Episerver CMS iconVisitor groups

Note:   This topic is intended for administrators and developers with administration access rights in Episerver.

Personalization in Episerver lets you target website content to 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.). The personalization feature is based on customized visitor groups that you create based on a set of personalization criteria. Episerver provides a set of basic criteria such as geographic location, number of visits, and referring search phrase. You can also develop customized criteria.

Built-in visitor group criteria

The Episerver platform comes with the following built-in visitor group criteria.

Visitor group criteria Description
Site Criteria
  • Number of Visits. Matches the number of times the visitor has visited the website. You can specify Less than, Equal, or More than, within a number of days (weeks, months or years), or since a date, or in total. For example, Less than 1 [visit] within 10 days.
  • User Profile. Matches a value stored in a user’s profile. You can specify Last Name, First name, Company, Address, Title, or email address. Each item can be equal to, contained in, start with or end with the specified value. For example, Company Equals ExampleCo. See Example: Site criteria and points example.
  • Visited Category. Select one of the website's page categories. You can also select a number of pages that use the category and were visited. The visitor must have visited the specified number of pages to which the category is applied. For example, Category X viewed at least 3 pages out of a total of 6.
  • Visited Page. Select one site page. The visitor must have visited that page during the current session.
Time and Place Criteria
  • Geographic Coordinate. Uses the visitor’s approximate location in a geolocation database (based on visitor IP address). Drag the marker to the map (Google maps), and select a radius around that point to indicate the visitor's proximity to the location. See Example: Geographic coordinate.
  • Geographic Location. Matches the visitor to a specific continent, country, and region. For example, Continent: Europe, Country: Norway, Region: Oslo. You can also specify a wildcard for country and region. For example, Country N* in Europe yields Netherlands and Norway. See Example: Geographic location.
  • Time of Day. Matches the visitor's time period with the start time, end time (15-minute intervals), and days you specify. For example, From 2:00 PM to 4:15 PM on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday.
URL Criteria
  • Landing URL. Matches the URL with which the visitor enters the site. You can decide if the landing URL is equal, starts with, or ends with the with a specified value. For example, contains www.example to match www.example.com, www.exampleURL.com and so on.
  • Referrer. Matches the Host name or URL of the referred page that was clicked before entering the site, such as a search engine result page. You can decide if the referrer criteria matches on equal, contain, start with, or end with a specified value for the whole or parts of the Host name or URL. See Example: Referrer.
  • Search Keyword. Stores the URL of the referred page that was clicked before entering the site, such as the URL of a search engine result page. Your partner developer can define this criteria to specify the search word to match against the URL by a regular expression. The regular expression finds search words in the URL.

    Note:  This criterion is not compatible with Google due to privacy restrictions for Google searches.
Visitor Groups Visitor Group Membership. Select members from existing visitor groups. For example, Member of Job Applicants, or Not a Member of Start Customer Club.
Episerver Forms (Episerver Forms is an add-on and must be installed separately.)
  • Submitted Form. Matches when a visitor submits (or does not submit) a particular form that you select from a drop-down menu. For example, Has Submitted Job Application. See Example: Form and form values.
  • Submitted Form Value. Matches when a visitor submit a particular form value. See Example: Form and form values.

Note:  The Episerver Forms Samples package must be installed for the forms visitor group criteria to work. See Episerver Forms Samples package in the Episerver Platform User Guide for information.

Managing visitor groups

Visitor groups are managed from the Visitor Group option in the global menu. When creating a new visitor group, you select one or more criteria and define appropriate settings. Those criteria are used to determine whether a user visiting the website is a part of that visitor group.

Note:  You can make the editor a member of VisitorGroupAdmins. This group provides access only to the Visitor Groups option in the global menu.

ClosedCreating a visitor group
  1. From the global menu, select CMS > Visitor Groups.
  2. Click Create.
    Closed—Image: Create visitor group—

    Episerver image

  3. In the Criteria section, click to add criteria for the visitor group as follows:
    1. In the Match drop-down list, select the criteria to match All, Any or Point. What you select affects all criteria for the visitor group. Using points is a way to set a value for what a desired action on the website is worth.
    2. Drag the criteria from the pane on the right and drop it into the Drop new criterion here area.
  4. Make the settings for the criteria, see examples described in Examples of creating visitor groups.
  5. In Name, name the visitor group you are creating. This name appears in the personalized content box when you select the content on a page.
  6. In Notes, type a descriptive text about the visitor group you have created, for example, its purpose. This description appears as a tooltip when the editor is adding a visitor group to the content on a page.
  7. In Security Role, select the check box if you want this visitor group to be available when setting access rights for pages and files in admin view.

