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

    • Is Bigin Really Free - Confused by notifications?

      I started to look at Bigin as I was under the impression it was free, but as I started using it I kept getting messages that my trial period was X number of days and to upgrade. When I see something like this I assume I am not on a free version of anything

    • Sorting and previewing notes

      I use the method of sorting notes by edit date in both the desktop and android clients, newest notes on top. When I edit a note on Android and exit it to the notebook, it does not move to the very top. Only when I exit the notebook and enter it again,

    • Allow Multiple Scheduled Appointments with Zoho Support

      Dear Zoho Team, I hope you're doing well. First, thank you for introducing the option to schedule support calls via the Zoho CRM booking link. This has been a fantastic enhancement, eliminating the need for back-and-forth coordination when scheduling

    • Pivot table with Text values - "Matrix Report"

      User Story - As a user, I would like the ability to display textual data in a two-way table, matrix format (text datatypes, not numerical datatypes displayed as a dimension) One major feature missing from the Pivot tables in Zoho Analytics is the ability

    • Domain not usable

      We have not used this domain because the Chrome systems on our office devices are not compatible with your technology. I am sorry if no one has never advised you of this. Please cancel if it has not already been canceled. Ticket# 7526594 Please see

    • Bigin iOS, macOS and Android app update - File Cabinet

      Hello Everyone! In the most recent iOS (v1.7.1) and macOS (v1.5.1) updates of the Bigin app, we have included support for the File Cabinet functionality. You can access this feature as a topping within the web app (bigin.zoho.com) and conveniently use

    • Power of Automation :: Automatically close the associated tasks once the Issues are closed

      Hello Everyone, A Custom Function is a user-written set of code to achieve a specific requirement. Set the required conditions needed as to when to trigger using the Workflow rules (be it Tasks / Project) and associate the custom function to it. We have

    • Meeting vs Zoom and why we are moving

      Dear Meeting team,                                   I want to share my thoughts on Meeting vs Zoom and explain why we are moving back to Zoom for all our video conferencing, even though it is part of our Zoho One Subscription. 1). Video & Audio quality - We see a significant downgrade in video quality when using Meeting vs Zoom, even when using the same internet connections.  Meeting video is blurry and not sharp compared to Zoom.  Audio is also hit and miss on Meeting with frequent drop outs and

    • Import from GoHighLevel to Zoho CRM

      Has anyone been successful with this? I don't want to integrate with GoHighLevel just import/migrate everything over to Zoho

    • booking link that expires

      I have a suggestion that is  crucial. When i send booking URL to clients they keep the link and they book appointment whenever they want multiple times. You should give us the Booking URL feature. We should be able to send it and the user can use it only

    • Accessing Subform Data using getRecordByID

      I am getting data from Zoho Creator using deluge zoho.creator.getRecordByID task, from another application. The report contains a subform, and that subform is in the detail view of the report. I do not appear to have any subform data in the JSON response,

    • Track Contact's Employment/Account History

      Thank you in advance for all of your help! Is there a way, within Zoho, to keep track of a contact's employment history? For example, if John Doe is my contact at Account 1, but leaves the company and is hired by Account 2, can I... ...maintain John Doe as a former employee under Account 1, while simultaneously listing him as a current employee of Account 2? ...view John Doe's employment history on his contact page in addition to the account he is currently associated with? I'm sure there is a way

    • Pre-fill TO and CC fields for Email Templates

      This would be a game changer to be able to set either specific email addresses or merge fields based on deal role titles into email templates. Please pass this along to *hopefully* add to future features of Zoho CRM.

    • Leads and Deals Issue

      Hi! Is Zoho having trouble today? I've been experiencing issues today. When I move a deal to closed/won, it previously would require a closing date but today the screen just went blur and the closing date did not pop up. And then under leads, I was trying

    • QR codes in templates

      I'm excited about the new QR code generator. I have included a QR code that contains the record ID setting "${ID}" as input data. In the report detail it works perfectly but when printing it in a template the code is not shown.

    • How do I hide all leads from Standard users in my CRM ZOHO

      I want to configure my crm zoho in such a way that standard users will only see leads owned or assigned to them. How do I go about doing this? I have tried all i could, but nothing...can anyone help me?

    • Custom view for Milestones

      Hi, Just an idea for the future... would it be possible to create custom views for the Milestones view under Work Overview ? I usually need to look at this view filtered by project group but the filter doesn't remain when navigating away. A custom view

    • How to Implement Time-Based Filters in Zoho Workflows?

      Hi everyone, I’m looking for a workaround to implement time-based filters in Zoho workflows. Specifically, I need a workflow to trigger only within certain hours (e.g., between 10:00 AM and 8:00 PM, Sunday to Friday). Currently, Zoho workflows execute

    • is there a better way to routinely export my project timesheets?

      Hi there, I am somewhat happy with how Zoho books handles time.  One thing that is missing is more user driven control over my data.  I have a workflow where I constantly need to give customers feeds of work done.  So I pick a project, and would ideally

    • Portal Default View

      Hello! My company is about roll out portals for some users, but we were wondering if it was possible to set the Record Detail Page View to default to a custom view that we made. That way the information they need would be streamlined and easier to see.

