Prioritization of Personalizations

The more mature our customer gets on their personalization strategy the more challenged they are on specific needs to orchestrate their campaigns. That is why we build a service to help you prioritize them, and keep a “top of the class” experience for your end users delivering them a personalized experience that will improve your revenues.

Our prioritization service has two main functionalities:

• Identify conflicts between two or more campaigns for you to act consequently
• Choose a prioritized order to display them consequently on your website

Our prioritization service works like a ranking system that allows you to declare, on a priority scale from 1 to 10, which campaigns should be seen first by your visitors if they are eligible for several of them. It allows you to prevent your visitors from being subjected to multiple campaigns and therefore messages on the same page, thus leading to poor user experience, risk of contradictory messages, and bias in your campaign analysis.

Prioritization is possible for all personalization campaign types : Simple Personalization (SP), Multi-Page Personalization (MPP), Multi-Experience Personalizations (MEP).

Note that it is not recommended to prioritize the latter as it already includes a subtests prioritization in itself.

Please refer to this article to learn how to use this feature in details.

How does it work

The answer lies in the way AB Tasty launch and displays the campaigns you create from the platform.

💡 Reminder 

Let’s recall how the tag works and how it triggers campaigns. The AB Tasty tag is placed on every page of your website. When a visitor loads a page, the tag checks:

• if test or personalization campaigns are targeted on this page
• and if so, for each campaign, if their targeting condition makes the visitor "accepted", namely:
• if they belong to the user segment chosen in the campaign (for instance "located in NYC”, “on mobile" etc.)
• and if they have met the specific trigger rules (for instance “visited at least 5 pages”, “coming from Google” etc.)

The visitors will therefore see all the campaigns (test and personalization) created on your account, depending on their specific navigation and behavior on your website. In other words, your visitor can potentially see an unlimited number of campaigns (depending on what you've launched), with the side effects, visuals, and analytics implied by this overexposure.

To impose safeguards, and to indicate what should be triggered without any constraints and what should be constrained, our new prioritization service will help you identify those conflicts, and choose which campaign to display in a conflictual situation.

Campaigns conflicts 

As we saw during our brief introduction, it is important to identify potential conflicts first. As more and more campaigns are being configured to tailor your website to your different audiences, it can be difficult to identify those conflicts without a dedicated tool. Before launching your personalization campaigns, you can now identify those conflicts between campaigns to find out which ones should be prioritized first and which priority level should apply to each campaign compared to one another.

A conflict happens when two or more campaigns either:

• Target the same saved page(s) OR the “all pages” option,
• Target the same segment (configured or “all visitors” one)

Moreover, those campaigns should be both live for the conflict to appear.  

If you launch 10 separate personalizations on your homepage, targeting 10 segments of your audience to deliver a fully personalized experience, you run the risk of some of your visitors seeing more than one at a time, simply because it's not always possible to ensure that the segments are fully independent of each other. 

Let’s take a simple example to understand that properly. Imagine the two following segments:

• Segment 1: VIP cookie holders
• Segment 2: Geolocated in NYC

VIP AND New York visitors are part of both segments, and will likely see both campaigns targeting VIPs, and those targeting New Yorkers.

Configuring and displaying too many messages can lead to user confusion. Personalization must remain compatible with the UX requirement of simplification and an intuitive understanding of your interface. The best messages being the clearest and most readable, your personalization campaigns can create a lot of "noise" with overlaps, deteriorating your strategy and website performance: this is what we want to avoid.

First issue: a deteriorated user experience

A basic example to illustrate that is the overlap of two campaigns which should originally display two different kinds of information for two different audiences. If you choose to use our widget pop-in, a same user that fits into two different segments could be targeted, and then sees two different modals that are triggered at the same time and overload the interface like intrusive pop-ups.

Second issue: conflicting messages

This case, although rarer, occurs when the 2 messages that are triggered (for example a modal on one side and a banner on the other), display promotional messages or messages related to the benefits you want your audience segments to enjoy. If a user is part of several audience segments at the same time (for instance “appetite for vintage” and “loyalty card holder”), they risk being exposed to 2 special offers that are not necessarily compatible when checking out, and lead to bad user experience affecting your revenue stream.

Identifying conflicts with the prioritization service

As you can see, prioritizing campaigns is essential when adopting an advanced and assumed personalization strategy, and when multiplying personalized messages for optimization purposes. To identify potential conflicts between your personalization campaigns, you can use two available filters: campaign and segments. Those filters recall the potential overlap we could have between two different campaigns. 

