Export Names
Every Ours Privacy audience carries a private internal name and a separate Export Name, the only label that reaches a CSV file name or an advertising platform's interface.
Use this page to understand the Export Name field and how to set one. Every audience has two names, and this is the second one: the only label that leaves Ours Privacy.
Important: Advertising platforms are not HIPAA business associates and do not sign BAAs. Hashing an email does not make it anonymous. Read Compliance for audiences before sending an audience to any platform.
Why an audience has two names
The obvious design is one name field. That design leaks.
An audience name reaches places you do not control. It is rendered in the file name of every CSV you download, and for a synced audience it is displayed verbatim in the advertising platform's own interface, where the platform's staff can read it. So a name like visited-addiction-recovery-no-consult-booked, which is a perfectly good internal description, discloses a health condition to that platform on its own. It does so independently of who is in the list and independently of the fact that every identifier was hashed. The label plus the existence of the list is the disclosure.
The fix is two fields rather than a restriction on one.
Name stays inside Ours Privacy. Make it as descriptive as your team needs. Nobody outside your account sees it.
Export Name is the only string that leaves. It should mean nothing.
Deriving the second from the first would defeat the point, which is why Ours Privacy does not do it. Any transformation of addiction-recovery-visitors still says addiction.
Setting one
The Export Name field sits directly under Name on the audience page. You have two options.
Press Generate. You get a neutral three-word name, such as amber-harbor-drum. It carries no information about the audience, which is exactly what you want, and the words are chosen to be unambiguous when spoken aloud, so you can read one to an agency over the phone when they need to find the audience in a platform's interface.
Type your own. Anything meaningless works. Project codes, internal reference numbers, and arbitrary word pairs are all fine. What is not fine is describing the audience.
Ours Privacy checks what you type against a clinical vocabulary and refuses to save a name carrying health context. See Health context in audience names for what that covers and what it deliberately allows.
What makes a good Export Name
Safe, in the sense that it says nothing about the people in the list:
amber-harbor-drum,copper-lantern-cove,bright-compass-trail(generated)Q3-A,campaign-4471,list-northblue-harbor,north-star,silver-maple
Not safe, because each one describes a condition, treatment, or clinical intent:
diabetes-patients-q3booked-colonoscopycancer-reminder-listoncology-followup-2026mental-health-retarget
The test is simple. If someone at the advertising platform read only the name and could infer something about the health of the people in the list, it is the wrong name.
The competitive angle
Health context is the reason the field is enforced, but it is not the only reason to keep the name meaningless. The Export Name is visible to everyone with access to the ad account, and ad accounts are frequently shared with agencies, contractors, and platform support staff.
An audience named paid-search-nonconverters-providers-page tells anyone looking exactly how you segment your funnel. A name like amber-harbor-drum tells them nothing. The field's own help text in the dashboard puts it this way: use a random name to prevent competitors from seeing your targeting strategy.
Your internal name keeps all the meaning. You lose nothing by making the external one opaque.
Where the Export Name shows up
In every CSV file name. A downloaded export is named after the Export Name plus the date it was generated. This applies to all three export formats, including the all-fields format you only use internally, because a file that starts out internal does not always stay that way once it is on somebody's desktop or in an email thread.
In the advertising platform's interface. A synced audience appears in the platform under its Export Name. This is the name you search for when attaching the audience to a campaign, so keep it somewhere you can find it. The Sync to Destinations card shows you the exact form the platform will see and lets you copy it.
Nowhere else. Your internal name, your conditions, your estimated counts, and every visitor attribute other than a hashed email stay in Ours Privacy.
Renaming
You can change the Export Name whenever you like, and the field is editable for the life of the audience. Two consequences to be aware of before you do.
Future CSV downloads use the new name. Files you already downloaded keep the name they were generated with, so a rename does not make old files consistent with new ones.
A synced audience may appear under the new name on the platform. If you have campaigns attached to that audience in a platform's interface, changing the name changes what you are looking for the next time you go in. Rename before you attach an audience to campaigns rather than after, where you have the choice.
If you inherit an audience whose Export Name describes what it targets, renaming it is the right move, and it is worth doing even for an audience you only ever download as a CSV.
When you have not set one
Set the Export Name before you export or sync anything. It is a required part of the sync setup, and for a CSV it is what the file gets named. Pressing Generate takes a second and removes the decision entirely, which for most audiences is the right answer.
Next Steps
- Health context in audience names for what the name check blocks and why.
- Compliance for audiences for the wider obligations around sharing an audience.
- Syncing to destinations for where the platform-facing name is shown.
- Exporting a CSV for how the file name is built.
Need help? Contact support@oursprivacy.com.
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