Managing your segments¶

To manage your segments or to make any changes to your available segments:

1. Sign in to Personalization and click the Personalize tab.

2. From the left menu, click Segments.

   

   Important

   If you’re still using the legacy segment user interface, you must use the Segments Classic tab and not Segments. However, note that Acquia retired the legacy user interface on Q1, 2021. Hence, you must use the recommended user interface.

The following information is available about your segments:

• Name: Clickable link of the segment name that takes you to the Segment Details page for the specific segment.

• Id: Displays the ID of the segment.

• Description: Displays the description of the segment.

• Search: To view a specific segment, enter your search criteria in the Search segments field (leave empty to display all segments) and click Search.

• Actions: Clickable links with actions to perform on a segment.

  • Edit: Click this option to update segment details. Alternatively, you can locate the segment in the list of displayed segments and click the corresponding Name. The page reloads with the segment’s configuration information. If you make any changes to the segment, click Save to save your changes.

  • Delete: To permanently remove a segment, locate the segment in the list of displayed segments and click the corresponding Delete option. The system displays a warning message. You must confirm the message to successfully delete the segment.

  • Clone: To make a copy of a segment, find the segment you want to copy in the list of displayed segments and click the corresponding Clone option. Note that this option is available only in the legacy segment UI.

Adding new segments¶

To create a segment by using the revamped segment user interface:

1. Sign in to Personalization and click the Personalize tab.

2. From the left menu, click Segments.

3. Click the Create Segment link.

4. In the Segment Details section, enter values in the following fields for the new segment:

   • Name: Specify the name of the segment as displayed in the Personalization Admin.

   • Segment ID: To specify a custom segment ID, click Enable Segment ID and enter the custom ID. By default, Personalization creates an ID based on the Name field. This field indicates the name of the segment when displayed as a context in the Personalization Drupal modules. Note that you can specify only alphanumeric, underscore, and hyphenated characters in this field.

   • Description: Specify detailed information about the segment, such as a narrative of its criteria.

   • Sites: Select a site from the available options.

   

5. In the Define Segment section, use the initial drop-down list to select the relationship between each of the criteria you select for the segment.

   

   1. Select an operator from the following options:

      • All: The segment will display those people who meet the defined criteria. This represents the AND operator.

      • Any: The segment will display those people who meet any of the defined criteria. This represents the OR operator.

      • None: The segment will display those people who do not meet any of the defined criteria. This represents the NOT operator.

   2. Click Add a Criteria to add the segment’s first attribute.

      Personalization displays a dialog box you can use to enter information about the criteria.

      Note

      • For more information about criteria items, including the types of criteria available, see Default segment criteria.

      • To delete a criteria, click the cross ( * ) icon next to the criteria you want to remove.

   3. To add another criteria with the newly created criteria, click Add a Criteria and set the operator that applies to both the criterion. The available options are All, Any, and None. If you want to further add more criterion with these two criterion, repeat the same step.

      Alternatively, if you don’t want to add your second criteria with the first criteria or create a common group and instead want to create a separate group altogether, click Add a Criteria Group. Note that you can add multiple criterion in a single criteria group. You can also create multiple criteria groups. Note that the same operator applies to all the criteria groups.

6. Click Save.

   Note

   If you add an invalid criteria to a segment, the system displays an error message, doesn’t allow you to save/update the segment, and disables the Save button.

Using a where clause to refine your segment criteria¶

Using a where clause helps you define specific segments. For example, in a particular segment, you add an event count specifying if a website visitor viewed two pieces of content on your website in the past 30 days, the visitor enters the segment. To narrow the focus of the segment, you specify the segment, the content viewed by the visitor in the time period, and the content must be in specific sections (such as the astrology or the sports sections) of your website.

To create the segment:

1. Sign in to Personalization and click the Personalize tab.

2. From the left menu, click Segments (BETA) (if you’re using the revamped segment UI) or Segments (if you’re using the legacy segment UI).

