In this guide, you will find details on every segment criteria available inside AB Tasty, for you to properly configure your audience. Those are available inside the targeting section of every campaign creation flow of your account, for you to target the right audience.
The criteria are organized by type of segment criteria in dedicated categories. You can use the arrows to open or close these categories in the segment builder or use the search on the top to easily find the criteria you need. To start configuring a segment, you can drag and drop a criteria inside the segment builder’ middle column.
This article will allow you to discover every criteria, by digging deep into each criteria's specificities and configuration possibilities. Let’s start! 👇
Category Behavior
Engagement Level Criteria
Engagement Level is a segmentation criteria that enables you to restrict the visibility of a campaign to visitors, based on their engagement on your website.
This criteria is based on data we collect on our client’s website. We associate each VisitorID with their actions on the website and their main touchpoints to segment them when they return.
Heads up ⚡
The categorization will happen during the second visit and will last 7 months. That means that during their first visit, a visitor will not be affected to any of the engagement level categories. You will find below the list of data we use to dispatch your visitors in our four levels:
Criteria |
Explanation |
visitNumber |
Number of sessions performed by the user |
highest amount of time on site in one session |
The highest amount of time spent by the user during his last session
|
average time on site per session |
Average amount of time spent by the user during his last sessions For example, if the user had four sessions of 4 minutes, 2 minutes, 15 minutes, and 3 minutes each, the value of this metric will be 7. Another user that would have had three sessions of 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 8 minutes each would have the same average of 7, but not the same highest time. |
highest number of page views in a session |
The highest number of pages viewed by the user during his last sessions For example, if the user had three sessions of 4 page views, 2 page views, and 15 page views each, the value of this metric will be 15. |
average page views per session |
The average number of pages viewed by the user during his last sessions For example, if the user had four sessions of 4 page views, 2 page views, 15 page views, and 3 page views each, the value of this metric will be 7. Another user who would have had 3 sessions of 5 page views, 7 page views, and 8 page views each would have the same average of 7, but not the same highest number of page views. |
ratio of bounces of the user |
Percentage of sessions of the user that bounce |
count of transactions made by the user |
Number of transactions made during the user’s last sessions For instance, if the user had three sessions: 2 sessions with no purchase and 1 with one purchase, the count of transactions will be 1. This feature is useful to spot loyal visitors who tend to have a low transaction ratio because they often visit the website without buying. But in the end, they are still buying a lot more than other visitors. |
ratio of transactions |
Number of sessions with one or more purchases divided by the total number of sessions |
average number of hits by session |
The average number of hits recorded during the visitor’s last sessions |
Configuration
AB Tasty creates four categories based on the criteria listed above, that you can choose inside the segment builder.
Segment name |
Description |
Disengaged |
Visitors who have either bounced or have very small interactions on your website. Bouncing visitors are visitors who enter a website and then leave (“bounce”) without visiting any other page within the same website. It is the lowest level. |
Wanderers |
Visitors who are mildly engaged on your website but do not convert or transact. |
Valuable |
Visitors who are engaged and have converted at least once compared to the overall traffic of the website. |
Loyal |
Most engaged and highest converting visitors compared to the overall traffic of the website. This is the highest level. |
Good to Know 💡
The category the visitor has been assigned to is not definitive. It will change over time, depending on his actions on the website. At the time of the visit, the category affectation will not change, but it will be updated after the next visit.
Engagement-level AI clustering
The engagement level segmentation uses a Machine Learning (ML) process to organize visitors into segments: Disengaged, Wanderer, Valuable and Loyal. The criteria to start using the engagement level segmentation is to have at least two buying cycles of historical data, but the more data you have available to train the AI cluster model, and the more diverse and representative that data is, the more mature and accurate the model is likely to be.
The training part of the service builds the AI cluster model based on historical data from the past 190 days and updates the model every 28 days. If you have more than 190 days of historical data available, the AI cluster model should be mature enough to be accurate and will continue to improve with each update. For businesses with short buying cycles, like fast fashion, it should take less time to reach that level of maturity. However, it is also important to ensure that the data are of high quality and relevant.
The serving part of this ML puts visitors into one of the four segments, it is scheduled to run daily on visitors that have recent sessions.
It is difficult to give a specific timeline for how long it will take for an AI cluster model to mature, as this can depend on a variety of factors, including the quality of the data being used to train the model and the type of business and length of the typical buying cycle.
Use Case
These built-in models help you increase the engagement level of your visitors by pushing messages or promotions through personalization campaigns, for example. Each category can match a specific use case:
- Disengaged: you can limit the number of bounces by creating a retention modal with a special offer, targeted toward this specific segment
- Wanderers: you can boost their engagement by creating a feeling of urgency and drawing their attention to the products’ low stock level
- Valuable: you can activate special offers to encourage another purchase on the website
- Loyal: take care of this precious cluster by offering to recognize their loyalty with a specific welcoming message
For inspirational content, learn more about our engagement level segmentation.
EmotionsAI criteria
EmotionAI criteria is a segmentation criteria based on the EmotionAI functionality. Creating segments based on EmotionAI enables you to segment your visitors depending on their emotional needs.
