Targets

19 min

A target is a saved, reusable audience in Personizely, such as "returning visitors from Instagram" or "Shopify customers tagged VIP". You build it once from filters (traffic source, location, device, cart, order history, past behavior and more) and then use it to decide who enters an A/B test, who gets a personalization variation, and who sees a widget. Editing a target updates every campaign and widget that uses it.

Available on: all platforms. Some filters are platform-specific or need an integration (see the filter index).

Where targets are used

Where	What the target decides	Set it in
A/B test (experiment)	Who can enter the test. Visitors who don't match see the original and aren't counted	Campaign editor: Specific target instead of All visitors
Personalization variation	Which variation a visitor gets. Each variation has its own target, and the first variation whose target matches wins	Campaign editor: the target of each variation
Widget Target rule	Whether the widget can show (or is hidden) when its trigger fires	Widget builder: Rules → Target. See Target rule

How often each of these re-checks the target is covered in How targeting works.

How a target is built

A target is one or more groups, and each group holds one or more filters.

Inside a group, you choose whether the visitor must match or don't match the filters, and, once the group has two or more filters, whether that applies to all or any of them.

Between groups, each group after the first starts with And or Or, which joins it to everything above it.

The first group reads "Include visitors who match all of the following filters". New groups start as match / all and are joined with And.

What each group setting means

Group setting	The group passes when
match + all	Every filter in the group is true
match + any	At least one filter is true
don't match + all	At least one filter is false (the visitor doesn't match all of them together)
don't match + any	No filter is true

To exclude everyone who matches a single condition, put that filter in its own don't match group. To exclude everyone who matches any of several conditions, use don't match + any.

Groups combine left to right, without precedence

Groups are evaluated in order, top to bottom, and each And or Or applies to the result of everything above it. There are no brackets and And doesn't bind tighter than Or, unlike in most programming languages.

A target with four groups joined as G1 Or G2 And G3 Or G4 is evaluated as:

((G1 OR G2) AND G3) OR G4

Example. You want "mobile visitors from Facebook or Instagram", and you set it up like this:

Group	Joined with	Filter
G1		UTM Parameters: source is facebook
G2	Or	UTM Parameters: source is instagram
G3	And	Device is one of mobile

This evaluates as (facebook OR instagram) AND mobile, which is what you want. Now add a fourth group to also include all visitors from Germany, joined with Or: ((facebook OR instagram) AND mobile) OR Germany. Every visitor from Germany matches, on any device, which is also what you want.

But if you put the Germany group first, Germany OR facebook OR instagram AND mobile evaluates as ((Germany OR facebook) OR instagram) AND mobile. Now German desktop visitors are excluded, because the And mobile at the end applies to everything above it.

When you mix And and Or, put the groups that must apply to everyone at the end with And, or move alternatives into a single group with any. A group with match any is the cleanest way to express "A or B or C".

Create a target

Go to Targets and click Create a target, or click Create target from a campaign or widget, which opens the same builder without leaving the editor.

Enter a Target name.

Click Add a filter and pick a filter. This creates the first group.

To add a filter to the same group, use Add a filter on that group. To start a new group, click Add group.

Set each group to match or don't match, choose all or any, and choose And or Or between groups.

Save, then select the target in your campaign or widget.

From the Targets list you can also Clone a target (to build a variation of it without affecting the original) and Delete it.

Option	What it does	Values / default
Target name	How the target appears in campaign and widget pickers	Text
Group policy	Include or exclude visitors who match the group's filters	match (default), don't match
Group operator	How the filters inside a group combine. Shown once the group has 2+ filters	all (default), any
Group join	How the group combines with everything above it	And (default for new groups), Or
Filters	The conditions themselves	See All filters

Plan gating and requirements

Most filters are available on every plan. These need a specific plan or setup:

Filter	Requirement
Page view history, Visit history, Goal history, Event history	Premium plan
Market	Premium plan, and Shopify with Markets
Weather	Premium plan and higher
Company	The Clearbit or Albacross integration
Customer	Shopify
Cart value, Cart size, Cart items, Order history	Shopify or Wix
Email platform lists, tags and forms	The matching email integration, connected and enabled

Filters your plan doesn't include are shown in the Add a filter menu marked Upgrade. Filters that need an integration appear only once it's connected.

