Did you know?#3: How to target and run your experiment based on custom audience segments in PageSense

Whatever kind of online business you're running, defining your target audience is the key factor to delivering relevant messages and further positioning your brand in the industry. Most marketing efforts revolve around this basic strategy of segmenting people who have similar needs, values, or characteristics and later targeting them with products or services meant to appeal to these ideal audience groups.  

Luckily, the same concept applies to website testing and optimization processes. By choosing a target audience for your experiment, you get to decide whom you should focus on and where you should run your experiments on your site. This method of audience targeting helps you reach the right consumers interested in your products or services with relevant messaging rather than entire audience groups who are less likely to convert on your website.

So, how do you target the right audience for your experiment? 

Using Zoho PageSense's audience targeting, you can both target basic audience segments (for instance, visitors coming to your site for the first time, visitors from a social media platform, and more) and tailor your own segments using the custom audience feature.

In today's post, we'll learn about what custom targeted audience segments are and how to successfully build your own custom audience condition in PageSense to boost your website's conversions.

A custom audience in PageSense is a more refined approach of audience targeting. This feature lets you target and run your experiment to more precise subgroups or subsets of audiences based on visitor parameters like their geography, age, gender, browser used, purchase behavior, language, or industry type, which cannot be done using the preset audience segmentation options available in PageSense. Furthermore, the option allows you to create a more powerful combination of audience groups using the ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ operations.

Say, for example, you run an ecommerce website and you want to A/B test the revamped product pages to visitors coming only from the United States region AND who access your website using Desktop devices. This could easily be done by manually creating custom audience conditions in PageSense as explained below:

1. Click the +Custom Audience button on the AUDIENCE page of your experiment.
   
   
2. Enter a title and description for the custom segment you want to create.
   
   
3. From the Segment dropdown, choose the modifier and value for the selected audience segment as shown in the screenshot. Learn more about the different types of custom audience segments and the modifier conditions available in PageSense. 
   
   
   
4. Ensure you choose the condition as ‘AND’ or 'OR' depending on the segment you want to create.
   
   
5. From the Segment dropdown, choose the second modifier and value for the selected audience segment as shown in the screenshot.
   The final selection looks like:
   
   
6. Click the Save Audience button.
   The saved segment will appear under the Custom Segments section across all of your experiments in PageSense and you can apply the same for any experiment.

Below are a few examples that show you the most effective ways to define custom audiences in PageSense for running your experiments better:

Target your experiment by geographical location
If you're looking to expand your online business to international audiences and want to understand which city or country markets are good for your business, choose to target your experiments to audiences based on the location.

Targeting your experiment by your visitors' geographic location, such as country, city, or region, is a powerful option when you want to show personalized web page content or run advertisement campaigns that match the interest of audiences from specific areas. This type of targeting is driven by factors like local festivals celebrated, popular regional news, tourism attractions, or business events happening in a region.

For example, say you own an ecommerce site, and you want to show personalized product recommendations to visitors from United Kingdom during the Christmas season. In this case, you can create a custom audience segment that targets your experiment page to visitors from this particular location as shown in the screenshot below.


Note: You can also use this option to target your experiment based on the languages spoken by visitors in different countries.

Target your experiment by query parameters
While running ad campaigns, it's important to both target the right consumers and provide the most relevant information to them on your website. If you find the right user who clicks on your ad, but the landing page for that ad isn’t customized, that conversion could be lost.

Targeting your experiment to visitors who reach your website pages that include (or exclude) a certain query string in their URLs could be useful when you want to understand the effectiveness of different ad campaigns on your website. This is usually tied to audiences who come through a specific utm_source like Facebook or Google and utm_campaigns like paid ads, Google Adwords, and more.

For example, say you own an online car dealership website and you want to redirect customers who click on a paid ad campaign with the utm_campaign=luxurycars to a landing page displaying luxury vehicles with prices and offers. For this, you can create a custom audience segment that explicitly targets your landing pages to visitors who contain this particular query string as shown in the screenshot below.

