If you can identify and organize your website’s different visitors based on factors including their persona, the content they prefer the most, and visitor actions they have taken in the past, your marketing becomes more effective. With visitor information, you can personalize their experience on your website, and track the results of the personalization, all while continuing to make incremental improvements. To personalize the visitor experience, Personalization uses segments.
A segment is an organizational unit describing one or more attributes you want to track in Personalization. Assuming your visitors meet a segment’s criteria, visitors are assigned to one or more segments. Personalization continuously evaluates your segments’ membership lists based on visitors’ behavior.
If you use Experience Builder, the ID of each segment you create also displays.
Managing your segments
To manage your segments or to make any changes to your available segments:
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:
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.
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.
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
Using the legacy segment user interface
To create a segment by using the legacy segment user interface:
Enter values in the following fields for the new segment:
Name: Name of the segment as displayed in the Personalization Admin.
Segment ID: Optional name of the segment when displayed as a context in the Personalization Drupal modules. By default, Content Hub creates an ID based on the Name. Click Edit Segment ID to use a custom ID.
Description: More descriptive information about the segment, such as a narrative of its criteria.
Select the Apply segment to all customer sites checkbox to use the segment across all your websites.
Note
As a best practice, Acquia recommends selecting the Apply segment to all customer sites checkbox for consistency.
To apply the segment to specific customer sites, complete the following steps:
Clear the Apply segment to all customer sites checkbox. Personalization displays a list of your customer sites.
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.
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.
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:
Go to Event Count > Events. Personalization displays more fields.
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).
In Event Name, select Content View.
In Operators, keep the default value of Equals or =.
In Values, enter
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.
Adding where clause in the revamped segment UI
To add the where clause to the segment in the revamped segment UI:
Click Add Sub-criteria.
Click Page Content. Personalization displays another list.
Click Content Section.
In Operators, keep the default value of Matches One Of.
In Values, enter astrology and sports. The Values field contains the content section in which the visitor must have viewed content in the past 30 days for inclusion in the segment.
Click Save to save the segment.
You have now created a segment including website visitors who viewed two pieces of content in the past 30 days where the value Content Section matches one of the sections: astrology or sports.
Adding where clause in the legacy segment UI
To add the where clause to the segment in the legacy segment UI:
Click Sub-criteria.
In the initial list, keep the default value of All.
Click the field containing the value Edit Criteria. Personalization displays a dialog box. To add the segment’s where clause, complete the following steps:
In Category name, click Select Criteria. Personalization displays a list.
Click Page Content. Personalization displays another list.
Click Content Section.
In Operators, keep the default value of Matches One.
In the Values field, enter astrology and sports. The Values field contains the content section in which the visitor must have viewed content in the past 30 days for inclusion in the segment.
Click OK. Personalization displays the segment and its new where clause.
Click Save to save the segment.
You have now created a segment including website visitors who viewed two pieces of content in the past 30 days where the value Content Section matches one of the sections: astrology or sports.
Evaluating your segment’s reach
Important
This feature is available only in the legacy segment UI and not the revamped segment UI.
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:
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.
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.
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.
Note
If you are evaluating your new segment’s reach as part of the creation process, save your segment at the end of the process.
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:
Click the Network tab.
To filter the list of displayed results, enter decide? in the console’s search field.
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"
}
],
Creating and managing segments
If you can identify and organize your website’s different visitors based on factors including their persona, the content they prefer the most, and visitor actions they have taken in the past, your marketing becomes more effective. With visitor information, you can personalize their experience on your website, and track the results of the personalization, all while continuing to make incremental improvements. To personalize the visitor experience, Personalization uses segments.
A segment is an organizational unit describing one or more attributes you want to track in Personalization. Assuming your visitors meet a segment’s criteria, visitors are assigned to one or more segments. Personalization continuously evaluates your segments’ membership lists based on visitors’ behavior.
If you use Experience Builder, the ID of each segment you create also displays.
Managing your segments
To manage your segments or to make any changes to your available segments:
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:
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.
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.
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
Using the legacy segment user interface
To create a segment by using the legacy segment user interface:
Enter values in the following fields for the new segment:
Name: Name of the segment as displayed in the Personalization Admin.
Segment ID: Optional name of the segment when displayed as a context in the Personalization Drupal modules. By default, Content Hub creates an ID based on the Name. Click Edit Segment ID to use a custom ID.
Description: More descriptive information about the segment, such as a narrative of its criteria.
Select the Apply segment to all customer sites checkbox to use the segment across all your websites.
Note
As a best practice, Acquia recommends selecting the Apply segment to all customer sites checkbox for consistency.
To apply the segment to specific customer sites, complete the following steps:
Clear the Apply segment to all customer sites checkbox. Personalization displays a list of your customer sites.
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.
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.
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:
Go to Event Count > Events. Personalization displays more fields.
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).
In Event Name, select Content View.
In Operators, keep the default value of Equals or =.
In Values, enter
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.
Adding where clause in the revamped segment UI
To add the where clause to the segment in the revamped segment UI:
Click Add Sub-criteria.
Click Page Content. Personalization displays another list.
