Managing segments

This guide covers everything you need to know about segments including how to manage them to unlock the full potential of Prepr’s personalization features.

Introduction

Segments are groups of visitors who share similar characteristics or behaviors such as viewing, clicking, or liking content items. By creating segments, you can target different audiences, making it easier to deliver relevant content and experiences to your web app visitors.

Before creating segments in Prepr, it’s important to collect visitor data to identify target audiences. Check out the data collection docs for more details. If Prepr is not your primary source for visitor profiles, you could use profile data maintained in an external CRM/CDP system with external segments or make use of a visitor identification integration like HubSpot.

Before diving into how to build segments in Prepr, first make sure to define a segment context so that editors can use the AI feature to create personalized variants.

Defining segment context

To get the best results from the AI feature that generates personalized variants, define context for each segment used to personalize content.

Make use of the example below to help you define the context for each segment.

# Target audience 
Electric Car Lovers
 
## Interests and Motivation
- They are mainly interested in electric cars.
- They care about sustainability, cutting-edge technology, and saving money/future-proofing.
 
## Consumer behavior
- They research their products well before making an informed decision so they are well acquainted with terms like, zero-emission and sustainable driving.
 
## Characteristics
They are environmentally conscious and forward-thinking.

To define this context, you can add it directly when creating a segment by filling in the Description for AI field after you save your conditions.

For existing segments, follow the steps below.

1. Go to the Segments page.

2. Click the segment you want to update from the left-side menu.

3. Click the Settings button to open the segment settings and fill in the Description for AI field with your detailed context.

4. Once done, click the Save button.

Now, you’ll get more relevant results when creating AI variants in your content item.

Building segments

If you collect and store visitor profiles in Prepr, you can build segments using this visitor data. For example, you can segment visitors based on personal characteristics such as where they live, events such as their page views or clicks, or UTM parameters such as the marketing campaign that routed them to your web app.

Let’s look at a virtual car leasing company (Acme Lease) as an example. While analyzing visitor data, they realize that some visitors are mainly interested in electric cars. So, they create a segment with conditions to match their behavior.

To build this segment, follow these steps:

1. Go to Segments → + Add segment.

2. Set up segment conditions. For our car leasing example, the condition could be Visitors who did view specific items, Electric Lease Landing Page, at least once in the last quarter.

   

   You can set up any combination of conditions in your segments for Events, visitor Characteristics, or the visitor Source. Combine conditions by using the AND or OR logical operators.

3. If needed, you can also set up Context information, for example, to limit the segment to a device the visitor uses when they interact with the personalized content.

4. Click the Save button and provide a meaningful name for the segment. The value of the API ID field will be generated automatically based on the segment name. You can update the value manually if needed, like in the case of an external segment.

5. Enter some context in the Description for AI field to generate more relevant variants when using AI.

6. Click the Save button.

Now that you’ve seen how to create a segment, let’s look at the filter options in more detail to help you set up Conditions and the Context for your segments.

Conditions

When you set up conditions to build your segments, there’s an extensive list of Filter options available. The filter options are grouped into Events, visitor Characteristics and the visitor Source.

If you have a CRM or sales platform integration enabled, then you’ll also see filter options for the applicable system such as HubSpot, Dealfront or ProspectPro.

Let’s look at these options in more detail.

Events

Events refer to how the visitor interacted with content items rendered by your web app, such as Viewed, Liked, Clicked, Bookmarked, and Subscribed. You can also choose a Custom event for any other event specific to your segmentation needs.

These events need to be recorded from the front end to segment the visitors accurately. Once these events are recorded, Prepr automatically adds those visitors to your segments according to the Event conditions you set up.

Content item selection

You can choose from the following list of options to define the set of content items that you want to include in the condition.

• Any item - The default option. Include visitors who performed events on any content item.
• Specific items - Only include visitors with events on one or more specific content items. Choose the content item by its Title for this option. For example, Visitors who did view specific items Landing Page Electric Car at least once in the last quarter.
• Items of a model - Only include visitors with events on content items for this model. For example, Visitors who did view items of a model, Article, at least once in the last quarter.
• Items with specific tags - Only include visitors with events on content items with one or more tags. For example, Visitors who did view items with specific tags, Article, at least once in the last quarter.
• Items with specific reference to item - Only include visitors with events on content items linked to specific content items. For example, Visitors who did view items with a reference to John Smith at least once in the last quarter can group visitors who viewed articles written by the person, John Smith.

When adding a new condition for an event, the did action is selected by default. You can also choose the did not action, instead. For example, Visitors who did not view items of a model Article at least once.

Frequency options

You can narrow your condition by specifying how many times an event occurred. Use one of the following options:

• At least once - The default value.
• x number of times - The event must occur exactly x times where x is a whole number.
• More than x times - Only include events that happened more than x times where x is a whole number.
• Less than x times - Only include events that happened less than x times where x is a whole number.

Time filter

You can narrow your condition to only include visitors with recent activity (Events) by specifying when last the visitor interacted with a content item. You can choose from one of the time filters below.

• In the last day
• In the last week
• In the last month
• In the last quarter (The default value)

Source

The source includes campaigns and referrals from which a visitor was redirected. See a complete list below for available options and corresponding examples.

Campaigns

Choose one of these campaign sources to segment visitors by a campaign that redirected them to your web app.

• UTM Campaign - Visitors who have entered through UTM Campaign summer_car_lease_promo.
• UTM Medium - Visitors who have entered through UTM Medium email.
• UTM Source - Visitors who have entered through UTM Source newsletter.
• UTM Content - Visitors who have entered through UTM Content no_comms_button.
• UTM Term - Visitors who have entered through UTM Term car_lease_deals.

