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!

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • Multiple currencies - doesn’t seem to work for site visitors / customers

        I am trying to understand how the multiple currency feature works from the perspective of the website visitor who is shopping on my Zoho Commerce site. My site’s base currency is US Dollars (USD) but my store is for customers in Costa Rica and I would

      • Archiving Contacts

        How do I archive a list of contacts, or individual contacts?

      • How do people handle using Outlook and Zoho Project calendar at the same time?

        We have an ongoing problem in our organisation where we use Zoho Projects to plan all of our projects tasks and that also allows us to look forward using the workload report to see which of our consultants are overstretched etc and which are available.

      • 10GB Email Storage Limits in Zoho CRM

        We’ve had Zoho One for almost 5 years and have always synced our emails from Gmail via IMAP… As of late, we’ve run into issues with our emails not syncing, due to being over the 10GB storage cap… What’s very odd is that we haven’t changed a thing? I know

      • Performance is degrading

        We have used Mail and Cliq for about three years now. I used to use both on the browser. Both have, over the past 6 months, had a severe degradation in performance. I switched to desktop email, which appeared to improve things somewhat, although initial

      • How to set page defaults in zoho writer?

        hi, everytime i open the zoho writer i have to change the default page settings to - A4 from letter, margins to narrow and header and footer to 0. I cannot set this as default as that option is grayed out! so I am unable to click it. I saved the document

      • Add Israel & Jewish Holidays to Zoho People Holidays Gallery

        Greetings, We hope you are doing well. We are writing to request an enhancement to the Holidays Gallery in Zoho People. Currently, there are several holidays available, but none for Israel and none for Jewish holidays (which are not necessarily the same

      • Unable to Send Different Email Templates for Different Documents in Zoho Sign

        Hello Zoho Community, I am facing a limitation with Zoho Sign regarding email notifications sent to customers when a document is sent for signing. Currently, whenever I send any template/document for signing, the email notification that goes to the customer

      • Enable History Tracking for Picklist Values Not Available

        When I create a custom picklist field in Deals, the "Enable History Tracking for Picklist Values" option is not available in the Edit Properties area of the picklist. When I create a picklist in any other Module, that option is available. Is there a specific reason why this isn't available for fields in the Deals Module?

      • ZO25: The refreshed, more unified, and intelligent OS for business

        Hello all, Greetings from Zoho One! 2025 has been a remarkable year, packed with new features that will take your Zoho One experience to the next level! From sleek, customizable dashboards to an all-new action panel for instant task management, we’ve

      • Vault crashes on Android Devices

        Vault is continuously closing after entering the master password on my Android device. After several attempts I get a system message that says there is a bug in the app. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the app, and cleared the app cache, but nothing

      • ¿Cómo puedo configurar las contraseñas creadas bajo una directiva para que nunca caduquen y no aparezcan como caducadas en los informes?

        ¿Cómo puedo configurar las contraseñas creadas bajo una directiva para que nunca caduquen y no aparezcan como caducadas en los informes? La razón por la cual contraseña estas no deben caducar es porque su actualización depende de mi cliente y no de mí.

      • Camera access

        My picture doesn't appear in a group discussion. (The audio is fine.) The guide says "Click the lock icon on address bar," but I can't find it. Advise, please

      • Are static links available

        I'm still using Zoho Meeting in trial mode. My previous webinar software provided a static link, and I made the mistaken assumption that I could send out my link and start a meeting later. Mass confusion, but my fault. With a paid version do you get a

      • Power up your Kiosk Studio with Real-Time Data Capture, Client Scripts & More!

        Hello Everyone, We’re thrilled to announce a powerful set of enhancements to Kiosk Studio in Zoho CRM. These new updates give you more flexibility, faster record handling, and real-time data capture, making your Kiosk flows smarter and more efficient

      • Why is Zoho Meeting quality so poor?

        I've just moved from Office 365 to Zoho Workplace and have been generally really positive about the new platform -- nicely integrated, nice GUI, good and easy-to-understand control and customisation, and at a reasonable price. However, what is going on

      • How to print a label from zoho creator app?

        Hello, I would like to print a label from zoho creator app record similar to attached one. Size 74mm x 102mm. I tried record template. It leaves plenty of space around the content and also I couldn't set the height of the page. So it is not printing properly. Could someone please direct me to right direction for this requirement?

      • Integration between "Zoho Sprints Stories" and "Zoho Projects Tasks/Subtasks"

        We have two separate teams in our organization using Zoho for project management: The Development team uses Zoho Sprints and follows Agile/Scrum methodology. The Infrastructure team uses Zoho Projects for traditional task-based project management. In

      • Where can we specify custom CSS in Zoho Forms custom theme ?