This criteria is based on data we collect on our client’s website.
Need | Explanation | Predictive Pattern |
❤️ Hedonic needs (Emotionals) |
||
Competition | Feel the thrill of competition, get or be the best | Alternance between low & quick mouse movements |
Attention | Feel that everything is done to satisfy them | High speed moves with a lot of seen content but low click rate |
Safety | Feel secure and in control of the environment | Mouse movement from left to right with low scroll rate |
Comfort | Feel a pleasant environment, without disturbance or foreseeable effort | Slow moves all over the screen, with many clicks |
Community | Feel a strong connection with the people we care about and with our environment | They use far less Apple devices than other users |
🧠 Pragmatic needs (Rationals) |
||
Immediacy | Be constantly stimulated by proposals for actions to be taken | Main click zone on top-left of screen (1st CTA seen is clicked) |
Notoriety | Low-risk choices, which have already been validated by a large number of people | Alternance between small moves and pauses |
Understanding | Get factual and structured information to make decisions | Long pause before any click |
Change | Discover new products and concepts, get out of the routine | Great variety of plugins & languages installed on the browser, |
Quality | Get qualitative information to make decisions | Small and slow mouse movements |
Configuration
You can create segments based on one EmotionsAI need that you can include (ex: “visitors who need attention”) or exclude (ex: “visitors who don’t need attention”). You can also mix and match several criteria (ex: “visitors who need attention or understanding”).
The only operator available is the “OR” operator because the 10 different traits are mutually exclusive. For example, if a visitor needs “attention”, he can’t cumulate another need and he will keep this trait until he switches from a browser to another, or his cookies are cleared.
Use Case
With EmotionsAI, 60% of A/B tests demonstrate a significant business impact on at least one type of visitor, resulting in x2 on CRO business impact.
Each emotional need can match a specific use case. For example:
- Need of competition: you can create a banner on customer satisfaction or add a banner review to help the visitor compare the product with its competitors
- Need of understanding: you can help the customer to better understand a product by creating more content on your product pages or by displaying hidden content (which generally requires a click)
- Need of immediacy: sticking a call to action at the bottom of the page can help visitors make a decision by constantly showing them the main action to take
- Need of Safety: the stronger presence of reassurance icons can help in improving the conversion rate
Category Geographic
Geolocation criteria
The Geolocation criteria is both a segmentation and a triggering criteria.
It allows you to create a segment to restrict the visibility of a campaign to visitors, based on their geographical location regarding the detected IP address.
Configuration
The configuration of the Geolocation criteria is the same for segments and triggers. To use this criteria, drag and drop the Action tracking label inside the middle column of the segment builder.
You will have to choose from the following operators to configure your segment, which will determine the operation behind the value you will declare:
- is: to include the location. If you include a specific location, all the other locations will automatically be excluded from the targeting.
- is not: to exclude the location. If you exclude a specific location, all the other locations will automatically be included in the targeting.
You can select the country from the second drop-down list. You can also refine criteria by selecting a specific region, sub-region, and city (depending on the country you are targeting). You can save your configuration at every step depending on your specific needs (at a country/region/sub-region/city level).
Let’s take an example. To target a country except for a specific zone, you need to:
- include the country within a first condition,
-
exclude the desired zone from the targeting within a second condition.
For example, if you want to target your visitors located in the US except those located in New York City, select is not > United States of America > New York (region) > New York (city). This way, all countries will be included in the targeting, including people located outside of New York City.
Good to Know 💡
If you want to include France and exclude Belgium, you do not need to configure the exclusion in the targeting of your campaign. Just declaring is > France will limit the targeting to visitors located in France only.
Use Case
You need to display a popup on your website to inform users located in Florida that there is a physical store in Miami. You need to create a personalization campaign for users located in this specific area.
- Create a personalization campaign.
- Open the segment builder.
- Drag and drop the Geolocation criteria.
- Select United States of America > Florida in the segment of your campaign.
- Continue with the editing before launching it 🚀
Category User Preferences
Content Interest
The Content interest segment criteria enables you to restrict the visibility of a campaign to visitors, based on their interest in certain products or services featured on your website. The more pages your users visit, the more likely they are to be identified as being attracted to a type of product or service.
AB Tasty uses NLP (Natural Language Processing) and keyword matching to capture visitor browsing interests, based on visited pages and many other metrics. The service is based on page titles and recognized keywords within this element. It is imperative to verify that your page titles are well-configured and represent your product categories and pages before relying entirely on these criteria.
Good to Know 💡
Content Interest is compatible with all languages having spaces between words.
How Is the “Interest” Calculated?
The interest is calculated from a page title keyword’s number of occurrences we find during the visitor’s navigation. Every day, we calculate how many keyword occurrences we can find for each visitor-specific navigation. From that, we determine interest by taking for each keyword the top 20 percentile. The algorithm is fine-tuned for each customer with an AI service to make sure you get the right fit!
Once we have calculated the minimum number of views that are required to be “interested”, we calculate the share of visitors who reached this minimum threshold to be considered interested in a specific keyword.
