A goal is an event in Personalization used to measure the effectiveness of a rule. A goal triggers when a decision from a rule, which shows a particular piece of content, results in an event. Events can include actions, such as a user completing a form, landing on a page, clicking on a page element, or purchasing an item.
To create a goal, Personalization determines each new inbound event’s eligibility to be a goal.
A goal is created when the following set of conditions is met:
- The event is associated with a goal
- The goal is tied to a rule
- The rule triggered a decision within 72 hours for a given visitor
- A goal was never before awarded for the rule to that visitor
For example, you can create an event Purchase, associated with a goal Purchased annual subscription, and tied to a rule where a user is shown content intended to convince them to make a purchase. The goal is met if the user makes the purchase within 72 hours.
The goals are then used in reporting to help you understand which content variations perform better than others.
Managing your goals
To manage your goals or to make changes to your current goals:
- Sign in to Personalization and click the Personalize tab.
- From the left menu, click the New Goals link.
The Goals page displays options for actions you can take with your available goals.
- Search: Specify your search criteria in the Search goals text field and click Search.
- Filter: To filter goals, click Filter, select a specific Site, and click Apply.
- Add New Goal: Add a new goal.
- Edit: To update details for a goal, click the corresponding goal name.
- Delete: To delete a goal, click Delete next to the goal you want to remove. The system displays a warning message. Once you confirm that message, the selected goal is deleted. If a goal is associated with any campaign, you must remove the association.
By default, the first rule created for a slot also creates a click-through goal, to ensure every slot with rules has at least one goal. The default click-through goal has a value of 1.
Adding new goals
To add a goal:
- Sign in to Personalization and click the Personalize tab.
- From the left menu, click the New Goals link.
Click the Add New Goal link.
- Enter values for the following fields to provide details about the goal you want to create:
- ID (hidden by default): The field uses the machine name of the goal, based on the Name you enter. To view the field and make changes to the default ID, click the Enable Goal ID link.
- Name: Enter a name for the goal, such as
Purchased 1-year subscription. Click-through goals have a default name in the format:[Rule name] Click-Through. If a rule exists with this name, the new rule defaults to[Rule name] Click-through [rule UUID]. - Description: Enter a brief explanation of the goal, such as
Purchased 1-year subscription for service. - Value: Enter the value attributed to the goal, which can be used to designate the relative weight of one goal to another. It can also be used to directly track the dollar ($) value of the goal. This dollar value can be passed dynamically, using the goal’s associated event. For example, you may have the
Purchased 1-year subscriptiongoal value set to$50, and a different goal likePurchased monthly subscriptionset to$5.
To apply the goal to all customer sites, select the Apply Goal to all customer sites checkbox. This is selected by default.
Alternatively, you can clear the checkbox, click Add Site, and select one or more customer websites to which you want to add the goal.
- To add an event to the goal:
- In Select Site, select the website you want to use.
- In Select Event, click an available event from the list. The list contains one or more events which can be associated with a goal. If an event triggers, the Personalization service examines all the matching goals and decides if a corresponding rule was triggered to display a piece of content to a user.
- To add multiple events, click Add Event and repeat the above steps.
- Click Create to save your new goal.
Rules are associated with goals in Personalization. After you have added goals to the rules you created, you have all the necessary elements to provide customized experiences for your users, and to track their responses.