Target your experiment by user information
To achieve a specific goal or purpose of your online business, you will sometimes need to target your experiment to visitors with exact custom attributes such as age, email address, subscription plan, fields of interest, gender, marital status, or job role on your website. These attributes or visitor information can be collected when a user completes a form on your website, such as a signup, contact, purchase, or any other sort.

Targeting your experiment to visitors based on specific user attributes can help deliver the right message to the right audience and improve brand experience with ease. This is also considered the most precise method of audience targeting as it makes visitors stand out from the wide segment of users on your site.
 
For example, let's say you run a SaaS business and you want to show a personalized pricing page that offers an additional 30-day period to visitors who are subscribed to the Premium plan. In this case, you can create a custom audience segment to target your experiment to visitors who match this specific user attribute and value as shown in the screenshot below.

 
Note that to use 'user information' in audience targeting, you need to add an additional code snippet to your experiment page as explained in the steps here.

Target your experiment by weather/climatic conditions

Do you see your website sell more products when the temperature rises? Or does your tourism business attract more new bookings during cooler seasons?

 

Targeting your experiment based on the local weather of the visitors coming to your website is another modern technique used by marketers to craft influential website content, product pages, and ad campaigns. Weather-based audience targeting allows businesses to anticipate patterns of demand and tap into the needs and purchase intentions of customers during different seasons of the year. It's also a great way to gain a competitive advantage and increase the average value of orders and conversions on a website.

 

For example, say you run an ecommerce site and want to create a personalized homepage title for visitors living in climatic zones with temperatures below 41°F/5°C. In this case, you can create a custom audience segment to target your personalization experience based on audience's local weather as shown in the screenshot below.

Target your experiment by visitor activity
Visitors coming to your website will have different intentions and behaviors. For example, some might be looking to subscribe to your newsletter, some might be checking out new product releases, and others might just be there for window shopping or research purposes. If you're going to show the same home/landing page content to all visitors, you're definitely going to lose conversions and sales.

Targeting your experiment based on what pages your visitor interacts with on your site and what actions they take (or do not take) can be a great way to provide a personalized website experience during their next visit. This includes buttons clicked, products viewed, items bought, and other actions your visitor performs, revealing what your audience wants, avoids, and purchases. 

Using such specific visitor metrics, you can learn why specific actions or events on the site were not successful and later reach customers with more apt content or product offers based on their current activity.
 

For example, say you run an online tourism website and want to provide customized tourist packages with attractive coupon codes to customers who viewed the Adventure tourism package but exited your web page without completing a booking. In this case, you can create a custom audience segment to target your experiment for these segments of visitor interest and behavior as shown in the screenshot below. 

Note that to use 'visitor activity' in audience targeting, you need to add an additional code snippet to your experiment page as explained in the steps here.


Currently, weather-, user-, and visitor-activity-based audience targeting options are only available for personalization experiments in PageSense. However, the user and visitor activity(custom dimensions) based segmentation option is available under report filtering across all of the experiments in PageSense except for push notifications. Learn how to filter reports based on custom dimensions.

Target your experiment by specific referral site URLs

Depending on the ways you market your website online, you'll likely have numerous different referral sources. Analyzing which source brings in more traffic and revenue to your business is a surefire way to get more traffic from multiple channels. Targeting your experiment based on referral URLs—sources that your visitors came from, such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, Quora, influencer blogs, and other external sites—can help you promote your website and products on these specific channels. 

 
For example, say you own an ecommerce site, and you want your experiment to only target visitors referred by 'facebook.com'. In this case, you can create a custom audience segment to target visitors from this specific Referral site as shown in the screenshot below. 

 

Bonus tip: Have no clear target audience in mind to run your experiments? Or don't know how to decide where to start when segmenting a target customer audience? Consider these points in choosing the right target audience segments:

• Do you have seasonal-only customers or customers who are only interested in certain types of products, services, or events?
  
• Are you an organization that needs to send different content to partners, sponsors, users, or other patrons?
  
• Does it matter if your contacts are local, domestic, or international?
  
• Have you thought about the requirements of users based on different weather conditions?
  

Was that useful? Please leave us your comment/feedback in the comment box below.

