Audiences

An audience describes a group of visitors, for example "mobile visitors from Germany" or "returning visitors who came from Google". When you attach an audience to an experiment, only visitors who match it can take part.

If you attach no audience, every visitor can take part. The Audiences card then shows All users are currently included. You do not need to create an "all users" audience.

Create an audienceCopy Anchor Link

There are two ways:

• From an experiment: in the card Audiences ("WHO should participate?"), click + to create an audience that is attached to the experiment immediately.
• From the navigation: go to Targeting & Goals → Audiences and create a new audience. Then attach it to an experiment with Select audience in the Audiences card.

The form contains:

To add criteria, click Add criteria, choose a criterion from the list (you can search it) and fill in its fields.

How criteria are combinedCopy Anchor Link

You build audiences from criteria. Two simple rules explain how they work together:

• AND between criteria. Click Add AND criteria to add another criterion. The visitor must fulfil all criteria.
• OR inside a criterion. Many criteria let you add several rows with Add OR criteria. The visitor must fulfil at least one row.

Example: Device type is mobile AND User language contains de OR User language contains en describes mobile visitors whose browser language is German or English.

If you attach several audiences to an experiment, the selection above the audience list decides how they work together:

CriteriaCopy Anchor Link

Device and visitCopy Anchor Link

The counters are stored in the visitor's browser (see Storage & privacy). A visitor who uses another browser or deletes the website data counts as a new visitor. A new session starts when your website is opened in a new browser session, for example in a new tab or after the browser was closed.

Origin and languageCopy Anchor Link

The URL parameter is read from the current address when the audience is checked. For a cookie, the cookie must exist in the visitor's browser and be readable by JavaScript.

TimeCopy Anchor Link

Events and codeCopy Anchor Link

dataLayer EventCopy Anchor Link

Use this criterion for visitors who triggered an event in your data layer, for example Google Tag Manager. You enter the Event name, a Check (for example is (exactly) or contains), and, depending on the check, a Property and a Value. All fields and checks are described in Data layer events. How ABlyft detects data layer events is set in the snippet settings.

JavaScript ConditionCopy Anchor Link

The code is the body of a function and must return true for visitors who belong to the audience. Besides the standard browser objects you can use User and Tools (or ablyftTools). Example:

// Visitors with at least 10 pageviews in the current session
return User.visits.pageviewsSession >= 10;

If the code throws an error, the audience does not match.

Device, browser and operating systemCopy Anchor Link

In a JavaScript Condition, User.browser tells you which device, browser and operating system the visitor uses. Each property is true when detected. Use it for targeting such as "desktop only" or "Safari on iOS 15 or newer".

// Firefox on macOS
return User.browser.firefox && User.browser.mac;

// Tablets with iOS newer than 9, or any Android tablet
return User.browser.tablet && ((User.browser.ios && User.browser.osversion > 9) || User.browser.android);

// Internet Explorer 9 and newer
return User.browser.msie && User.browser.version >= 9;

JavaScript Trigger and trigger-based criteriaCopy Anchor Link

A JavaScript Trigger and a dataLayer Event are different from the other criteria: they are fulfilled only after something happened on the current page. The trigger code runs once per page view on every page of your project. It calls activate() when the audience should start matching, exactly like the code of the Callback trigger of a page.

As soon as the criterion is activated, ABlyft checks the affected experiments again. The state is not remembered across page views, so the event has to happen on the page again after a page reload. To trigger a new check from your own code, see reevaluateAudiences.

When audiences are checkedCopy Anchor Link

ABlyft checks the audiences after the page and environment of an experiment matched, and before the visitor is assigned to a variation. The check is repeated for a short time after the page has loaded, so content and cookies that appear a moment later can still qualify the visitor.

Once a visitor has been assigned to a variation, they stay in it. See Traffic allocation.

Manage audiencesCopy Anchor Link

In Targeting & Goals → Audiences you can edit, clone and delete audiences. You cannot delete an audience that is used by an experiment. Open Edit and look at Used in Experiments to see which experiments use it.

Next stepsCopy Anchor Link