Let’s take an example. Imagine the word “pantaloon”. We will count the number of views (in the page title) for this word:
visitor_1: 0
visitor_2: 1
visitor_3: 1
visitor_4: 1
visitor_5: 2
visitor_6: 2
visitor_7: 2
visitor_8: 3
visitor_9: 3
visitor_10: 4
Statistically, the top 20 percentile in that example is 3. We will now consider that a visitor needs to see the word 3 times in his navigation to be considered interested. Finally, we will be able to calculate the audience by taking all the visitors who have reached this number of views.
Which Keywords Are Selected?
We train algorithms and use natural language processing to detect the most valuable keywords within the page titles. Our service detects in priority what we call “items” (products, brands, services, etc.). It, then, performs a second treatment to identify the “attributes” (colors, adjectives, etc.). We developed this service to remove keywords that do not match a specific interest of your business.
Configuration
To use this criteria inside the targeting, drag and drop the Content Interest label inside the middle column of the segment builder. Once it is done, apply the following steps to start discovering which kind of interests (called “keywords”) we suggest you use in your experimentation strategy:
- Select a period from the first drop-down list:
- Over the past week (selected by default) or
- Over the past two weeks.
- Click See results to view the keyword results we have compiled for your website
- A table is then displayed with every result AB Tasty suggests you create new audiences on
- Each keyword can be associated with 4 main KPIs:
- Traffic share
- Number of views
- Transaction rate of the audience interested by each keyword (that reflects a specific interest on your website)
- Number of transactions of this audience
- Select one or more keywords by selecting the radio button on the left of each keyword
To be able to display metrics associated with the content interest, you need to integrate what we call the product hits. It is a specific integration that you can proceed with, that helps us receive from you a precise number of product views, and associate those views with transactions on the same product references (through the matching of a product name or SKU, with data from our transaction tag collection).
These data will help you decide which audience to target according to your business objectives.
Good to Know 💡
When you select multiple keywords inside the same segment to create an audience gathering multiple types of interested visitors, data displayed within the selection zone still correspond to one specific keyword. Indeed, the metrics do not add up because some visitors could belong to several groups of interest.
Let’s review a basic example:
A keyword X has a traffic share of 5%
A keyword Y has a traffic share of 3%
→ The audience created with the keywords X + Y will not necessarily represent a traffic share of 8%
We advise you to be careful with the interpretation of those data 😇
Use Case
Below are some examples of configurations to get some inspiration. As it focuses mainly on categories and product-related keywords, you can imagine all kinds of product recommendations, discounts, and displays according to the keywords you choose in your targeting.
TARGETING GOAL |
Visitors interested in Booties or Boots. |
CRITERIA CONFIGURATION |
Over the: Past 2 weeks The visitor is interested in: Booties or Boots |
MARKETING STRATEGY |
Display a 20% off coupon code for boots or booties |
TARGETING GOAL |
Visitors interested in trips to Spain. |
CRITERIA CONFIGURATION |
Over the: Past week The visitor is interested in: Spain |
MARKETING STRATEGY |
Display a modal to download the brochure related to the destination of interest |
TARGETING GOAL |
Visitors interested in Bikes. |
CRITERIA CONFIGURATION |
Over the: Past week The visitor is interested in: Bikes At least: 3 times |
MARKETING STRATEGY |
Display a “You may also like” section with bicycle-related products such as wheels, inner tubes, seats, and so on |
How Does It Work?
Within the tag, we created an object called ABTastyData, that contains information about your visitors’ journey. Inside this object, we store data related to visited pages in a location called VisitedPages. This is performed every time a user loads a new page. The following information is stored:
- Current page URL
- Current page title
- Current session number (from the ns variable of the ABTasty cookie)
- Current timestamp
For the content interest calculation, our data services are using this page title information stored in our global object. As mentioned above, AB Tasty then calculates some data associated with each keyword to offer you this service. It can also be enriched by product hit integration.
Page Interest criteria
The Page Interest criteria enables you to create a segment of visitors who are particularly interested in one page (or group of pages).
Configuration
To use this criteria, drag and drop the Page interest label inside the middle column of the segment builder. To configure it, you will have to follow the steps below:
- Define the timeframe in which ABT will check how many times your specific URL(s) has been viewed. From the dropdown list, choose between:
- Past 2 weeks
- Past month
- Past year
- Last session - Specify the minimum number of times the URL(s) has been viewed. To do so, select or enter a number in the corresponding field.
- Declare one or several URLs by selecting the URL operator from the dropdown list and entering the corresponding string (an entire URL, a regex, a part of a URL, and so on, depending on the selected operator).
To add several URLs, click Add condition:
-
- When including two or more URLs (is, is exactly, contains, is a regular expression, is saved Page), the SOME operator is applied, meaning that at least one condition needs to be met.
- When excluding two or more URLs (is not, is not exactly, does not contain, is not a regular expression, is not saved Page), the ALL operator is applied, meaning that all conditions need to be met.
- When including at least one URL and excluding at least one URL, the ALL operator is applied, meaning that all conditions need to be met.
For further information, refer to Configuring several conditions with ALL and SOME operators section.
Good to Know 💡
It works the same way as in the Where section.