Are you looking to create a new custom audience segment to target in your experiment but aren't sure how to implement it? Just write to us at support@zohopagesense.com and we will be happy to guide you.

Start learning. Start customizing!

• Topic Participants

• Balarohini Paulraj

• Sticky Posts

• [Live Webinar] How to maximize your conversions using existing website traffic

  Hello all, Did you know that on an average only 0.1% of your traffic converts? The rest are either heading towards your competitors or dropping off without being able to find what they came for. When you want to increase your conversions, it's natural

• A/B Testing Idea #2: Make your headlines sound super cool.

  Hello everyone, We're back with our second post in the CRO testing idea series. If you missed the first post, please check it out here: "Place irresistible and clear CTAs." In today's post, we'll look at how to effectively A/B test your headline content.

• A/B Testing Idea #1: Place irresistible and clear CTA buttons

  Are you wasting much of your time and effort A/B testing every single idea that pops into your head, yet you're not generating sufficient traffic to your website? Don't worry—we've got you.   We'd like to introduce you to the A/B Testing Ideas learning

• Did you know?#3: How to target and run your experiment based on custom audience segments in PageSense

  Whatever kind of online business you're running, defining your target audience is the key factor to delivering relevant messages and further positioning your brand in the industry. Most marketing efforts revolve around this basic strategy of segmenting

• Did you know?#2: How to filter your report by custom date range in PageSense

  Do you want to quickly view your experiment analysis or responses over different time periods? Want to effortlessly compare the performance of your website by specific weeks, months, or years? Also, see whether your new marketing strategies or efforts

• Recent Topics

• Discover related products for contacts and companies with new topping

  Greetings! We hope you're all doing well. We've heard your request for an easier way to view products associated with a contact or company—without having to open and go through every deal individually. To help you achieve this, we're happy to introduce

• Transform your line of items into line items: ICR can now record your table values as subform values

  Enhancement in Zoho CRM Dear Customers, We hope you're well! Zia Vision’s ICR capability can now recognize, extract, and store tabulated values in your subforms. An ideal example is a university application form. It has printed fields and handwritten

• zoho desk

  Hello, Did Zoho Desk have any issues today? Are tickets coming in late? I have an email account linked, and messages seem to be arriving with a delay—some email threads aren't coming through completely, and so on.

• Minor enhancements in Zoho CRM Dashboards: drill-down for Funnels, flexible Duration settings, and more

  Dashboards in Zoho CRM help you visualize data across modules, track performance, and make informed decisions. Components like charts, KPIs, and funnels bring together key metrics in a single view, making it easier to spot trends and take action. Over

• Get a realistic picture of your revenue with Forecast Adjustments in Zoho CRM

  #crm25q1 Dear Customers, We hope you're doing well! Today, we're here with an important enhancement for business decision makers: forecast adjustments. Let's get straight to it! With technology on the rise and CX at its core, businesses are constantly

• Three new ways to manage Instant Messaging in Zoho Desk

  Managing IM conversations isn't just about responding to customers. It's also about getting each conversation to the right team. Here are three updates in Zoho Desk that can help with exactly that. 1. Transfer IM tickets across departments Sometimes a

• Ask the Experts 32: Managing Privacy, Security, and Data Administration in Zoho Desk

  Hello everyone, As organizations increasingly rely on AI, machine learning, and automation, there are pressing questions around privacy, security, and data governance. Every customer interaction involves sensitive business information, whether it's troubleshooting

• Zoho Cliq 7.0: Built for Uninterrupted Work

  Work today moves fast, but follow-ups, meetings, and coordination still get messy more than we often like to admit. Zoho Cliq 7.0 is all about making everyday work feel a little lighter—better collaboration, smoother workflows, more helpful assistance,

• Zoho CRM Functions: Redesigned Interface, Rich Analytics, and Multi-Language Support

  Hello everyone! We have given Functions in Zoho CRM a major overhaul with a new interface that makes it easier to build, organize, monitor, and troubleshoot your functions throughout their lifecycle. As part of this revamp, we have also introduced a unified

