Defining audiences for targeted changes

Why do I need to have defined audiences?

Merchandising audiences are groups of site visitors with specific characteristics. You can target changes to your site so that they affect only a specific set of visitors. For example, you can create a ranking rule that boosts certain products for visitors who arrive from a specific URL.

Before you can target your changes, you need to define the target audience.

Dimensions

An audience is defined by a set of dimensions. Think of dimensions as attributes that describe characteristics of audience members.

You define dimensions on your dashboard while you set the audience for targeting. Each audience uses at least one dimension. The default dimensions are described below.

Default dimensions

These dimensions are available by default on the audience creation screen. To skip to the steps, go to How do I define a new audience?.

• Device
• Location
• Not seen in X days
• Not seen since X date
• Referring URL
• URL

Device

Use the device dimension to target only visitors on a specific device. For example, if you sell some products only through mobile devices, you can bury those products for audiences on tablets and desktops.

Default values:

• Mobile
• Desktop
• Tablet

Location

The location dimension includes a list of locations to select from. Use it to specify the location of audience members. For example, you can create a targeted rule that boosts artisanal cheeses for visitors located in France.

Start typing a location in the search field to trigger a list of suggestions. When you see the location you want, click it.

Location has no default value. It looks for the geographic location of the visitor's IP address. This can be as specific as a city, or as broad as a state, province, or country.

Not seen in X days

Looks for visitors who haven't been seen on the site for a number of days that you define.

Not seen since X date

Looks for visitors who haven't returned to the site since a date that you define.

Referring URL

Looks for the URL or page a visitor came from.

URL

Looks for parameters within the URL a visitor is on.

Best practices

Plan your audience

You can select more than one audience for a single rule, so you don't need to pack every characteristic into one audience. Instead, define focused, reusable audiences—for example, one per region or one per device type—and select as many as you need on each change.

For example, Kusum at Spiffy Tot wants to target a ranking rule at customers who live in Canada and visited the site at least once in the past month. She sees an audience already defined for customers in Canada, and another for recent visitors. Rather than define a new combined audience, she selects both existing audiences on her ranking rule.

Check the list of audiences that are already defined

You only need to define an audience once. If you or someone else already defined it, skip straight to selecting that audience to target your promotion, rule, or other change.

Define audiences according to your organization's user personas

If you have many custom dimensions, defining an audience for every targeted change can require a lot of repetitive clicking. Instead, define audiences according to visitor or user personas you already have. If you don't have these personas, this is a good opportunity to gather your stakeholders and create them.

Defining audiences by persona saves repetitive work and keeps your rules aligned with your organization's larger marketing and merchandising efforts.

How do I define a new audience?

Follow the steps below. This example creates a target audience using the Location and Device dimensions.

1. Go to the dashboard and click Merchandising audiences.

2. Click + New audience. The Audience Setup screen appears.

3. Enter the audience name and select a dimension from the dropdown.

   

   • To set a location-based audience, select Location.

     1. Set the match type to IS to include the location, or IS NOT to exclude it.
     2. To add alternative locations, select + OR and add another value.
     

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     Note

     Search using the template below.

     • Full address: Enter the country, then the state, then the city, separated by commas. Example: united states,new york,sodus
     • City only: Leave country and state blank when searching for a city name alone. Use double commas (,,) to indicate empty country and state. Example: ,,sodus. If the city isn't found, add the state and country.

   • To set a device-based audience, select Device.

     1. Set the match type to IS to include the device, or IS NOT to exclude it.
     2. Select the device from the dropdown: Mobile, Desktop, or Tablet.
     

4. Click Save to create the audience.

Add alternative values with the OR operator

Within a single dimension, use the OR operator to add alternative values. Any visitor who matches one of the values matches that dimension. The revamped audience pages make the OR operator available directly in each dimension row.

For example, a single Location dimension set to United States OR Canada matches visitors from either country. The OR operator reduces the number of dimensions you need to configure and lets you build more complex audience rules.

To understand how values combine across dimensions, read Merchandising audiences with multiple dimensions.

Set up multiple dimensions

You can define multiple dimensions for one audience—for example, Device, Location, URL, and Referring URL. Click + Add dimension and define each dimension.

Manage existing audiences

Open the audience list page by clicking Merchandising audiences in the left menu.

Edit an audience

Hover over an audience in the list, and click the Edit button to open it. You can add, delete, and change dimensions until the definition is right. Click Save when you're finished.

Apply bulk operations

On the audience list page, select multiple audiences and apply bulk delete actions to them. Bulk operations cut repetitive work when you manage large sets of audiences.

Filter by influence (multi-site accounts)

If you have a multi-site account, use the Influence filter to narrow the audience list to the sites an audience affects. This helps you find and manage the audiences tied to a given site.

To filter the list:

1. Open the Influence dropdown.
2. Select one or more options. Each site view appears as its own option—for example, Global, Bahrain Arabic, or Egypt English. Select Global to include audiences that influence all sites.
3. Select Select all to include every option at once.

The list updates to show only the audiences that match your selection.

What happens if I delete an audience?

Deleting an audience automatically disables any rules that target it.

If no rules target the audience you want to delete, you can delete it without affecting your site.

To check whether rules target an audience, look at the Rules affected column on the audience list page. If rules target the audience, a confirmation box opens when you click the audience name.

What is the scope of applying audiences?

You can apply target audiences to these entities in the dashboard:

• Search ranking rules.
• Search facets.
• Category ranking rules.
• Category facets.
• Redirects.
• Global search and category rules.
• Global facet rules.
• Campaigns from their respective sections.

How is a conflict resolved when a visitor belongs to more than one audience?

When different rules apply to a single query and the visitor belongs to more than one audience, a conflict can arise.

In these cases, the rules for the different audiences are merged first. When there's a direct conflict for a product, the most recently modified rule is applied to resolve the conflict.

For example, two geography-based rules overlap. One targets all of Eastern Canada (five provinces, including Ontario), and another targets only Ontario. For Eastern Canada, the query "bike" boosts products A and B. For Ontario, the same query boosts products C and D. A visitor from Ontario searching for "bike" sees products A, B, C, and D boosted.