    Note:  Visitor groups only have read access.

  8. In Statistics, keep the check box selected to enable statistics for the visitor group (this check box is selected by default).
  9. Click Save.
ClosedEditing a visitor group

  1. From the global menu, select CMS > Visitor Groups.

    Closed—Image: Visitor groups—

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  2. Click Edit for the visitor group you want to change.
  3. Add a new criterion for the visitor group by drag-and-drop, change the value for an existing criterion, or click Episerver image to delete an existing criterion.
  4. Click Save.

Note:  If you change the name of a visitor group available in the list for access rights, the settings for this visitor group no longer work.

ClosedCopying a visitor group
  1. From the global menu, select CMS > Visitor Groups.
  2. Click Copy for the visitor group you want to copy. The new copy has the same name as the original but with the extension “- Copy”.
  3. Rename and change criteria for the new visitor group you have copied.
ClosedDeleting a visitor group
  1. From the global menu, select CMS > Visitor Groups.
  2. Click Delete for the visitor group you want to delete.
  3. Confirm the deletion.
ClosedViewing and clearing statistics

The visitor group statistics appear as a gadget on the dashboard. Clear the statistics from the database as follows:

  1. From the global menu, select CMS > Visitor Groups.
  2. Click Clear statisticsEpiserver image.
  3. Confirm the deletion.

Warning:    The Clear statistics button permanently deletes statistics from the database. This action cannot be undone.

Examples of creating visitor groups

ClosedEXAMPLE: Site criteria and points

By using Points, you can set a value for how much an action is worth, for example, a visited campaign page. In this example, a visitor who visits the page on a certain date matches the visitor group criteria.

Closed—Image: Edit visitor group—

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  1. In the Match drop-down list, select the criteria to match Point.
  2. Drag and drop the Visited Page criterion, and select page. Use drag-and-drop of the criteria again to add several pages.
  3. Drag and drop the Number of Visits criterion, and select More than > 1 > Since [date]. (To create a visitor group for visitors who have never visited the page, select Less than > 1 > Since [date].)

    Episerver image

  4. Enter the number of points each criterion is worth, and select whether or not the criterion is required.
  5. Select Threshold for the criteria you added in your visitor group. For example, the visitor must fulfill 1 of 3 criteria to be included in the visitor group.
  6. Click Save.
ClosedEXAMPLE: Geographic location

You can direct content to visitors from a specific country and specific days. For example, people from Sweden visiting your website on weekdays. You can show these visitors a clickable banner to sign up for a conference.

  1. Drag and drop the Geographic Location criteria, and select Continent, Country and/or Region. Use drag-and-drop of the criteria again to add several countries.

    Episerver image

  2. Drag and drop the Time of Day criteria, and select [weekday]. You can also select the personalization to start and end at a specific time.
  3. Click Save.
ClosedEXAMPLE: Geographic coordinate

You can direct your content to visitors from a specific part of a city, for example, “People from Upplandsgatan, Stockholm”.

  1. Drag and drop the Geographic Coordinate criteria, and click Select Location.
  2. Click Select location to display a map that you click to set a location. You can zoom in the map for more precise locations.
  3. Select the Radius [number of kilometers or miles].

    Episerver image

  4. Click Save.
ClosedEXAMPLE: Referrer

The HTTP Referrer is based on pages, such as those used in a campaign. For example, you can target content to visitors who

  • search for “episerver and cms” on Google.com
  • from the search result page, click the Episerver landing page link
  1. Drag and drop the Referrer criteria, and select URL > Equals > the URL of the search engine result page, for example, https://www.google.se/#hl=sv&source=hp&biw=1338&bih=790&q=episerver+cms.

    Episerver image

  2. You can also add the Geographic Location to select a country.
  3. Click Save.
ClosedEXAMPLE: Form and form values

Note:  Episerver Forms and the Episerver Forms Samples package must be installed for the forms visitor group criteria to work. See the Episerver Platform User Guide for information.