3. Follow steps 3 and 4 in Adding new segments.

4. In the Define Segment (if you’re using the revamped segment UI) or Segment criteria (if you’re using the legacy segment UI) section, select All in the initial drop-down list. The segment will display those website visitors who meet the defined criteria. This represents the AND operator.

5. Click Add a Criteria (if you’re using the revamped segment UI) or Edit Criteria (if you’re using the legacy segment UI).

   Personalization displays a dialog box. To add the segment’s first attribute, complete the following steps:

   1. Go to Event Count > Events. Personalization displays more fields.

   2. In the Customer Site list, click the customer website to which you want the segment to apply. Note that this option appears only in the legacy segment UI and not the revamped one (as you have already associated the segment with a site).

   3. In Event Name, select Content View.

   4. In Operators, keep the default value of Equals or =.

   5. In Values, enter 2.

   6. In Time Period, select Past 30 Days.

   7. Click Save.

      Personalization displays the segment attribute under Segments (BETA) or Segments.

You have now added the segment’s first attribute, which states the segment will contain all website visitors who viewed two pieces of content on your specified customer website in 30 days. Post that, follow the steps to add the where clause as mentioned in the Adding where clause in the revamped segment UI or Adding where clause in the legacy segment UI sections.

Evaluating your segment’s reach¶

Either during the creation of your segment, or after saving the segment, you can use Personalization to determine how effectively the segment connects with your visitors (also known as its reach).

The visitor reach helps in several circumstances—for example, if you create a segment which is too specific based on your visitors, the segment may never apply to any visitor interactions. Personalization would display zero interactions for each of the items the Personalization service tracks, as compared to the total number of tracked interactions.

To examine your segment’s potential or current reach, complete the following steps:

1. Sign in to Personalization and click the Personalize tab.

2. From the left menu, click Segments.

3. Complete the following step based on your requirements:

   • If you want to review a created segment, click the name of the segment you want to review from the list of available segments.

   • If you haven’t yet created your segment, complete the steps in the Adding new segments section of the page, but do not yet save your segment.

4. Scroll down the page to the Estimate traffic section, where you can review the segment’s performance against the data stored in the Personalization service across three areas of information (displayed as Groupings in the table):

   • Person: Visitors uniquely identified by first-party cookies, their email addresses, or some other identifier.

   • Touch: A series of contiguous events (such as content views) with a duration between events of no more than 30 minutes.

     Note

     Personalization loads the most recent 100 touches for analysis. Loading the most recent touches prevents performance problems due to large profiles, and ensures targets work with current patterns. The process generally affects content creators or administrators, who spend the most time on a website.

   • Event: Discrete visitor actions, such as a content view of an article or a click-through on a subscription offer.

5. In the Date range list, click one of the following options based on the time frame of your segment’s comparison against data stored by the Personalization service:

   • Last 7 Days

   • Last 30 Days

6. Click Generate Estimate.

After several moments of collecting information from the Personalization service, Personalization will display your segment’s performance against each of the groupings. Each of the time-based columns in the table (Daily, Weekly, and Monthly) have an Estimate and a Total. Based on the selected Date range, the estimate is the number of items in the grouping that apply to the segment, and the total is the total number of items for the grouping as collected by the service.

The final column of the table is % Total, and represents the estimate versus the total for the grouping row. A total of 100.00% indicates the segment applies to all items collected by the service, and may not be specific enough. A total of 0.00% indicates the segment does not apply to any items for the selected date range, and may be too specific.

Verifying segments¶

To verify if Personalization is returning segments, visit a webpage you are tracking with Personalization, open your browser’s debugger console, and complete the following:

1. Click the Network tab.

2. To filter the list of displayed results, enter decide? in the console’s search field.

3. Click the Response tab.

   If the request returns one or more segments, they display here as part of the response, such as:

   "segments":[
      {
         "id":"visitors_50_years_in_age",
         "name":"Visitors 50+ years in age",
         "description":"Visitors 50+ years in age"
      },
      {
         "id":"first_time_visitors",
         "name":"First time visitors",
         "description":"First time visitors"
      }
   ],