    • Does zoho rest api support token exchange from microsoft entra id token

      i want to get access token from the Microsoft user token in rest api. so it is possible to exchange microsoft user access token to zoho's access token or auth token ( token should be user specific not super admin).

    • Important: DKIM verification needed for unauthenticated email domains

      Hi all, This post is to inform users who are currently using unauthenticated email domains as their sender email for their notifications. We have mandated DKIM verification for all domains used as sender email addresses for the outgoing emails by 01-Jan-2025.

    • How do I define a weekend

      I noticed the default for weekends does not seem to include Saturdays. How can i define weekends to include both Saturdays and Sundays? Thank you.

    • Assistance Required: Custom Model Record Not Visible in Zoho CRM Sandbox

      Dear Team, I hope this message finds you well. I have created a custom model in the Zoho CRM Sandbox account and am currently adding records to it using Python. While I am able to fetch the module data programmatically through Python, I am unable to see

    • Zoho Sign Product updates - H2 2024

      Hello! We have almost come to the end of 2024! Here's a list of features and enhancements that went live in the later half of the year. NOM 151 certification Witness signing Formula, conditional, and custom fields Zoho Sign's extension for Bigin by Zoho

    • Custom Status for Purchase Orders

      Currently Zoho books has functionality to create custom statuses for Sales Orders. Can this be extended to include custom status for purchase orders as well? It was a great decision to add this functionality to sales orders. Our use case is for tracking

    • Remove Address from credit card payment

      I would like to remove the need to add address when paying by credit card. I only want the customer to have to add their credit card details.

    • Top Menu Disappeared from Blog Page

      Hi, Our top menu disappeared at Blog Posts page. However, it's still visible any other page on the website. I attached two screenshots, so it can be understood clearly. How can we bring back top menu? Thanks, K.

    • Subforms and automation

      If a user updates a field how do we create an automation etc. We have a field for returned parts and i want to get an email when that field is ticked. How please as Zoho tells me no automation on subforms. The Reason- Why having waited for ever for FSM

    • My Zoho mail has been blocked for suspicious activity. cannot unblock it! need urgent help!

      Hi, I was accessing my email on an airplane which for some reason resulted in my mail being blocked. I have managed to unblock my incoming however outgoing is still blocked. I have contacted all your support emails but it still says contact support when I try to unblock outgoing emails. Its now been over 8 days with the same issue which is really serious as I'm not able to send several business emails during this period. I have followed all your steps to unblock this and contacted your support 5

    • Copy Widget to another Dashboard

      I can see the option to clone a widget to the same dashboard but is it possible to copy it to another dashboard?

    • Error while importing products Purchase Price: Value in the field does not match with the data type supported by us.

      I am trying to import items into zoho inventory using an excel spreadsheet. I keep getting this error Purchase Price: Value in the field does not match with the data type supported by us. no matter how i format the cells this comes up and will not import

    • Quotes Module - import data

      Hello Zoho, is it possible to import Quotes records? I was trying and i have no results. Raport shows no data imported. Could you help me please how to do it?

    • Year-End Wrap: Disconnect now; Reconnect later with Offline Mode

      🎄Happy Holidays🎄 Let's say you are travelling home to spend the holiday season with your loved ones. Before you even board the train, you check your phone only to find your inbox rapidly filling with urgent emails that need your attention. There’s no

    • Exploring SalesIQ's Top Features of 2024: An Insider's Look 🔍

      As we wrap up another year at Zoho SalesIQ, it's time to reflect on how far we've come. This year has been incredible for us in our journey to build a more powerful, flexible, and customer-centric engagement platform. We've introduced several features

    • Resource booking functionality questions

      I'm exploring the resource booking functionality in Zoho Bookings for my organisation's needs. I have a few questions about the available Zoho Bookings functionalities. Is it possible to force all users to sign up for an account before they book a resource?

    • How to create a Field with answers as Yes, No> Further if no is selected a new field to be visible to give details

      Dear All, I am creating a feedback form in HR Letter. The question is were you satisfied with the work allotted. Expected answer to this is Yes, No. Further if the response is no, then a field to be give to fill more details as to why no was selected.

    • Modify the way a phone number is shown in footer on ZOHO Booking Page

      The default display of the phone number field in the footer is not customer friendly - See image below. We would like it to use the accepted standards of phone number display: +61 (0)2 88545440, or allow us to choose. At the moment ZOHO Booking sets how

    • Zoho Bookings Multilingual ?

      Hello, Not sure if there is a way to do it currently, but it would be very helpful if Zoho bookings allowed multilingual translations so we could have our booking pages and notifications setup in multiple languages. Thanks,

    • Allow customers to choose meeting venue and meeting duration on booking page

      My business primarily involves one-to-one meetings with my clients. Given the hybrid-work world we now find ourselves in, these meetings can take several forms (which I think of as the meeting "venue"): In-person Zoom Phone call I currently handle these

    • Next Page