When was it launched?
• Which version or cohort is it?

When To Use This

Use this guide when setting up new campaigns, plays, audiences, buying circles, or cohorts, and when standardizing naming conventions across your workspace.

Naming Formats

Campaigns

Campaign names should be broad enough to encompass multiple channels and plays within the same initiative. Use consistent objective labels across your workspace, such as Awareness, Engagement, Pipeline, or Customer Expansion, so campaigns are easy to compare and filter in reporting. Include a timeframe when you expect to run multiple campaigns with similar objectives over time. 

Recommended format: [Audience/Segment] | [Objective] | [Timeframe]

Examples:

• Health Systems | Awareness | Q3 2026
• Enterprise Accounts | Pipeline Acceleration | July 2026
• Existing Customers | Cross-Sell | Q4 2026

Plays

Always identify the channel clearly in the play name so it is immediately obvious which tactic the play represents. Use descriptive messaging names that reflect the actual content or asset rather than generic labels, and include a creative version indicator (A, B, V1, V2) whenever you are testing variations. This makes performance comparisons straightforward when reviewing results. 

Recommended format: [Channel] | [Message/Asset] | [Variant]

Examples:

• PDN Display | ROI Case Study | Variant A
• LinkedIn | Product Demo | Version B
• Email | Webinar Invitation | V1

Audiences

Audience names should identify both the source and the segment it contains. Include the origin of the audience, whether it came from your CRM, a TAM list, an uploaded list, or website visitors, and indicate whether the audience is Static or Dynamic. Avoid generic names, like "Audience 1", which make it difficult to understand the audience's purpose without opening it. 

Recommended format: [Source] | [Segment] | [Static/Dynamic]

Examples:

• Salesforce | Enterprise Accounts | Dynamic
• TAM List | Healthcare Systems | Static
• Website Visitors | Pricing Page | Dynamic

Buying Circles

Organize buying circles around job function and decision-making roles rather than individual campaigns. This approach makes them reusable across multiple campaigns over time, reducing duplication in your workspace. Keep naming consistent across departments and seniority levels so your buying committee structure is easy to understand at a glance. 

Recommended format: [Department/Function] | [Persona] | [Seniority]

Examples:

• Revenue Cycle | Decision Makers | VP+
• IT | Technical Buyers | Director+
• Finance | Economic Buyers | Executive

Cohorts

Use cohorts to segment audiences within a campaign.

Recommended format: [Campaign Name] | Cohort #

Examples:

• Healthcare Awareness | Cohort 1
• Enterprise Expansion | Cohort 2

Example Workspace Structure

The table below shows how a complete workspace might look when naming conventions are applied consistently across all objects.

General Recommendations

• Use a consistent naming format across all campaigns and avoid abbreviations unless your team uses them consistently
• Be descriptive enough that someone new to the project can understand the purpose without opening the item
• Reuse buying circles whenever possible instead of creating duplicates
• Reserve version numbers (V1, V2, Variant A, Variant B) for creative testing
• Include dates or quarters only when they help distinguish recurring campaigns
• Avoid generic names like "Audience 1" or "Play 1."