Use Case
Let’s say you want to display a coupon code on the Basket page for visitors who seem interested in recipes. This would trigger only for visitors who have seen five pages containing /recipe/ in the URL during their session(s) for the past month. To do so:
- Choose the Page interest segment criteria in the Who section of the targeting step of your campaign.
- From the first dropdown list, select Past month.
- In the input field, enter the number of times the URL has been seen (in this case, enter 5).
- Add in the field the common URL element for your recipe page, for instance, choose the contains operator, then add the /recipe/ value in the Value field
- In the Where section, select the is operator and enter the URL corresponding to the Basket page.
How Does It Work?
Within the tag, we created an object called ABTastyData, that contains information about your visitors’ journey. Inside this object, we store visited pages’ data in a location called VisitedPages. This is performed every time a user loads a new page. The following information is stored:
- Current page URL
- Current page title
- Current session number (from the “ns” variable of the ABTasty cookie)
- Current timestamp
For the content interest calculation, our targeting service is using this URL information stored in our global object to perform the page interest targeting.
Category Purchase
Abandoned Cart criteria
The Abandoned Cart criteria is a segmentation criteria. It allows you to create a segment to restrict the visibility of a campaign to visitors who initiate a card without validating it during the previous session. This criteria is derived from the transaction tag and specific hits integration, which enables AB Tasty to pinpoint the audience.
Configuration
To configure the Last purchase criteria, you have to begin by selecting one value from the first drop-down list: has or has not, depending on which visitor you want to target. You have two options :
- the ones who abandoned their cart during the previous session,
- the ones who did not abandon their cart during the previous session, which means visitors who did not engage a cart previously on your website.
Additionally, you can refine the abandoned cart targeting by adding advanced conditions (by clicking the Add condition CTA), which will help you define the audience more precisely.
You have two options here:
- Number of products
- Total cart amount
Use Case
In this example, your campaign will be displayed for visitors who initiated a cart greater than
300€ during their previous session. To reassure your visitors about ordering from your website, you may want to highlight your fidelity/return policies better on your website when they return.
Last Purchase criteria
The Purchase frequency targeting criteria enables you to create a segment of visitors who made their latest purchase within a defined period.
The Last Purchase criteria is based on the transaction tag, which enables you to base your targeting on specific information on the buying patterns of users.
Configuration
To configure the Last Purchase criteria, follow the steps below:
- Select the type of interval from the first drop-down list: within, beyond, or between.
- In the Day(s) field, manually enter the value(s) depending on the chosen interval.
Good to Know 💡
For data privacy reasons, you cannot target visitors who made their last purchase over 30 days ago.
You can also refine targeting by adding advanced criteria, thus defining the last purchase based on every transaction tag parameter if integrated:
- payment method;
- delivery method;
- SKU code of the product;
- product category;
- transaction amount;
- coupon used
Use Case
In this example, your campaign will be displayed for visitors who already have made a payment, through Paypal, on a specific product category, within 30 days.
All the values that need to be filled in are your website’s variables. You have to enter the exact character string: Paypal, click and collect, etc., and match spaces and special characters.
However, you do not need to match lowercase and uppercase letters. For example, Paypal and paypal will both work. You do not need to specify the currency. You need to enter the amount in your website’s currency.
How Does It Work?
Within the tag, we created an object called ABTastyData that contains information about your visitors’ journey. Inside this object, we store transactional data in locations called transaction and items. This is performed when you integrate the transaction tag on your website. With that integration, the generic tag receives hits from the transactional tag when your visitor validates a transaction.
Purchase Frequency criteria
The Purchase Frequency targeting criteria enables you to create a segment of visitors based on the frequency of the purchases they made within a defined period.
The Purchase Frequency criteria is based on the transaction tag, which enables you to collect specific information on the buying patterns of your users.
Configuration
To configure the Purchase Frequency criteria, apply the following steps:
- Select the type of interval from the first dropdown list: more than or less than.
- In the Time(s) field, manually enter the number of desired purchases.
- Select the type of interval from the first dropdown list: within, beyond, or between.
- In the Day(s) field, manually enter the value(s) depending on the chosen interval.
Good to Know 💡
For data privacy reasons, you cannot target visitors who made their last purchase over 30 days ago.
You can also refine targeting by adding advanced criteria based on your transaction tag parameters (which depend on your specific integration), thus defining the last purchase on:
- payment method;
- delivery method;
- SKU code of the product;
- product category;
- transaction amount;
- coupon used.
Use Case
In this example, your campaign will be displayed for visitors who have already made more than two orders on your website, through Paypal within 20 days.
All the values that need to be filled in are your website’s variables. You have to enter the exact string and match spaces and special characters. However, you do not need to match lowercase and uppercase letters. For example, Paypal and paypal will both work. You do not need to specify the currency. You need to enter the amount in your website’s currency.
How Does It Work?
Within the tag, we created an object called ABTastyData, that contains information about your visitors’ journey. Inside this object, we store transactional data in locations called transaction and items. This is performed when you integrate the transaction tag on your website. With that integration, the generic tag receives hits from the transactional tag when your visitor validates a transaction.
