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

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!

    • Recent Topics

    • Custom CSS in Zoho Form

      Hi, Please let me know, how we can add custom css in Zoho Form.  Thanks

    • Zoho Recruit

      Getting this issue

    • Missing Email

      We recently started using ZohoMail we migrated our users from google workspaces. The migration process seemed to have gone smoothly however not all emails are showing in the inbox folder. For example: If I sort the inbox folder from old to new. (Oldest

    • Client Script Quality of Life Improvements #1

      Since I'm doing quite a bit of client scripting, I wanted to advise the Zoho Dev teams about some items I have found in client script that could be improved upon. A lot of these are minor, but I feel are important none-the-less. Show Error on Subform

    • Account blocked after accessing via VPN

      All my accounts are blocked after using a VPN. I have submitted multiple support tickets without response. It’s critical that my email be restored asap Can you please provide a way to unblock my accounts

    • Exchange Rate Updates

      Hi, It would be great that when you work with multiple currencies, the exchange rate updates automagically every day (as seen on Zoho Books) or at least that when you create/update an opportunity the exchange rate could be manually updated, or maybe both!

    • Courses without signup

      Can I create "real" public courses where no signup is needed?

    • Espace Sandbox – Votre environnement de test sécurisé dans Zoho Projects

      Zoho Projects propose un sandbox sécurisé pour tester des configurations, des personnalisations et des modifications sans compromettre les données en production. Note : Disponible avec le plan Enterprise le plus récent basé sur les utilisateurs (y compris

    • Descargas en learn

      Buenos dias, yo en mis cursos para no tener que cargar los archivos que utilizare en las lecciones decidi utilizar la opcion de bloques para añadir un enlace de mi workdrive con el video que deseo para que sea todo mas organizado, pero hay un problema.

    • Mail delivery

      I initially had a problem sending any outgoing mail and was able to fix it on my own, given Zoho support never got back to me. However, despite being able to send emails now, none of my mail to different Gmail addresses are arriving, and they are not

    • Mermaid Support & Zoho Learn

      Hi Zoho Team, I’m currently working with Zoho Learn and was wondering if there’s any way to add support for Mermaid syntax to create flowcharts, sequence diagrams, and other visual elements within articles or lessons. Mermaid is widely used in technical

    • Blocked due to VPN

      Hi My account outgoing mails and IMAP access have been blocked due to using a vpn being interpreted as suspicious logins. I’ve tried to mail support but not sure if this is also blocked. This is extremely frustrating as I’m using a vpn because I’m travelling

    • reset admin access.

      I am a user under the domain @lanutraceuticals.com. I do not have admin access. Kindly let me know the administrator contact or help me reset admin access.”

    • Unsubscripation booked domin

      Kindly Un subscription booked domain

    • How to change Super Admin

      Good Day, Can someone kindly guide me on how to change the super Administrator. I have tried many times but could not succeed.

    • Events disappearing in Calendar

      To reproduce the bug: 1.- Add a new event in Calendar 2.- Type any name for the Event 3.- Click "Create" 4.- The event appears 5.- Click on the event to open it 6.- Optional: Edit the event 7.- Click OK 8.- After two seconds, the event disappears Now, click on another day and then come back to the inserted event's day. The event appears.

    • Mail transfer to a contact with multiple accounts

      Hi, Since we can only associate one email for a Contact across Zoho, would it be a problem if we want to merge our mailbox in the future? For example, Mr. Jones is the main POC for 5 accounts, once we merge our mail where would the messages go-- is it

    • @mention not working in Mail

      Am I missing something? When trying to forward a message there is a hint you could do this also by "@mention" at the end of the message. When typing (for example) "@s.." there should appear addresses from my contacts, shouldn´t it? But nothing happens! So what can I do? Best regards and thanks for any help in advance! JH P.S.: Sorry for my bad English.

    • Enable Zia-Powered Deluge Assistance and AI Agent Without Mandatory OpenAI Integration

      Hi Zoho Creator Team, Hope you're doing well. We’d like to request a feature enhancement related to Zia's AI capabilities in Zoho Creator, particularly regarding Deluge Assistance and the AI Agent. Currently, as shown in your documentation (Generate Deluge

    • Zoho Sign community meetup series - India

      Hello everyone! Zoho Sign is a comprehensive digital signature application tailor-made for Indian businesses with unique features like Aadhaar eSign, eStamping, USB/PFX signing. We are now excited to announce our first meetup series for Zoho Sign in India,

    • List of packaged components and if they are upgradable

      Hello, In reference to the article Components and Packaging in Zoho Vertical Studio, can you provide an overview of what these are. Can you also please provide a list of of components that are considered Packaged and also whether they are Upgradable?

    • Product Updates in Zoho Workplace applications | June 2025

      Hello Workplace Community, Let’s take a look at the new features and enhancements that went live across all Workplace applications this June. Zoho Mail Slideshow view for inline images in Notes View all your inline images added in a notes in a effortlessly

    • Assign multiple vendors to the same product

      Guys, My business often purchase the same product from several vendors (based on price and availability). Is it possible to assign more than one vendor to the same product? I saw this same question in this forum, from some time ago. Is this feature available or, at least, in Zoho's roadmap? If not, is there any trick to solve my problem? Without this feature, I simply cannot manage my company's inventory, limiting very much the use of Zoho CRM. Waiting for your reply. Leonardo Kuba Sao Paulo / Brazil

    • Is there as way to shut off the invitation when you set up a new user?