• Native SMS and MMS Channel Support

  89% of US consumers say they prefer to communicate with businesses via SMS / MMS (aka "texting"). (link) Unfortunately, Zoho Desk does not currently support the most popular channel for consumer communications in the United States. For those of us in

• Smarter holiday planning with yearly-specific Holiday Lists

  Hello everyone! Managing holidays and business hours is now easier and more efficient. Holiday Lists now support holidays that fall on different dates every year, while business hours now supports more than one holiday list. This helps businesses manage

• Collapsible Sections & Section Navigation Needed

  The flexibility of Zoho CRM has expanded greatly in the last few years, to the point that a leads module is now permissible to contain up to 350 fields. We don't use that many, but we are using 168 fields which are broken apart into 18 different sections.

• Side-panel “Quick Preview & Edit” for Deals and Tasks (Web)

  Hi all, I’d like to submit a feature request to improve record navigation and data entry speed in Zoho CRM. NOTE: This feature exists on Pipedrive, HubSpot, and Bigin by Zoho. Requested Feature: Add a side-panel / slide-in “quick preview” for records

• Automate Backups

  This is a feature request. Consider adding an auto backup feature. Where when you turn it on, it will auto backup on the 15-day schedule. For additional consideration, allow for the export of module data via API calls. Thank you for your consideration.

• Cross Module Filtering – Use Fields from Lookup modules in Custom Views criteria and Advanced Filters

  Hello everyone, Zoho CRM now enables you to achieve deeper filtering of records in a module, using fields of a lookup, thereby enhancing your data management experience manifold. This filtering based on lookup module fields is now available in advanced

• Why can't we choose Fixed Asset account for Purchased Items? (eTims issue?)

  Hello, When the company purchase items not for sale and not supposed to be in the inventory stock, like equipment for operational use, there is no way to access the Fixed Asset accounts in the drop down list. Is that an eTims limitation again? Or something

• "Track Inventory for this item" is forced checked by default for goods items (eTims issue?)

  Hello, Since connecting our Zoho books to eTims (Kenya) the "Track Inventory for this item" is forced checked by default (eTims issue?) in the Item creation page for any type of goods. So when purchasing anything that the company does not intend to sale,

• Can you import projects into Zoho Projects yet?

  I see some very old posts asking about importing project records into Zoho Projects. But I can't find anything up to date about the topic. Has this functionality been added? Importing tasks is helpful. But we do have a project where importing projects

• reset password

  Hi I need to reset my password and need help

• Is it possible to set a value to a field based on certain conditions

  Greetings Say i have a field that i want to set its value based on the value of another field.. for example if "number" field has value greater than 10, i want to set my field's value to X. Or if radio group had option 1 selected, then i want to set my

• Zoho CRM Layout Rules: Nine New Actions, Profile-Based Execution, and Interactive Preview

  Hello everyone, Availability: This feature is now available for customers in the JP and SA DCs. It is planned to be released for other customers in soon. We’re excited to announce powerful new enhancements to Layout Rules in Zoho CRM - a feature built

• Global Sets for Multi-Select pick lists

  When is this feature coming to Zoho CRM? It would be very useful now we have got used to having it for the normal pick lists.

• How to add line breaks in formula with Concat?

  I am trying to combine different fields with a formula field, but want to add line breaks.  I.e. the current code looks like:  Concat(${Contacts.Company_Name}, ' ' ,${Contacts.First_Name}, ' ' ,${Contacts.Last_Name}) And the result should be:  John Doe

• Introducing spam detection for webforms: An additional layer of protection to keep your Zoho CRM clean and secure

  Greetings all, One of the most highly anticipated feature launches—Spam Detection in webforms—has finally arrived! Webforms are a vital tool for record generation, but they're also vulnerable to submissions from unauthenticated or malicious sources, which

• Is Zoho Assist Secure Connect even practical for 1 person shop?