Category Technology
Device Criteria
The Device criteria is both a segmentation criteria and a triggering criteria.
It allows you to create a segment to restrict the visibility of a campaign to visitors based on the device they use during their visit.
Configuration
When you are using this criteria, you need to choose between two operators :
- Is: will include the selected value
- Is not: will not include the selected value
Then, select the device you want to include or exclude (according to your previous selection) in the second dropdown list:
- On mobile: user using their mobile device when visiting your website
- On tablet: user using their tablet device when visiting your website
- On desktop: user using their desktop when visiting your website
To include two devices, you need to exclude the third one. For example, if you want to target users on mobile and tablet, you need to exclude desktop visitors. On the contrary, if you want to exclude two devices, you need to include the third one.
In this example, mobile visitors are included. Therefore, desktop and tablet visitors are excluded from the targeting.
Good to Know 💡
Visitors browsing on tablets using Safari are recognized as desktop visitors. In this case, we recommend adding a Screen size criteria to include or exclude these visitors.
Use Case
You want to display a message encouraging users of your mobile website to download the mobile application instead to have a better experience. In this case, you need to display the campaign to mobile users only. To do so, select is > on mobile in the segment of your campaign.
For further information, refer to Device trigger.
Cookie Criteria
The Cookie criteria enables you to segment your audience based on the presence (or absence) of a specific cookie in the visitor’s browser and an associated value.
Configuration
You can experiment with the presence of the cookie (use the is operator) or its absence (is not operator).
You can also add another condition by clicking Add condition below the criteria field. This action adds a condition line into the same section and allows you to add another cookie condition to your targeting. In this case, you will have to choose which operators to perform for your targeting between some and all. Each time a new value is expected, you need to add a new condition (even if it is based on the same cookie).
Use Case
The standard use case consists in creating an audience segment based on the presence of a CRM cookie.
Let’s say you want to create a “VIP” segment in AB Tasty to create personalized messages for this visitor category on your website.
Your CRM pushes a cookie called RFM_segment for all web users, with different values:
- user_0 for a prospect;
- user_1 for a one-time buyer;
- user_2 for a returning buyer;
- user_3 for a very frequent buyer.
In the AB Tasty segment builder, go to the Browsing behavior category and drag and drop the cookie criteria into the segment creation section on the right-hand side.
Then select the has the cookie option and enter the user_3 value, without double quotes.
Good to Know 💡
The cookie value field works like a regex operator: you can enter a specific character string (such as “user 3”) or a part of it (“3”). However, if another user category bears the “user_33” cookie, the latter will also be included in the segment.
For more precise targeting, particularly if you want to target a more complex cookie value (beginning with a specific sequence or matching a given structure), you can use a regex, directly in the same field. For further information, refer to Using regular expressions explanations in the "where" chapter of our targeting guide
How Does It Work?
In a campaign using the Cookie criteria, AB Tasty parses the cookie storage to find the right value declared in the campaign configuration. To find the right value, please refer to the "name" of the cookie for the tag.
Category Navigation
New/Returning Visitors Criteria
New/Returning Visitor is a segmentation criteria that enables you to create a segment to restrict the visibility of a campaign to visitors whether they are new visitors or returning ones.
Configuration
AB Tasty creates two categories based on the number of visits a user makes, which you can choose inside the segment builder:
- New visitors
- Returning visitors
Use Case
Using the New visitor value, you can deliver a welcoming message (modal, banner, etc.) that will only be seen by first-time visitors.
How Does It Work?
The information comes from a specific ABTasty cookie. AB Tasty sets a value for each visitor in a specific variable (key is = ns for the number of sessions). This variable is incremented each time a visitor is initiating a session when the session’s first page loads. A new visitor is a visitor with an ns value of 1.
Campaign Exposure Criteria
The Campaign Exposure criteria enables you to create segments based on visitors' exposure to a previous test or personalization campaign already implemented within AB Tasty.
Configuration
To use this criteria, drag and drop the campaign exposure label inside the middle column of the segment builder. You will have to choose from the following operators to configure your segment:
- has seen the declared campaign
- has not seen the declared campaign
You will then have to choose which type of campaign you are interested in configuring between:
- test/experimentation campaign
- personalization campaign
Regarding the type of campaign, AB Tasty will show you the list of all campaigns created on your account to choose from, to define your segment.
For instance, you can create a segment of visitors who already saw a specific message from one of your previous AB Tasty campaigns. This can occur during the active session or a previous one.
To do this, select the type of campaign (test or personalization) you want to target in the first dropdown, then choose the name of the campaign and the scenario (in the case of a personalization) or the variation (in the case of a test) in which the message was configured.
You can select one campaign per line. To add another campaign, you can click Add condition and choose the condition to be added, from the dropdown. In this case, you will need to choose the operators you would like to use for your targeting.
Use Case
During a previous campaign, you displayed a message to users who were redirected from a special discount newsletter sent to VIP members. Now you want to create an audience segment made up of these users who saw the modal (and are therefore VIP members). Used in combination with a geolocalisation criteria (Region = Paris, for example), you will be able to create a segment of Parisian VIP users, to be targeted during an upcoming campaign for an event taking place in Paris.