      Is there as way to shut off the invitation when you set up a new user?  I would like to get all my users in the system, my org structure set up and tested, etc, BEFORE I invite the users.  I did not see a way to shut of the automatic invitation email.  The only way to get around it is to set up the users with no Email ID.  However, when you do that - you get into the problem of not being able to update a user's Email ID (which makes NO sense whatsoever).  If I set up a user with an incorrect email

    • Manage Engine login issue

      App not available The app you're trying to access isn't yet available in the in data center region, where your account is present. To use ManageEngine, you can sign up for a new account in another data center region. Learn How Go to Zoho accounts Please

    • Zoho Creator - users "Name" Column

      Hi, When you add user to an application inside Zoho Creator, the system generate an account name for it. We don't have the  ability to change this name. According to Zoho creator Support (Case:11523656) : "The values displayed under 'Name' column of 'Users & permissions' section, is actually the respective account's username and not the actual name specified on the account. Usernames are system designated based on the account email address and cannot be modified from your end." We need to have the

    • Zoho Assist Unattended - devices disappearing

      Hello, I've recently introduced a new model of laptops into our environment (Lenovo Legion). We are experiencing an issue where only the latest installed agent - laptop is visible in Assist. This issue does not appear with our Dell inventory. Example:

    • Searchable email tab in Bigin

      Hi team, Could I please request a feature update, to be able to search emails within the email tab of Bigin. We have large correspondence with some agents and it would be very helpful if we are able to search from this section:

    • The silent force behind great customer service

      Customer service is known to be a demanding role. Customer service agents are expected to bring empathy, clarity, and human connection to every voice call, chat, and remote session, even if the situation requires some time for customers facing stressful,

    • New From Email in Zoho Desk

      Dear ZohoSupport, We are trying to establish a new From Address in Zoho Desk but we are facing difficulties. When trying to use the smtp.office365.com SMTP Server, after clicking the Save and Verify button, the Authentication Failed error pops up although,

    • Option in pipeline deal to select which hotel or branch or store if client has more than one local store

      Hi, I would like to know if there is an option in the deal pipeline to select which hotel, branch, or store a deal is related to—if the company has more than one location. For example, I have a client that owns several hotels under the same company, and

    • Aggregate SalesIQ Knowledge Base Interactions into Zoho Desk Knowledge Base Dashboard

      Hello Zoho Desk Team, We hope you're doing well. We’d like to request a feature enhancement related to the Zoho Desk Knowledge Base dashboard and its integration with Zoho SalesIQ. 🎯 Current Limitation When customers interact with knowledge base articles

    • Add Prebuilt "Partner Finder" Template with Native Zoho CRM Integration in Zoho Sites To: Zoho Sites Product Team

      Hi Zoho Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to request a prebuilt "Partner Finder" template for Zoho Sites, modeled after your excellent implementation here: 🔗 https://www.zoho.com/partners/find-partner-results.html ✅ Use Case: Our organization

    • Admin Visibility and Control Over Group Chats in Zoho Cliq

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you're doing well. While we appreciate the current capabilities in Zoho Cliq — including the ability to restrict who can create group chats and configure user permissions — we would like to request several enhancements to

    • Update Regarding Zoho Finance Applications' Domains For API Users

      Hi users, Until now, both the Zoho Finance apps and their APIs shared a common domain. We've recently introduced separate domains for APIs. You can now start using the new domains for API calls. The old domains will not work for API users starting April

    • Ability for Agents to Initiate Voice Calls With Site Visitors Without Active Chat Session

      Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, Greetings, We would like to request a feature enhancement related to the voice call functionality in Zoho SalesIQ. Current Limitation: At the moment, voice calls can only be initiated by agents after a chat session has been started

    • Add new Card

      How do you add a new credit card to a contact with Zoho API as can be done on web.  I am not able to find way to do this with Books API, CRM API or Subscriptions API.  This is an issue for our company as we do migration from a different system.  I can add card to a subscription through Subscriptions API, but some of our customers may not have a subscription, but only invoices set up in Zoho Books.  Is there any way in Zoho API to add new credit card to contact/customer?

    • Benchmark for Using Mail Merge in Service Order Scopes

      Hello, I was wondering if Zoho CRM has a benchmark or best practices for utilizing Mail Merge in service order scopes. Specifically, I'm looking for guidance on how to effectively integrate this feature for creating and managing service orders, especially

    • This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

      Hello, Just signed up to ZOHO on a friend's recommendation. Got the TXT part (verified my domain), but whenever I try to add ANY user, I get the error: This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details I have emailed as well and writing here as well because when I searched, I saw many people faced the same issue and instead of email, they got a faster response here. My domain is: raisingreaderspk . com Hope this can be resolved.  Thank you

    • Why don't we have better integration with Mercado Pago or Pagseguro?

      Currently, the integration between Zoho Commerce and Mercado Pago for Brazil is very poor... Since it is old, it does not include the main payment method in Brazil today, which is PIX. Is there a date for this to finally be launched? There are numerous

    • Next Page