For each of these campaign options, you can choose the not action instead. For example: Visitors who have not entered through UTM campaign summer_car_lease_promo

Referrals

You can group visitors that land on your web app from another website.

• Inital referral - Visitors who are visiting through a referral domain https://topautorev.com.

Now that you know how to set up conditions for your segments, let’s look at the options you can choose for the Context.

Characteristics

Visitor characteristics are based on data stored in the visitor profile. Check out more details on how to manage visitor data.

Let’s look at each of the available characteristics for segments in more detail.

Country

You can choose the Country option to define the visitors by where they live. For the actions below, Prepr uses the Country in the visitor profile to match the criteria.

• Did visit from - For example, Visitors who did visit from Netherlands.
• Did not visit from - For example, Visitors who did not visit from United States.

Tags

Segment visitors by one of the keywords (tags) on their profile. For example, you can choose Visitors who are tagged with Employees or Visitors who are not tagged with VIP. Check out more technical details on how to record these visitor properties from your front end.

Previous session

Choose one of the time filter options to segment visitors by when they last visited the web app.

• In the last # days/weeks/months - For example, Visitors whose previous session was in the last 2 weeks.
• Before {date} - For example, Visitors whose previous session was before 7 oct 2024.
• After {date} - For example, Visitors whose previous session was after 1 aug 2024.
• Between {date} and {date} - For example, Visitors whose previous session was between 25 jul 2024 and 1 aug 2024.

First seen

Choose one of the time filter options to segment visitors by when they first visited the web app.

• In the last # days/weeks/months - For example, Visitors who were first active in the last 2 weeks.
• Before {date} - For example, Visitors who were first active before 7 oct 2024.
• After {date} - For example, Visitors who were first active after 1 aug 2024.
• Between {date} and {date} - For example, Visitors who were first active between 25 jul 2024 and 1 aug 2024.

Visits

Choose one of the options to segment visitors by how many times they visited the web app.

• # times - For example, Visitors who visited 5 times.
• More than # times - For example, Visitors who visited more than 10 times.
• Less than # times - For example, Visitors who visited less than 3 times.

Signed up

Segment visitors by who’ve signed up or not signed up. Check out the data collection docs for more details on recording this event in Prepr.

Email address

You can include visitors that have or don’t have an email address.

HubSpot

With this condition you can group visitors who belong to a segment defined in HubSpot, for example, for a HubSpot list based on contacts who are marked as leads.

Check out the HubSpot doc on how to activate the integration.

Dealfront

With this condition you can group B2B customers who belong to a segment defined in Dealfront, for example, for visitors from the Retail or Manufacturing industries or to specifically target small to medium companies.

Check out the Dealfront doc on how to activate the integration.

ProspectPro

With this condition you can group B2B customers who belong to a segment defined in ProspectPro, for example, for visitors from the Retail or Manufacturing industries or to specifically target small to medium companies.

Check out the ProspectPro doc on how to activate the integration.

Snitcher

With this condition you can group B2B customers who belong to a segment defined in Snitcher, for example, for visitors from the Retail or Manufacturing industries or to specifically target small to medium companies.

Check out the Snitcher doc on how to activate the integration.

Context

In addition to the conditions, you can also define a current context for the segment. The Context of a segment includes current info about the visitor when they interact with personalized content. You can select the options below to define a Context.

Current country

You can define the segment in the context of the country that the visitors are currently visiting the web app from. For example, Visitors who are currently visiting from United States.

Current device

You can define the segment in the context of the device that the visitors are currently using or not currently using. For example, Visitors who are currently using a mobile device or Visitors who are not currently using a mobile device.

HTTP header

You can define the segment in the context of an HTTP header value, such as the web app version the visitors are currently using. For example, Visitors who are currently requesting with HTTP header APP-Version is greater than 1.

Semantic versioning (SemVer)
You can add conditions with semantic versions to compare more accurate version numbers like 1.0.3.

Current Day

You can define a segment by the current day that a visitor accesses the web app. For example, Visitors who are visiting on Saturday or Sunday to target weekend visitors.

Current Time

You can define a segment by the current time that a visitor accesses the web app. For example, Visitors who are visiting between 06:00 and 12:00 to target morning visitors.

Now that you know how to build segments, you’re ready to manage your adaptive content. Check out the Managing adaptive content guide for more details.

Organize segments into folders

When you have dozens of segments, folders make it easy to find related segments. For example, when you have multiple segments for marketers who want to track fleet customers.

Hover over your segments and click the icon. In the Add folder dialog, enter a name for the new folder. Once the folder is created, you can drag and drop the segments you want to include in the new folder.

To remove segments from the folder simply drag and drop the segments outside the folder.

Click the icon next to the folder name to either rename the folder by clicking the Edit option or Delete the folder.

When you delete the folder, it will be removed and the grouped segments will return to the alphabetical list of segments.

Using external segments

If you manage your segments in an external system such as a CRM/CDP system and want to use them in Prepr, you can create segments that reference those external segments as follows:

1. Go to Segments → + Create segment. You’ll notice that a default condition is partially filled.

2. Click the x icon to delete the condition and enter a name for the segment.

3. Click the Save button.

4. Provide a meaningful name for the segment.

5. Copy and paste the segment unique identifier from your CRM/CDP system to replace the automatically generated API ID value in Prepr.

6. Click the Save button.

This setup will work as a reference to the segment created in the external system, so you don’t need to specify any conditions for this segment in Prepr.

What’s next?

Follow our Managing adaptive content guide to immediately start delivering a personalized visitor experience to your website app visitors.