How Does It Work?
The information comes from a specific ABTasty cookie. AB Tasty sets a value for each visitor in a specific variable (key is = th for “test history”). This variable is incremented each time a visitor is eligible for a campaign set in your account (please find the technical documentation here). In the case of master targeting, we use the child information to match the cookie value.
Number of Sessions Criteria
The Number of sessions criteria enables you to create an audience segment based on your users’ number of visits/sessions.
Good to Know 💡
A session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity.
Configuration
To use this criteria, drag and drop the Number of sessions label inside the middle column of the segment builder. You will have to choose from the following operators to configure your segment, which will determine the operation behind the value you will declare:
- is greater than means you need to have made at least as many visits as the defined value (= at least) or more. In this case, a total of 4 visits is enough to be included in the segment.
- is lower than means you need to have made strictly fewer visits than the defined value (= less than).
You will then have to declare the appropriate value in the last field.
Let’s say a user visited your website three times this month. If you have created a segment based on a number of sessions greater than 3, they will not be included in this segment. However, when they visit for the fourth time, they will be included in this segment.
This segmentation criteria is based on the AB Tasty cookie, which collects and treats the navigation data.
Use Case
Basing yourself on the number of visits enables you to create segments related to your website’s traffic intensity. You can combine this criteria with others such as Purchase Frequency, for instance:
- Choose Number of sessions greater than 5
- Then Purchase frequency equals 0
Using this technique, you will target a segment of your visitor who is "very interested, but hesitant".
How Does It Work?
The information comes from a specific ABTasty cookie. AB Tasty sets a value for each visitor in a specific variable (key is = ns for the number of sessions). This variable is incremented each time a visitor is initiating a session when the session’s first page loads.
Days Since Last Session criteria
The Days Since Last Session criteria enables you to create an audience segment based on the date and number of days since your visitors’ last visit (or session).
Configuration
To use this criteria, drag and drop the Days Since Last Session label inside the middle column of the segment builder. You will have to choose from the following operators to configure your segment, which will determine the operation behind the value you will declare:
- is equal or greater than: will include the submitted value as long as every other superior values
- is equal or lower than: will include the submitted value as long as every other inferior values
Then enter the required value inside the number field.
Let’s say a user visited your website 25 days ago and has not returned. If you have created a segment based on the Days Since Last Session criteria with the value 31, the user will join your segment precisely four days after its creation, as soon as he returns to your website.
Good to Know 💡
A session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity.
This segmentation criteria is based on the ABTasty cookie, which collects and treats the navigation data.
Use Case
Basing yourself on the Days Since Last Session criteria could enable you to create an audience segment targeting all users who have not been returning for a long time to your website (this notion being specific to each business) to push a “Welcome back Message”. Used in combination with the Number of sessions criteria, it would enable you to create a segment of formerly very active visitors (recurring high visits) who have not been returning to your website for a while.
How Does It Work?
The information comes from a specific ABTasty cookie. AB Tasty sets a value for each visitor in a specific variable (key is = pst for “previous session timestamp”). When the visitor lands on your website, we save the current timestamp to register this information. We are then able to perform a calculation to know the time elapsed from this previous landing to the time when a visitor is requesting a specific campaign to know if they are eligible.
Days Since First Session criteria
The Days Since Last Session criteria enables you to create an audience segment based on the date of your visitors’ last visit (or session).
Configuration
To use this criteria, drag and drop the Number of sessions label inside the middle column of the segment builder. You will have to choose from the following operators to configure your segment, which will determine the operation behind the value you will declare:
- is equal or greater than: will include the submitted value as long as every other superior values
- is equal or lower than: will include the submitted value as long as every other inferior values
Then indicate the required value inside the number field.
Let’s assume a user made his first visit five days ago. If you have created a segment based on the Days Since First Session criteria with the value 7 and with the operator is equal or greater than, the user will join your segment precisely two days after its creation, as soon as he returns to your website.
Good to Know 💡
A session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity.
This segmentation criteria is based on the ABTasty cookie, which collects and treats the navigation data.
Use Case
Basing yourself on the Days Since First Session criteria could enable you to create an audience segment targeting all former users. Imagine that a massive partnership email campaign has attracted new visitors to the website for the first time. If you would like to send a message with a promo code to returning users, you can use this criteria while excluding visitors whose first session took place less than 60 days ago.
How Does It Work?
The information comes from a specific ABTasty cookie. AB Tasty sets a value for each visitor in a specific variable (key is = fst for “first session timestamp”). When the visitor first lands on your website, we save the current timestamp to register this information. We are then able to perform a calculation to know the time elapsed from this first landing to the time when a visitor is requesting a specific campaign.
Action Tracking criteria
The Action Tracking criteria enables you to create a segment of visitors who have (or have not) all clicked a specific item during visits made over the last 13 months.
Configuration
To use this criteria, drag and drop the Action tracking label inside the middle column of the segment builder. You will have to choose from the following operators to configure your segment, which will determine the operation behind the value you will declare:
- is: will include visitors who match the declared value. Here we are referring to users who interacted with a specific element during their navigation.
