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Personalizing content

Personalization in Episerver lets you target website content for selected visitor groupsSite visitors with something in common, such as age, geographic location, and so on. Used in the personalization feature of Episerver CMS. (See Personalizing Content.). For example, you can design a product banner, a landing page or a registration form specifically for first-time visitors, or for visitors from a geographic region or market.

The personalization feature is based on customized visitor groups, which you create using a set of visitor group criteria. Visitor groups must first be created to become available for selection when applying personalization.

There are numerous visitor group criteria available across the Episerver platform; see Administering visitor groups.

Working with personalization

You can personalize any type of content in the rich-text editor and in a content area. Personalize part of a text, an image, or a block in the rich-text editor, or personalize an image, a block or a page in a content area, if you have these in your web pages.

If you have multiple visitor groups, a visitor may match more than one visitor group. You then can use personalization groups to group content to avoid displaying the same content twice, and display fallback content to visitors who match no visitor groups.

The preview option in the top menu lets you preview the personalized content as the different visitor groups will see it, before publishing.

Applying personalization

In the rich-text editor

Open the page for editing, and select the content you want to personalize in the editor area.
Click Personalized Content in the editor toolbar.
Select one or more visitor groups from the list.

—Image: Personalized content—
Preview the personalized content to verify the result.

In the content area

Open the page for editing, and select the content you want to personalize in the content area.
Select Personalize from the context menu.
Select one or more visitor groups from the list.
—Image: Who can see this content?—
Preview the personalized content to verify the result.

Editing and removing personalization settings

In the rich-text editor

Click edit for the personalized content, and update the personalization settings, or select Remove Personalization.

In the content area

Expand the desired Personalized Group section and click the desired visitor group link to edit the settings. To exclude content from personalization, drag it outside the group, or select Move Outside Group in the context menu.

EXAMPLE: displaying content to multiple visitor groups with fallback

You want to display specific price information to visitors from the UK and US, and other price information to visitors from other countries. To avoid displaying price information twice for visitors from the UK and US, you need to use a personalization group for fallback content.

The order in which the personalized content is placed within a personalization group does not matter, but placing the fallback content at the end makes it easier to follow the personalization flow.

In the rich-text editor

Select the fallback price information text and personalize it without selecting a visitor group. Instead create a Pricing personalization group and apply this.

Personalize the price information texts for the UK and US visitor groups, and also include them in the "Pricing" personalization group. The personalization group is displayed to the right.

Now the personalization for this content is matched within the same personalization group.

In the content area

This example shows pricing information as individual blocks, and the Default pricing is the fallback content displayed to visitors from other countries than the UK and US. Select Personalization in the context menu for a block to create a personalization group, and drag the other blocks into the group.

Personalize each block within the group by applying the appropriate visitor group. Use the Everyone option to display the fallback content displayed to visitors not matching any visitor group.

Providing access to content using visitor groups

Administrators can also grant access to specific content using visitor groups. For example, the administrator can make a page or a block accessible only to visitors from the UK, by providing access for the UK visitors visitor group; see Access rights.

Monitoring visitor group activities

You can monitor visitor group activities by following the number of visits to personalized content. The result is displayed using the visitor groups statistics gadget on the Episerver dashboard; see Gadgets.

Personalizing Commerce content

If you have Episerver Commerce installed, there are additional visitor group criteria available specific for e-commerce scenarios. see Personalization in the Commerce section of this user guide.