Creating a segment

A segment is a cluster of visitors that share some identical traits, as defined by you. Visitors who match these segment criteria are the only ones who will see the campaign on your website.

Where to set up your segment

From the audience page, click on the CTA New segment. From here, you can:

• Create your segment from scratch
• Use a pre-built segment template from the Template gallery (you can also access this from the tab in the green header)

• From the Test or Personalization dashboards that list all your campaigns, you can click the edit icon to access the targeting section of each campaign. You can also access this targeting panel when configuring a campaign from scratch (it’s step 2 for personalizations or step 4 for tests).

How to set up your segment in the campaign flow?

Using the dropdown menu

Once you are in the context of creating a campaign, on the targeting section you will find a dedicated dropdown to configure your segment – it’s under the Who section. To display this dropdown, click on the field under Define the segment condition. Three options are possible: 

• All visitors – the native, pre-selected option
• A list of segments you have already created at the account level
• An option at the bottom to create a new segment

Using no segment – targeting the campaign to all visitors 

The first time you access the targeting section of your campaign, the All visitors option is selected by default in the Who section of the targeting panel. This means no specific segment is defined and the campaign will display for all your visitors.

Creating a new segment

To create a new segment, follow these steps:

1. Click Create new segment at the bottom of the drop-down menu 
2. The Segment builder opens:
   
   
   
   
3. From there, you will find a list of criteria categories that will help you define your audience. Click the chevron to access specific options for that category.
4. Drag and drop your criteria from the left panel list to the working area on the right.
5. Each criterion will present different specificities. Fill in the requested fields depending on the segment criteria you selected (see below for additional explanations on each criterion), and how you want to target your visitors.
6. With some criteria, you can add more conditions to your targeting by clicking Add conditions.
7. You can combine two or more criteria using AND or OR values found inside the segment builder’s middle column:
   1. • AND means your campaign will only be shown to a visitor if ALL of the selected segment criteria are met (more information in the section below)
      • OR means your campaign will be shown to a visitor if at least ONE of the selected segment criteria is met
8. Don’t forget to name your segment in the specific name field, found above the configuration space 😉.
   
   
   
9. Click Save to use the segment in your campaign and save it to your account library. It will now be reusable in other campaigns (see Using a saved segment, below).
10. Click Cancel to go back to the targeting page without saving. Note: this will erase your current configuration.

If you have created and saved a new segment, it will be automatically available in the dropdown and will complete your segment setup.

For more details on each criterion, please refer to our guide on segment criteria. 

Using a saved segment

If you want to use a segment that has already been configured, you can find it directly in the dropdown list, in the “saved segment” category:

Click any segment to select it for your campaign. Once selected, the segment setup is complete. You can then save your Targeting configuration by clicking Save on the bottom right.

Managing your saved segments

If you want to edit, duplicate or delete an existing segment, you can do this directly from the dropdown menu. These options are accessible by hovering over the segment you wish to change:  

• To edit an existing segment, click the pen icon to open the Segment builder, which is the interface to configure your segment. You can then modify the name of your segment or its configuration. Click Save at the bottom right of your screen to record your changes.
  

Heads up ⚡

If your segment is currently being used in a live campaign or is live in QA, you won’t be able to save any modifications. In this case, you’ll see a yellow disclaimer with the details of the campaigns that are using the segment and are currently live or live in QA. To make edits to this segment you should pause the ongoing campaigns or duplicate the segment to create a new one with the same configuration that you can freely edit.

• To delete an existing segment, you can click on the trash icon. A confirmation pop-in will ask you to confirm that you want to delete the selected segment. Click Delete to confirm or Cancel to return to the previous screen. 

• To duplicate an existing segment, click the duplicate icon. The selected segment will be duplicated and appear just under the selected one in your dropdown list. You can now edit the new segment and change its name and configuration.
  

Heads up ⚡

You can’t delete a segment that is already being used in a live campaign or is live in a QA campaign. You need to pause the campaigns that use this segment to be able to delete the segment from your account.

Good to know 💡

Segment targeting will apply to your whole A/B Test, meaning the original variation (V0) and all subsequent variations (V1, V2, and V3 for an A/B/C/D test, for example) will be targeted to the same audience defined by your segment configuration.

For example, if you create a campaign targeting your engaged visitors only, the A/B Test will be triggered only if AB Tasty recognizes the trait “engaged”, with a random chance for visitors to see the original, V1, V2, or V3.

Single-page Experiences vs. Multipage Experiences

Good to know 💡

• For A/B Tests, Simple Personalizations, and Patches, you’ll have to define one single segment for your campaign as these types of campaigns have only one “experience” (one type of new content generated with AB Tasty to display).
• For Multipage Tests, Multivariate Tests, Multipage Personalizations, and Multi-experience Personalizations, you’ll have to define a segment for each “experience”. This rule can be the same or different depending on your needs.
• For Multipage Tests and Personalizations, we call the experiences "Pages"
• For Multi-experience Personalizations, we call the experiences "Experiences"
• For Multivariate Tests, we call the experiences "Sub-tests"

⭐ Tips: 

• Use the same segment on Multipage Tests, Multipage Personalizations, and Multivariate Tests to ensure the continuity and visibility of all experiences during the visitors’ navigation.
• Use a different segment for every experience of your Multi-experience Personalization campaign, since the objective of this kind of campaign is to display different messages to different audience segments while preserving the rule of one visitor/one message, even for visitors who match several segments.

Always use the dropdown menu on the Targeting page to switch between experiences and set up segments for each one.

AB Tasty also offers a Replicate option that allows you to replicate the full targeting setup or one part of the targeting setup of any experience in another experience, or in all experiences. For more information, refer to this guide.

How the segment criteria work

You can build a new segment by clicking on the Create button at the bottom of the dropdown in the Segment section. Open the Segment builder and adjust the segment criteria. Discover our complete guide to segment criteria by visiting the Guide: Segments Criteria