- is not: will exclude visitors who do not match the declared value. Here we are referring to users who did not interact with a specific element during their navigation.
Then enter the required value inside the number field.
You can select one action tracking per line. To add another action tracker, you can click Add condition and choose the action to be added from the dropdown. Then, you will have to choose which operators to perform for your targeting.
Use Case
On certain websites, to join a loyalty program or confirm a newsletter subscription, visitors are asked to click a Confirm button on a specific page. You can then choose this click tracking to create a new “subscriber” or “VIP member” segment based on those confirmation actions.
How Does It Work?
Within the tag, we created an object called ABTastyData, that contains information about your visitors’ journey. Once you have configured an Action tracking criteria in your AB Tasty account, we store it inside this object. You can refer to the technical documentation to have more information.
Visitor Attributes Criteria
The Visitor Attributes criteria enables you to create an audience segment based on a previously created set of variables and values, based on visited pages’ URLs. The variables are created and declared inside the visitors’ attributes setting pages in the Settings menu of AB Tasty, or directly from your code base.
Configuration
To configure visitor attributes based on specific visited URLs, apply the following steps:
- Click
, to access the global AB Tasty menu. Then, click Settings > Advanced settings > Visitor attributes
- In the first dropdown list, select your matching method from the following two options
- Contains: every URL that contains the declared element will generate an attribute
- Regular expression: you can use this method to combine multiple URL elements
- In the URL field, enter the URL of the page.
- In the Variable name field, enter the name of your variable/key.
- In the Variable value field, enter the value you want to give to your variable/key.
- Then validate by clicking Add: the Visitor attribute is saved and is usable inside the targeting.
For instance, in the above example, we want to create an attribute to identify all logged visitors. We will base our identification on the successful login page that we assume, according to your website user flow, every visitor visits during the login process. To do this, we can go through the following steps:
- In the Choose matching method field, select contains.
- In the Url field, enter /login-success.
- In the Variable name field, enter userType.
- In the Variable value field, enter loggedVisitors.
- Click Add.
A visitor attribute can be deleted by clicking the trash icon.
To configure visitor attributes based on data you will send to the AB Tasty tag, you need to use a specific type of hit as described in our technical documentation. The common structure of the Segment hit is as follows:
window.abtasty.send("segment", {
s: {
key1: value1,
key2: value2
}
});
A Segment hit is composed of a set of Visitor Attributes, as shown in the image below:
AB Tasty is then able to receive and reuse those visitor attributes. The first entry of the tab will be the variable and the second will be the value.
To do this, apply the following steps:
- Copy the segment hit code snippet and paste it into your code base. Call the function as many times as you need to send data to AB Tasty depending on which scenario you want to use in terms of targeting and visitor attributes.
- Adapt it to suit the keys and values you want to define. Make sure to declare the right value according to your user journey and context on your website.
You can find your configured visitor attributes in our campaign reports.
Use Case
As well as many segments of this guide, the visitor attributes can be used for an infinite number of use cases. Only your imagination is the limit! On the same model as the page interest segment criteria, you can build visitor attributes on product appetence by looking for specific page visits.
How Does It Work?
Within the tag, we created an object called ABTastyData, that contains information about your visitors’ journey. Inside this object, we store the information visitor attributes data in locations called CV and segments. This is performed once you configured some in your AB Tasty account, and once the tag receives hits from this configuration.
Category External Data
CDP/DMP
Inside AB Tasty, you can use and retrieve data from your Data Management Platform. The DMP’s purpose is to gather consumer data, from multiple sources. It will analyze data, and sort it to create specific audience segments.
Using a DMP can enhance your online marketing strategy in several ways. Combined with AB Tasty, you can trigger the right messages, to the right user, at the right time, or launch complex tests based on these segments. It is a great opportunity to improve your user’s experience, and therefore ease the engagement on your website.
Technically speaking, integrating a DMP with AB Tasty only requires activating a bridge, allowing your DMP to share and send data to AB Tasty’s platform.
AB Tasty will gather those data from the DMP, and use it to segment and target visitors on your website:
- When a user visits a website, AB Tasty gives him/her a unique ID
- AB Tasty sends this ID and contextual data to the DMP
- The DMP looks for this information in its database and combines it with other information regarding the same user
- The DMP sends this additional information to AB Tasty through a segment
- AB Tasty uses this segment in its targeting
Linking your DMP with AB Tasty empowers your message customization toward users, to ease their engagement, and give the best customer experience possible.
Configuration
Once the bridge is created, log in to your account to retrieve your DMP data.
- Access the section Settings > Integration > DMP & CRM Onboarding tools:
- Select the DMP you want to configure and activate it by clicking the On/Off toggle button. AB Tasty needs your consent to start receiving some data from those third parties: you can give it through a dedicated pop-in when you activate one DMP connection.
- You can then proceed to fill in the IDs provided by your DMP
Once you activate the integration inside AB Tasty, you will be able to use your DMP’s segments inside your targeting configuration, in the segment section (“WHO” panel), or directly by creating a segment from the audience page. Each DMP activated will be available as a segmentation criteria inside the segment builder, under the data integration category.