Filter by segment or saved pages

Applying that filter makes AB Tasty compare campaigns according to the segment or saved Page(s) used inside the targeting section of each personalization campaign configured on the account:

• By default, no filtering option is applied when you open the prioritization page
• The “select a segment” dropdown presents you with the following options:
• The first option in the segment filter list is the “All visitors” option. This is the default option in the audience section of the targeting. Even if you do not directly configure it inside your account, we consider the audience as a global segment that reaches all your website visitors.
• The other options that appear in that list are the segment already configured on your account, which you can choose from to display only the campaigns that match your segment selection, and choose a level of prioritization between all of them. You can select multiple segments for you to display as many related campaigns as you would like. 
• At the bottom of the dropdown, you have the "create a segment" option to access the segment creation process. 
• The “select a saved page” dropdown presents you with the following options:
• The first option in the saved page filter list is the “All URLs” option. This is the default option in the URL section of the targeting.
• The other options that appear in that list are the saved pages already configured on your account, which you can choose from to display only the campaigns that match your saved page selection and choose a level of prioritization between all of them. You can select multiple saved pages for you to display as many related campaigns as you would like. 
• At the bottom of the dropdown, you have a “create a saved page” option to access the creation process on AB Tasty settings

Good to know 💡

The filters only take into account the saved Pages you configured in the Page Builder screen and the all pages option. If you haven’t configured any, you won’t be able to select a page from the dropdown list. If your campaign targets pages based on an ID/class/element, code, or personalized URLs, they won’t appear in the dropdown list and these campaigns won’t be considered (they will be excluded by default).

For example, to find out which campaigns target both the home page and new visitors, when applying the filter, you will only see campaigns that target at least the home page (they can also target other URLs or saved Pages) and at least the new-visitors segment (they can also target other segments). It’s a good opportunity to start building saved pages to ease your targeting configuration💡

Filter by campaign

This filter can be used to identify potential conflict based on a specific campaign which serves as a reference, that you must select from the dropdown list.

It enables you to display the campaigns that share the same targeting configuration:

• The same segment (a specific/configured one or the “all visitors” one)
• The same saved Page(s) (a specific/configured one or the “all pages” option)

Using the filters enables you to identify campaigns that may be in conflict because they target the same segment and/or saved Page(s). However, it doesn’t take into account the trigger and layout.

For example, when using the Segment and saved Page filter, you notice that two campaigns are displayed on the home page, and both target new visitors. However, one has no specific trigger and the other is triggered on exit intent. In this case, the conflict you have identified with the filter does not necessarily affect the user’s experience on the website. It is up to you to decide whether or not you want to prioritize between the two. 

Configuration of your prioritization rules

The prioritization screen enables you to prioritize your personalization campaigns when you need to launch several campaigns at the same time, especially when they are in conflict. Prioritization is available for all types of personalization campaigns: simple personalization, multipage personalization, and multi-experience personalization.

By default, all your campaigns are without priority, i.e. they will all be triggered if your visitor respects the targeting rules, namely: 

• they’re on the right page of your website - included in the targeting you have defined
• they’re part of the visitor segment you have chosen (segment)
• they have behaved as defined by your trigger rule (trigger)

This unconstrained exposure is perfect for campaigns without a strong visual impact (additional information in the description of your product pages for example) or that absolutely must be seen by everyone (banner showing a reminder of the legal sale dates).

We, therefore, recommend leaving the following campaigns unprioritized: 

• All campaigns that aim to correct your website (patch, winning variation after an A/B test, etc.)
• All campaigns that will not generate overexposure or conflict

Prioritization configuration

After identifying conflicts between your campaigns, you can start prioritizing them by applying a priority order to all/some of them. You can perform this action on our prioritization screen split into two different columns:

• The left column refers to the “no priority applied” section: you will find here listed all your personalization campaigns that have not been prioritized yet. This list can be affected by the filter you choose from the segment/saved pages filters. 
• The right column refers to the “priority level” section: a list of campaigns that have been prioritized

Prioritized campaigns are displayed on the right column, in different prioritization-level sections. They are split between prioritization levels and constitute the prioritization rule that will be applied on your website. If a visitor matches the targeting of several prioritized campaigns on a specific page of your website, they will only see the one(s) with the highest priority level. 