All filters

Visitor lifecycle

Filter	Matches visitors by	Page
First visit	Whether this is their first visit (browser session), or when their first visit was	First visit filter
First page view	Whether this is their very first page view, or when it was	First page view filter
Last page view	When their previous page view was	Last page view filter
Page view history	How many pages they've viewed, optionally of a given page, total duration or period	Page view history filter
Visit history	How many visits (sessions) they've had	Visit history filter
Entry page	The first page they ever landed on	Entry page filter

Behavior

Filter	Matches visitors by	Page
Goal history	How many times they reached a goal	Goal history filter
Event history	How many times they performed a custom or commerce event	Event history filter
Widget history	How many times they viewed, clicked or submitted a widget	Widget history filter

Traffic source

Filter	Matches visitors by	Page
UTM Parameters	Their remembered utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term and utm_content	UTM parameters filter
Query String	A remembered URL parameter, such as ref or gclid	Query string filter
Referrer	The first external site that sent them to you	Referrer filter

Technology

Filter	Matches visitors by	Page
Device	Desktop, mobile, tablet and other device types	Device filter
Os	Operating system	OS filter
Browser	Browser	Browser filter
Locale	Browser language	Locale filter

Context

Filter	Matches visitors by	Page
Location	Continent, country, region, city or postal code	Location filter
Weather	Current weather at their location	Weather filter
Visitor's time	The hour on their device	Visitor's time filter

Page and site data

Filter	Matches visitors by	Page
Selector	The content of an element on the page	Selector filter
Cookie	The value of a cookie	Cookie filter
Data	Values your site passes with ply.setData, window.plyData or parsers	Website data filter

Commerce

Filter	Matches visitors by	Page
Cart value	Cart total	Cart value filter
Cart size	Number of items or distinct products in the cart	Cart size filter
Cart items	Specific products in the cart	Cart items filter
Market	Shopify Market	Market filter (Shopify Markets)
Customer	Shopify customer account and tags	Customer filter (Shopify)
Order history	Number of orders, order value, items or tags	Order history filter

Visitor data and B2B

Filter	Matches visitors by	Page
Visitor fields	Profile fields such as email, name, consents and Custom fields	Visitor fields filter
Company	Firmographics: company name, domain, country, size, revenue, industry	Company filter (B2B targeting)

Email platforms

Filter	Matches visitors by	Page
Mailchimp List, Brevo List, Campaign Monitor List, Active Campaign List, GetResponse List, AWeber List, iContact List, MailerLite List, SendPulse List	Whether they're subscribed to lists	Email list and tag filters
Active Campaign Tag, ConvertKit Tag	Whether they have tags	Email list and tag filters
ConvertKit Form	Whether they're subscribed to forms	Email list and tag filters
Ometria List	Whether they're in lists	Email list and tag filters

Behavior details and limitations

An empty target matches everyone. A target with no groups doesn't restrict anything.

Editing a target affects every campaign and widget that uses it, immediately after you save. Clone the target first if you only want to change one campaign's audience.

Targets in use can't be deleted. If a widget or campaign uses the target, you can't delete it. Remove it from those widgets and campaigns first.

Text comparisons are case-sensitive and exact. "is Facebook" doesn't match facebook. There are no wildcards or regular expressions in text filters; use contains for partial matches.

Missing values count as empty. A UTM parameter, cookie, query parameter or element that doesn't exist has an empty value, so is empty, is not and does not contain are true for it.

"At least" includes the number, "less than" doesn't. "At least 3 pages" is 3 or more; "less than 3 pages" is 0, 1 or 2.

Traffic-source filters remember earlier visits. UTM Parameters, Query String, Referrer and Entry page are read from what Personizely has stored for the visitor, not only from the current URL. See How targeting works.

One browser, one visitor. Targets see the visitor in the current browser. A shopper on a new device or after clearing site data is a new visitor until they're Identifying visitors. See Visitor identity, sessions and storage.

Some filters take a moment. Filters that need visitor history, location or order data may take a moment to resolve; content that depends on them stays hidden until they do.

Examples

Returning visitors: one group, don't match "First visit is now".

High-value mobile carts: one group, match all: Device is one of mobile, Cart value at least 100.

Everyone except customers: one group, don't match any: Order history at least 1 order, Goal history reached Purchase at least 1 time.

More complete setups are in Targeting recipes.

Troubleshooting

Target matches more visitors than expected → an Or group near the end is combining with everything above it. Rewrite the target so alternatives sit in one match any group, or move the Or groups to the top.

Target never matches → a filter compares text with different capitalization, a plan-gated or integration filter isn't available on your account, or a don't match + all group was meant to be don't match + any.

Target matches on the landing page but not later → you used the widget Query string rule, which reads only the current URL. The Query String filter in a target remembers the value.