To configure a segment based on that integration, you can configure it the same way as any AB Tasty native segment. You can open the segment builder (Create new segment from your campaign targeting step, or Create segment from blank from the audience page):
- Then select the desired criteria (each DMP can represent a criteria) in the Data integration section.
- Drag and drop the criteria in the middle column.
- Choose the right operator(s) depending on the visitors you want to target. You will find below in the tabs all the configuration differences from one DMP to another.
- Choose from the list the right segments, coming from your connected DMP.
You will find below the list of every DMP or specific integration available in AB Tasty.
Name |
Usage |
Configuration |
Adobe Audience Manager |
DMP
|
Operators available:
Segment configuration: list of all segments available inside the AAM-connected account Some/All conditions available when multiple conditions are used |
Advalo |
Predictive Marketing |
Operators available:
Segment configuration:
Some/All conditions available when multiple conditions are used |
BlueKai |
DMP, big data |
Operators available:
Segment configuration: list of all segments available inside the Bluekai connected account Some/All conditions available when multiple conditions are used |
Eulerian |
DMP |
Operators available:
Segment configuration: list of all segments available inside the Eulerian connected account Some/All conditions available when multiple conditions are used |
Krux |
DMP |
Operators available:
Segment configuration: select a value from your Krux account Some/All conditions available when multiple conditions are used |
Tagcommander |
Tag management |
Operators available:
Segment configuration: select a value from your Tagcommander account Some/All conditions available when multiple conditions are used |
|
CDP |
Operators available:
Segment configuration:
Some/All conditions available when multiple conditions are used |
Weborama |
DMP |
Operators available:
Segment configuration: select a value from your Weborama account Some/All conditions available when multiple conditions are used |
Ysance |
DMP |
Operators available:
Segment configuration:
Some/All conditions available when multiple conditions are used |
Use Case
It can be very useful to target certain segments of your DMP when creating on-site personalization campaigns.
This could help you identify a segment of in-store buyers who later created an online account, for example. You could send them a message to promote your Click & Collect services and encourage them to plan their next trip to their local store with some unique discount and communication message.
Configuring Several Conditions With All and Some Operators
All and Some are operators used between several conditions to build a segment, a trigger, to define the target pages, or to configure the QA of your campaign.
Definition
All and Some operators enable you to combine several conditions within a set-up in the targeting step such as segmentation or triggering criteria. They appear in a drop-down list when two or more conditions are added. In most cases, both All and Some operators are available.
Operator |
Definition |
Example |
Some |
Only one (or some) condition needs to be detected to trigger the targeting (match some of the conditions declared) |
In the Geolocation criteria: target visitors in France OR in the United States. |
All |
To trigger targeting (match all conditions declared), all conditions must be met without any exceptions. |
In the Purchase Frequency criteria: target visitors who bought BOTH 5 times and with the Paypal payment option. |
Configuration
Various use cases to combine conditions with All and Some operators.
When the Only Available Operator Is Some
For consistency purposes, some criteria cannot accept the all operator.
For example, in the Geolocation criteria, you can add several conditions but the default operator is some. Indeed, visitors cannot be in two different countries at the same time, during their session. If you select France as a first condition and the United States as a second condition, you will target visitors located either in France or in the United States.
When the Only Available Operator Is All
For example, in the Last Purchase segmentation criteria, you can refine the criteria by adding advanced criteria such as payment or delivery method. Suppose you want to target visitors who made their last purchase less than 30 days ago and used PayPal as the payment method and the Welcomeback coupon code. In that case, only visitors who purchased within the last 30 days and both used the coupon code and the payment method mentioned above will be targeted.
Managing Two or More Exclusions: All Only
When we use only exclusions, the dropdown displays all by default.
For instance, if you want to target pages that contain neither the blue character string nor the red character string, your two conditions will have to be met to trigger the campaign. Using the some operator between those conditions would not make sense.
Managing a Combination of Inclusions and Exclusions
This last use case combines inclusions and exclusions.
Imagine you want to set up this targeting on your website: the campaign should appear on every product page except pages from the luxury category.
Your setup will be the following:
- Start by including your whole website by including URLs containing the /product/ character string.
- Then, exclude URLs containing the /luxury/ string.
To trigger the campaign, these are the steps the tag will follow:
- First, the AB Tasty tag will check if the current page contains the word luxury.
- If it does, the tag will not trigger the campaign.
- If it does not, the tag will check if the URL contains the /product/ character string.
- If it does, the tag will trigger the campaign.
- If it does not, the tag will not trigger the campaign.
Good to Know 💡
In all cases, all exclusions must be entirely respected. Regarding inclusions, this depends on your configuration (if possible): respecting at least one or absolutely all of the conditions.
How the Data Collection Works
AB Tasty starts collecting your visitor's browsing data (sessions, page views, behavior) as soon as the generic tag is integrated into your website.
Each visitor is assigned an AB Tasty cookie with a unique visitor ID when they go to your website and accept cookies. This cookie is valid for 13 months unless the visitor uses incognito browsing or clears their cookies. We store the navigation data and specific custom data generated by the tag (for instance the visitor attributes) inside the ABTasty cookie and through the tag mediation.