There is a maximum of 10 priorities: 1 being the highest and 10 being the lowest. The first 2 levels are mandatory (priority 1 and 2) to have a basic rule set. For example, if you place one or more campaigns in priority 1, you must have at least one campaign in priority 2. Other priority levels can remain empty.

You can place several campaigns within the same priority level (12 campaigns maximum per priority level). This means that they will be displayed to all visitors matching the targeting of these campaigns. However, we recommend placing campaigns that target the same page(s) inside different levels to avoid any conflict.

To prioritize a campaign, you just need to drag and drop it from the left column to the desired priority level.

Good to know 💡

You can prepare your prioritization rule and order your paused campaigns before launching them (or scheduling them). Please note that the prioritization service does not take paused campaigns into account, you need to put your campaign live first so that the prioritization is effective on your website.

Publishing the prioritization rule

Once you have placed your campaigns in different priority levels, you can save the prioritization rule by clicking the “Save and apply” button. The tag is updated automatically and your changes are automatically deployed in production.

If you leave without saving, the prioritization rule won’t be saved and won’t be applied live.

Generally speaking, your prioritization rule must be updated (click the Save and apply button) in the following cases:

• when you move one or more campaigns from the non-prioritized column (left) to the priority column (right);
• when you move one or more campaigns to another priority level;
• when you move one or more campaigns from the priority column (right) to the non-prioritized column (left);
• before you change the timeframe, because your changes will not be kept if you return to the original timeframe;
• before you apply filters (filter by campaign or filter by segment and saved Page), because your changes will not be kept when you return to the original view.

Disabling the prioritization rule

To disable any prioritization rule, you can either move all your prioritized campaigns back to the left column (that is to say remove them from the priority column) or pause all your prioritized campaigns. To make these changes active, click the “Save and apply” button.

How does it work with the tag?

Basic principle

Prioritized personalization campaigns (SP, MPP and MEP) will fall under the priority ranks you give them. These priority ranks, called p-values, will determine if a visitor will see one campaign or another on the same targeting.

Up to 10 priority ranks can be set up.

Multi-Page Personalizations and user journey continuity

When a prioritized MPP campaign has been seen by the visitor, thus historicized, the tag will check this campaign but will not check the lesser priority (aka higher p-value) of other MPPs. The prioritized SP will still be checked by the tag according to their priority.

This ensures that the visitor sees the whole journey of the historicized MPP and does not prevent other prioritized campaigns to be applied except lesser priority MPPs.

Between two historized MPPs we check the priority between them. So if an MPP p-value 1 and a MPP p-value 2 are historized, only the first will be displayed in case of targeting overlap.

What about the non-prioritized campaigns?

Campaigns that are not prioritized will not be altered by the prioritized campaigns. They will be displayed according to their basic targeting setup (segment, URLs, trigger, frequency…).

How to use the prioritization to improve your user experience

As you saw through this article, there are many cases when our users need to orchestrate their personalization campaign to fit in a global personalization strategy. The main objective with personalization efforts and investments is to create as many different experiences as there are relevant audiences. 

Let’s dive into a "real life" example. Imagine an e-commerce website wanting to send the following messages to its visitors:

• Campaign 01: Offer a 20% discount to all visitors, with a banner triggered on the entire website
• Campaign 02: Invite Parisian customers to the opening of their new physical store on the shopping cart page
• Campaign 03: Patch the disclaimer of the website in the footer (on all pages)
• Campaign 04: Offer an additional 10% discount to VIPs on top of the 20% discount for all (modal on the home page)
• Campaign 05: Boost newsletter subscription for those who have visited at least 15 pages of the website during their session (triggering on all pages potentially)

First of all, we need to be able to identify the potential issues linked to the simultaneous launch of all these campaigns. It's pretty easy to spot potential frictions because we only have 5 campaigns, but picture the same scenario with 10 times as many campaigns and things quickly become difficult to manage. We advise you then to go through some specific steps to help you in the process.

Step 1: Discover

First, let's identify the one campaign in the list that should be displayed all the time, for everyone, regardless of the circumstances and the visitor’s behavior on the website:

Campaign 03: Patch the disclaimer of the website in the footer (on all pages).

This campaign should remain on the left side of the screen, not prioritized. To see this campaign, your visitors simply need to match the targeting rules (where, who, when) of the campaign.