        I'm using a form with a dark theme. The OTP popup window is unreadable, because for some reason, the OTP popup background fixes color to white, but still takes the font color specified in the custom theme. This ends up as white on white for me, rendering

      • Team Gamification

        Would love to motivate, engage and encourage our team with our social media posts. Would like to include Gamification features of Social Media in Zoho Social or Marketing Automation. And also bring in Social Advocacy tools/tracking/management to these,

      • Sync Data from MA to CRM

        Currently, it's a one-way sync of data from the CRM to MA. I believe we should have the ability to select fields to sync from MA to the CRM. The lead score is a perfect example of this. In an ideal world we would be able to impact the lead score of a

      • Update CRM record action

        Currently, MA only offers a "Push Data" action to push data to a CRM module. This action is built to cover the need to both create a new record and update an existing record. Because it has been implemented this way all required fields on the CRM module

      • Pro Lite Upgrade - Quick Access Tray

        Hello, I was going to upgrade to Pro Lite but the Quick Access Tray feature isn't available for Windows. Of the four features not available for Windows, the QAT is what I'm most interested in. Are there plans to add this feature for Windows anytime soon?

      • Boost your CRM communication with new font types, sizes, and default reply-to options while composing emails

        Hello Everyone, We’re excited to introduce a series of impactful enhancements to the email composer settings in Zoho CRM. These updates enable you to personalize and optimize your customer interactions with greater efficiency. So what's new? Add custom

      • 3 year sick leave cycle

        How do you set up a sick leave cycle for South Africa? In SA the sick works like this for the first 6 months you get 0.83 paid sick days a month, then after 6 months you sick leave balance is reset to 30 days that can be used over a 36 month cycle.  This

      • WorkDrive and CRM not in sync

        1/ There is a CRM file upload field with WorkDrive file set as the source: 2/ Then the file is renamed in WorkDrive (outside CRM): 3/ The File in CRM is not synced after the change in WorkDrive; the file name (reference) in CRM record is not updated (here

      • Is Zoho Communityspaces now part of Zoho One?

        Is Zoho Communityspaces now part of Zoho One?

      • How to update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records

        Hello Zoho CRM, How do I update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records at once? To give you a background, these leads were uploaded or Imported at once but the lead status record was incorrectly chosen. So since there was a way to quickly add records in the system no matter how many they are, we are also wondering if there is a quicker way to update these records to the correct "Lead Status". I hope our concern makes sense and that there will be a fix for it. All the best, Jonathan

      • Bigin’s 2025 Evolution: Highlights from 2025 and What’s Ahead in 2026

        Dear Biginners, Wishing you a very happy New Year! As we stand at the cusp of endless possibilities in 2026, we would like to take a moment to reflect on what we achieved together in 2025. Your continued support, thoughtful feedback, and kind words of

      • Send Supervisor Rule Emails Within Ticket Context in Zoho Desk

        Dear Zoho Desk Team, I hope this message finds you well. Currently, emails sent via Supervisor Rules in Zoho Desk are sent outside of the ticket context. As a result, if a client replies to such emails, their response creates a new ticket instead of appending

      • Zoho Desk - Change Time Zone for all users and set default for new user

        Hi,   Is there a way to set a default time zone so that when user creates an account via the Zoho Desk invitation, they don't need to select the time zone via the hundreds of choice?   And, for already created users, can we edit the incorrect time zone selected by the user at the account creation ?   Thanks ! Fred

      • Introducing WhatsApp integration in Bigin

        Greetings! In today's business landscape, messaging apps play a significant role in customer operations. Customers can engage with businesses, seek support, ask questions, receive personalized recommendations, read reviews, and even make purchases—all

      • Allow Manual Popup Canvas Size Control

        Hello Zoho PageSense Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the PageSense popup editor regarding popup sizing. Current Limitation: Currently, the size (width and height) of a popup is strictly controlled by the selected

      • Why does Zoho’s diff viewer highlight parts of unchanged lines?

        Hi everyone, I’ve noticed something odd in the Zoho editor’s diff view. When I delete a single line, the diff doesn’t just mark that line as removed. Instead, it highlights parts of the next line as if they changed, even though they are identical. Example:

      • CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

        Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files

      • Passing the CRM

        Hi, I am hoping someone can help. I have a zoho form that has a CRM lookup field. I was hoping to send this to my publicly to clients via a text message and the form then attaches the signed form back to the custom module. This work absolutely fine when

      • 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

      • Zoho Survey reminder settings are extremely confusing

        Hi, I just want to set 3 reminders, one week apart from the first email out. Your form is too confusing and I don't understand. Can you simplify and be more specific regarding the language used on the form ?

      • Add deluge function to shorten URLs

        Zoho Social contains a nice feature to shorten URLs using zurl.co. It would be really helpful to have similar functionality in a Deluge call please, either as an inbuilt function or a standard integration. My Creator app sends an email with a personalised

      • form data load issue when saving as duplicate record is made

        Hello. I have a form with a lookup when a value is selected the data from the corresponding record is filled into all of the fields in the form. But the form is loaded in such a state that if any value is changed it will take all of the values pre loaded

      • Next Page