  I was gun ho with Zoho Assist to replace my existing Remote Access product I have been using but I need to implement MFA on each unattended connection. Right now each of these connections in my other product has a rotating token that I have enter off

• Join the Zoho Desk Virtual Classroom Training (VCRT)

  Hello everyone, Have you heard about Zoho's Virtual Classroom Training (VCRT)? Zoho Desk's Virtual Classroom Training offers end-to-end training for Zoho Desk users. Join the VCRT and get hands-on guidance for setting up Zoho Desk and getting your business

• Zoho CRM's revamped timeline view now extends to 3 years and support notes, filters, and email statuses

  Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: These enhancements are being rolled out to customers in a phased manner. They will be available to most organizations by the end of May. For organizations with huge volumes of data, they will be available by the end

• Zoho Mail App Unable to connect to server

  Hi all, For the last two weeks, my Zoho Mail App on my iPhone which has worked fine up to this point has been unable to connect to the mail server. I can't access my emails even though I will get notification banners on the screen saying that they have been received. I can open Safari on my phone and then log in that way. This issue happens when I'm connected to wifi and on my phone data.  I've tried deleting the app several times and reinstalling, and have updated to the latest version. But it still

• Specific ListView Canvas on Canvas Home Page Always Loads Most Recent ListView, Not the One Specified

  I had mentioned this to ZOHO, but I mainly wanted to see if others in the Community are also facing this problem. I created a Canvas ListView for a Custom Module, and then created a Canvas Home page (technically on a tab item, but I'm not sure if that

• Add the Zoom Option to the Camera

  Hi, I use the ZOHO Forms Camera so I can manage metadata, compression, etc. but this doesnt have the zoom parameter activated, so when we have photos in a tight space and want to use 0.5 for example, we can't, can this be enabled please. Thanks Dan

• Manage booking pages from your Android phone

  Hello everyone! We are happy to announce that users can now add and manage booking pages from their Bigin Android app. It is a multi-step form that users can create for purposes like booking appointments, scheduling calls or meetings, conducting webinars,

• New UI - Color Preference Not Saving Permanently

  Small, not very urgent problem I'd like to share regarding the new UI theme color. I've changed my theme preference to the default blue color around 20 times by now. It always reverts to a green color theme. I've followed the instructions of changing

• Automating Employee Birthday Notifications in Zoho Cliq

  Have you ever missed a birthday and felt like the office Grinch? Fear not, the Cliq Developer Platform has got your back! With Zoho Cliq's Schedulers, you can be the office party-cipant who never forgets a single cake, balloon, or awkward rendition of

• Unbundle feature for composite items

  We receive composite items from our vendors and sell them either individually or create other composite items out of them. So, there is a lot of bundling and unbundling involved with our composite items. Previously, this feature was supported in form

• Inventory Barcode Creation - Add Picture of Item

  Hi I am trying to set up bar code labels and include a picture of the item on the label - any idea on how to add that field to the barcode generator?

• CNIL - Suivi de Pixel

  Bonjour à tous, À la suite de la nouvelle recommandation de la CNIL sur les pixels de suivi dans les e-mails, savez-vous si Zoho Campaigns permet : de conditionner le suivi des ouvertures au consentement de chaque contact ; de proposer un lien permettant

• Gemini Action - Add "inineData" Support

  Thank you guys for adding a Gemini action. I like Gemini models for the "grunt work" of AI, as they have the cheapest tokens of the trustworthy providers One thing that's missing in the action, though, is the ability to pass file data. If you pass a base64-encoded

• Protect backed up and exported data using password encryption

  Hello everyone, Protecting live data is crucial for any organization or product, as it contains sensitive customer information. However, protecting data does not end within the platform. Backup and export files often contain sensitive information and

• Zoho Projects - Cloning a task does not trigger task workflow when created

  Hello! I have a Project where my team uses a set of tasks from a tasklist as templates, so we could simply clone it and drag it to another list in kanban view to avoid creating a new one from scratch. The process works well, but after cloning it the new

• Best way to setup Inventory bin tracking for products with multiple boxes/crates

  Hi - we need some advice from the community on setting up Items in the Inventory for products with multiple crates. We have large products in our warehouse where the product is delivered as two large (double pallet) crates. We've setup the Items for these

• Next Page