Step 2: filter

For other campaigns that may conflict with each other, you can use the "Campaign" filter inside the personalization service. To do this, select one of your campaigns, presumably the one deemed most important, for instance:

Campaign 04: Offer an additional 10% discount to VIPs on top of the 20% discount for all (modal on the home page)

Targeted pages: Home page

Segment: VIPs

This campaign offers an additional advantage to VIPs and is likely to trigger sales, and therefore can be considered more important than the other messages. 

By choosing this campaign as a reference for your filter, you will be able to discover, in one click, which campaigns are triggered under the same conditions as your campaign 01 (on the same pages AND with the same targeted audience).

In our case, the filter gives the following results:

Campaign 04: Your reference, which now appears in green in your

Segment screen: VIPs

Pages: Home page

• ❌Campaign 02: Invite Parisian customers to the opening of their new physical store on the shopping cart page
  This campaign does not appear in the results because it is targeted on the shopping cart page and not on the home page
• ✅ Campaign 03: Patch the disclaimer of the website in the footer (on all pages)
  The campaign is targeted on all pages, including the home page, and the all visitors segment includes VIPs by nature.
• ✅ Campaign 01: Offer a 20% discount to all visitors, with a banner triggered on the entire website
  The campaign is also targeted on the entire website (including the home page) and the all-visitors segment includes VIPs by nature.
• ✅ Campaign 05: Boost newsletter registration for non-subscribers who have visited at least 15 pages of the website during their session
  The campaign is targeted on all pages, including the home page, and isn't targeted on a specific user segment, so on all visitors. The trigger used is "at least 15 page views", however, if the 15th page of your VIP visitor's session happens to be the home page (it could happen), they will see this modal as well as the 04 reference campaign. The risk of conflict is minimal but very real.

👉 This exercise shows that campaign 04 should be prioritized over campaigns 1 and 5.

👉 Campaign 3, as we have seen, can be triggered all the time and for all, because not only is it harmless and does not create conflicts with other campaigns, but it is also necessary that everyone sees it (it is a legal message). 

👉 Campaign 2 does not need to be prioritized over campaign 1: they are not targeted on the same pages.

Step 3: prioritize

Now that you have identified the campaigns that need prioritizing, you can proceed as follows: 

• leave campaign 03 in the non-prioritized campaigns
• position campaign 04 as priority 1
• position campaigns 01, 02, and 05 as priority 2

This exercise is based on a reference campaign, in this case, the number 04. It is also interesting to repeat this exercise (filtering then making a decision based on a business approach) using the other campaigns as a reference (01, 02, or 05 for example), and to refine the prioritization rule by deciding, perhaps, to separate the 3 campaigns positioned in Priority 2 and to redistribute them with other priority levels (Priority 3 and 4). 

Conclusions of the use case

Using the prioritization module will allow you to significantly increase the number of campaigns you can launch at the same time on your website without having to be concerned about potential conflicts. 

Conclusions

By using the prioritization service, you will certainly uncover a lot of new use cases, specific to your business or industry, and to your approach of personalization as a way to drive your revenue. 

To end this article, we have listed here a few more use cases and tips to guide you in your approach to prioritizing your personalization campaigns:

Advices

👉 You don’t want to spam your visitors with several messages/popins at once on a specific page.

👉 You don’t want to distort the results of your campaigns (and ensure that every single user will see only one personalization campaign at a time).

👉 You don’t want to visually break a page (when there are several popins triggered on the same page for example).

👉 You want to decide which campaigns must be seen as a priority if the user matches the segment of several campaigns.

Tips

👉 Limit the number of campaigns per prioritization level:
A visitor who triggers a PX level on a page will potentially see all campaigns with that priority on the page they are on.

👉 Each time the page changes, the priority rule check starts from scratch: a visitor who saw a priority 3 campaign on their first page may see a priority 1 campaign on their second session page. Therefore, be vigilant and think "exposure per page".

👉 Keep your A/B tests in mind: even if the strategy and roadmap are different, be careful not to customize a tested page or check that your message will not affect the test results. 

👉 Finally, the best personalization campaigns go unnoticed, the most effective messages are the most discreet because they appeal to your visitor's subconscious and do not deteriorate their experience (imagine the same experience in real life, if you were inundated with loud and aggressive messages in a store... you would leave immediately!). So before setting up multiple messages, we recommend building a persuasive and high-quality personalization strategy.

Glossary

For more information about specific use cases you could experience please refer to our FAQ article. 

Please refer to this article to learn how to use this feature in details.