You can base a visitor group on whether the visitor has (or has not) submitted a particular form or form value. For example, you can target content to visitors who submit a Job Application form:

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You can target content to visitors that give you a low rating on a Satisfaction Survey.

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Additional visitor group criteria

You can extend the built-in visitor group criteria as follows:

Episerver imageEpiserver Commerce criteria

Visitor group criteria specific for e-commerce, such as customer properties, markets, and order frequency criteria. See Personalization for Commerce.

Episerver Add-on iconEpiserver Visitor Group Criteria Pack

Episerver Visitor Group Criteria Pack is an add-on and requires a separate installation, but no license. It provides additional useful visitor group criteria, which you can use to configure your content for personalization purposes.

  • Display Channel matches the visitor’s current display channel when visiting the website, that is, it distinguishes between web and mobile visitors. From the Technical Criteria category, drag and drop the Display Channel criterion, and select Mobile or Web channel.

    Image: Display Channel visitor group

  • IP Range matches the IP range equal to or above a defined IP number, used by the visitor when visiting the website.
    • Equal to. To match with an exact IP address, select the equal sign (=) and enter the exact IP address:

      Image: Equal to exact IP address

    • Above. If you use the greater than or equal to sign (>=), a comparison between the visitor’s IP address and the configured IP address is made. Each IP address consists of a number of segments, each separated by a dot. If the number of segments in the visitor’s IP address are fewer than the configured IP address, the condition is not satisfied. If the visitor's IP address has as many or more segments as the configured IP address, each segment is compared between the visitor's IP address and the configured IP address, in turn from left to right. If none of the segments of the visitor's IP address are less than the segments of the configured IP address, the visitor group criteria is considered met.

      Image: Above IP Range

  • OS & Browser matches the visitor's operating system and browser the visitor used when visiting the website. You can drag and drop the criterion several times to add multiple operating system and browser criteria.

    Image: OS & Browser visitor group

  • Role matches the visitor's access role when visiting the website. You can include roles by using the In Role condition and exclude roles by using the Not in role condition.

    Image: Role visitor group

  • Selected Language checks which language the visitor is viewing a page in when using fallbacks. For example, check if the visitor views a page in English by selecting the In condition, or not in Svenska language by selecting the Is Not condition. Languages which are defined and enabled are available in the list.

    Image: Selected language visitor group

  • Download File matches a specific file which is considered already been viewed or loaded by browsers. The file path can be the file name only or a relative path to a file. If the path to a loaded image contains the configured path, the visitor group criterion is considered met. You can use this criterion to, for example, check if the image CompanyLogo.png has been viewed by entering the path to the image:

    Image: Download file visitor group

  • Event matches a set time period.
    • Recurrence can be:
      • Every Month. Occurs at a specific day in every month, with start from the set Start Time.
      • Every Year. Occurs once a year at a specific day, with start from the set Start Time.
      • Never. Not in the time period specified between Start Time and End Time.
    • If Every Month or Every Year recurrence type is selected, End Time is disabled

    For example, you can configure this visitor group criterion for sale events which occurs the first day of every month by selecting the Every Month recurrence.

    Image: Event visitor group

  • Query string matches the request to see if it contains a query string key with the specified value. Conditions can be:
    • Exist. Checks only if the key exists in query string.
    • Has Value. Checks both the key and the value represented in URL’s query string.

      When the Exist condition is selected, the Value text box is disabled.

      Image: Query string visitor group

  • Time On Site matches the total length of time of a user’s visit since the session start. If the total length of time is greater than or equal to the configured time, then the visitor group criterion is considered met.
    • Duration Unit. The duration time can be Seconds, Minutes or Hours.
    • Time On Site. The value range is from 0 to 60.

    Image: Time On Site visitor group

  • Time Period matches the time and date of the visit. If it is within the specified time period, the visitor group criterion is considered met. From the Time and Place Criteria category, drag and drop the Time Period criterion.

    Image: Time Period visitor group

Episerver Add-on iconEpiserver Marketing Automation

Visitor group criteria specifically designed for marketing automation.



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Episerver Editor User Guide 19-1 | Released: 2019-01-31 | © Episerver 2019 | Send feedback to us