Click Content Section.
In Operators, keep the default value of Matches One Of.
In Values, enter astrology and sports. The Values field contains the content section in which the visitor must have viewed content in the past 30 days for inclusion in the segment.
Click Save to save the segment.
You have now created a segment including website visitors who viewed two pieces of content in the past 30 days where the value Content Section matches one of the sections: astrology or sports.
Adding where clause in the legacy segment UI
To add the where clause to the segment in the legacy segment UI:
Click Sub-criteria.
In the initial list, keep the default value of All.
Click the field containing the value Edit Criteria. Personalization displays a dialog box. To add the segment’s where clause, complete the following steps:
In Category name, click Select Criteria. Personalization displays a list.
Click Page Content. Personalization displays another list.
Click Content Section.
In Operators, keep the default value of Matches One.
In the Values field, enter astrology and sports. The Values field contains the content section in which the visitor must have viewed content in the past 30 days for inclusion in the segment.
Click OK. Personalization displays the segment and its new where clause.
Click Save to save the segment.
You have now created a segment including website visitors who viewed two pieces of content in the past 30 days where the value Content Section matches one of the sections: astrology or sports.
Evaluating your segment’s reach
Important
This feature is available only in the legacy segment UI and not the revamped segment UI.
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:
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.
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.
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.
Note
If you are evaluating your new segment’s reach as part of the creation process, save your segment at the end of the process.
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:
Click the Network tab.
To filter the list of displayed results, enter decide? in the console’s search field.
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"
}
],
operator.
None: The segment will display those people who do not meet any of the defined criteria. This represents the NOT operator.
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.
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.
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.
Select a customer website to which you want to apply the segment.
Click Add. Personalization displays a list containing the following information:
Name: The name of your customer website as displayed in the web browser
External ID: The name you specified when you created the customer website in Personalization
URL: The web address of your customer website
Actions: More steps you can take with the customer website’s use of the segment, including removing the website from the list of customer sites to which the segment will apply
To add more customer websites using the segment, click their names in the list of your customer websites. Personalization displays the new customer website in the list of websites to which the segment will apply.
Click the Delete link to remove the website from the list of customer sites to which the segment will apply.
In the Segment criteria section, use the initial drop-down list to select the relationship between each of the criteria you select for the segment.
Select from the following values:
All: The segment will display those people who meet the defined criteria. (AND operator)
Any: The segment will display those people who meet any of the defined criteria. (OR operator)
None: The segment will display those people who do not meet any of the defined criteria. (NOT operator)
Click in the field containing the value Edit 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.
In the Category name list, click the category of the criteria you want to use. The fields in the dialog box will change depending on the criteria you select.
Enter the remaining values for the criteria, and then click OK.
To add more criteria, click the plus ( + ) icon for each criteria, and refer to the previous steps.
You can also define relationships for sub criteria in a single criteria by clicking the right arrow ( > ) to the right of the plus icon. The right arrow adds a new criteria with its own sub criteria and relationships.
To delete criteria, click the minus ( - ) icon next to the criteria you want to remove.
2
.
In Time Period, select Past 30 Days.
Click Save.
Personalization displays the segment attribute under Segments (BETA) or Segments.
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.
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
Click Generate Estimate.
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If this content did not answer your questions, try searching or contacting our support team for further assistance.
operator.
None: The segment will display those people who do not meet any of the defined criteria. This represents the NOT operator.
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.
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.
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.
Select a customer website to which you want to apply the segment.
Click Add. Personalization displays a list containing the following information:
Name: The name of your customer website as displayed in the web browser
External ID: The name you specified when you created the customer website in Personalization
URL: The web address of your customer website
Actions: More steps you can take with the customer website’s use of the segment, including removing the website from the list of customer sites to which the segment will apply
To add more customer websites using the segment, click their names in the list of your customer websites. Personalization displays the new customer website in the list of websites to which the segment will apply.
Click the Delete link to remove the website from the list of customer sites to which the segment will apply.
In the Segment criteria section, use the initial drop-down list to select the relationship between each of the criteria you select for the segment.
Select from the following values:
All: The segment will display those people who meet the defined criteria. (AND operator)
Any: The segment will display those people who meet any of the defined criteria. (OR operator)
None: The segment will display those people who do not meet any of the defined criteria. (NOT operator)
Click in the field containing the value Edit 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.
In the Category name list, click the category of the criteria you want to use. The fields in the dialog box will change depending on the criteria you select.
Enter the remaining values for the criteria, and then click OK.
To add more criteria, click the plus ( + ) icon for each criteria, and refer to the previous steps.
You can also define relationships for sub criteria in a single criteria by clicking the right arrow ( > ) to the right of the plus icon. The right arrow adds a new criteria with its own sub criteria and relationships.
To delete criteria, click the minus ( - ) icon next to the criteria you want to remove.
2
.
In Time Period, select Past 30 Days.
Click Save.
Personalization displays the segment attribute under Segments (BETA) or Segments.
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.
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
Click Generate Estimate.
Did not find what you were looking for?
If this content did not answer your questions, try searching or contacting our support team for further assistance.
Personalization