Merchandising audiences with multiple dimensions

You can define two general types of audiences for targeted marketing and merchandising: audiences with one dimension, and audiences with multiple dimensions. Think of dimensions as attributes or characteristics.

Single-value audiences

A single-value audience is a subset of your visitors with one dimension in common. You select just one dimension, like a device type. Other examples:

• People with birthdays in June.
• People who want to pick up an item in your physical store.
• People who live in Zurich.
• People who visited your site earlier this month.
• People who arrived from a specific site.

This list isn't exhaustive; you might have other requirements.

These examples are simple to implement. Select one dimension, save the audience, and target your latest email campaign or other marketing effort.

Multi-value audiences

Sometimes you need an audience with more than one attribute in common. To define one, think in terms of OR and AND. If you've ever searched for a dress that's red and black, or shoes that are either boots or sandals, you already understand the idea.

Start with AND

Fashion Forward is a retail site that sells apparel and accessories. Here are some recent visitors.

Rahul is a digital merchandiser and web administrator for Fashion Forward. He wants to show a banner promoting the company's appearance at a convention in San Francisco to mobile users. He wants to target only people who share characteristics like Molly's.

These characteristics are called dimensions. Rahul defines the audience with these values:

• Location: United States
• Device: Mobile

Rahul's definition includes only mobile users from the United States. When he targets his banner at this audience, Molly sees it. Frank, Danielle, and Devon don't. Every targeted member must share both dimensions: they must be from the United States AND use a mobile device.

Continue with OR

Rahul's definition is a little too narrow. The convention also attracts people from Canada, so he expands the audience to reach more potential attendees. He adds Canada using the OR operator.

• Location: United States, Canada

Multiple values of one dimension work differently from multiple dimensions with single values. By assigning two values to the location dimension, Rahul defined the audience as people who live in the United States OR Canada. Now all visitors from both countries can see the banner. Molly, Frank, and Danielle see it. Devon, who lives in Wales, doesn't.

Work with both OR and AND

Rahul realizes the convention is focused on mobile users. He decides to show a different banner to this audience:

• Location: United States, Canada
• Device: Mobile

Now his definition mixes OR and AND. The banner is only for mobile users, AND those users must live in the United States OR Canada. Frank and Devon don't see the banner, but Molly and Danielle do.