Personalize a digital experience with audiences

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Note

Audiences work only on traditional (in-process) sites, where CMS manages both content authoring and frontend rendering. Audiences do not work on headless sites, where the frontend is an independent application that consumes content through APIs.

Audiences let you show different content variants to different visitor segments on the same page. Criteria such as visit count, location, role, or referrer define each segment. CMS evaluates the criteria for every visitor and renders the matching content from a content area. See Create audience criteria for the full criteria list.

As an example, this article builds a page with three banner variants. Returning visitors see Welcome back! First-time visitors see New here? Get started. Visitors who match neither audience see a default fallback banner.

The example introduces the block-level personalization pattern used across CMS. Audience-specific blocks sit in a content area, each bound to an audience definition. The same pattern applies to other use cases, such as geographic targeting, campaign-driven offers, or role-based content access.

Select View as Audience to preview content as it appears for each audience without publishing.

Example: create audience views

This walkthrough builds the audiences, blocks, and personalization assignments end to end.

Prerequisites

• You have administration or editor access to CMS 13.
• You have the VisitorGroupAdmins role (required to access the Audiences tab and apply personalization).
• Your page has a content area that supports blocks.

Create the audiences

For complete information, see Manage audiences and Create audience criteria.

1. Select the Audiences tab in the CMS editor.

2. Select Create Audience and enter the name Returning Visitors.

   
   • Select Add Criteria, then select Number of Visits > More than > 1.
   • Select Create Audience to save. (It is Save Audience if you are editing an audience.)

3. Repeat to create a second audience, New Visitors and criteria Number of Visits > Equal > 1.

   

Create the blocks

You need three blocks in total: one for each audience variant (New Visitor and Returning Visitor), and one default fallback.

1. Select the Shared Blocks tab in the assets panel.

2. Select Create New Block and choose a block type, such as a teaser block. Create the default block first; it displays to all audiences.

   
   • Name – Banner – Default.
   • Heading – Explore our latest updates.
   • Body – Open the door to ... meaningful value.
   • Image – Select an image from your media assets.

3. Click Create to create the block.

4. Click Publish to publish the block.

5. Repeat these steps for the Banner – New Visitor block. This block displays only when a visitor matches the New Visitor audience.

   • Name – Banner – New Visitor.
   • Heading – New here? Get started.
   • Body – Discover everything you can do with our platform.
   • Image – Select an image from your media assets.

6. Repeat these steps for the Banner – Returning Visitor block. This block displays only when a visitor matches the Returning Visitor audience.

   • Name – Banner – Returning Visitor.
   • Heading – Welcome back!
   • Body – Great to see you again. Here's what's new.
   • Image – Select an image from your media assets.

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Note

Save blocks under For All Applications or For This Block if you want to reuse them elsewhere. If saved under For This Page, the block is only available on the current page. If you created the blocks in the wrong folder, you can drag them to another folder.

Add the blocks to the content area

1. Open the page you want to personalize in the CMS editor.
2. Select All Properties view.

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   Note

   Personalized blocks do not display in the standard edit view. Use the View as Audience option in the top toolbar to preview how each audience sees the page.

3. Locate the content area where the banner should display.
4. Find Banner – Default, Banner – New Visitor, and Banner – Returning Visitor in the assets panel. Drag the three blocks into the content area. All three blocks then display in the content area in the All Properties view.

Apply audience personalization

1. Select a shared block in the content area (such as Banner – New Visitor) and click Audiences.

   

2. Start typing the audience name in the Select Audiences field of the Personalization Content window, then select the audience (for example, New Visitors). Repeat to add more audiences.

   

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   Note

   Leave Banner – Default with no audience applied. This makes it the fallback for all other visitors.

3. Click Save.

4. Repeat for the other block (Banner – Returning Visitor).

   

Preview each audience view

• In Visual Builder, select the View as Audience > Everyone to see the default.

  

• Select New Visitors to view the new-visitor variant. The default block displays after the new-visitor block, in the order both were placed on the page.

  

• Select Returning Visitors to view the returning-visitor variant. The default block displays after the returning-visitor block, in the order both were placed on the page.

  

When you are satisfied with the personalization preview, select Publish to make the changes live.

Key points to remember

• Personalization is block-level, not field-level – Individual text properties on a page cannot be personalized directly. Use blocks within a content area instead.
• Block order matters – CMS evaluates blocks top to bottom. Place audience-specific blocks above the default fallback block.
• One audience per block – Assign each block in a content area to one audience only.
• Shared blocks update everywhere – When you edit a shared block, the change applies to every page that uses the block. Create page-specific blocks when you need isolated content.

Search engine index and audiences

Search engines crawl your website to index your content. The crawler is evaluated against the audience like any other visitor. For an audience named Visitors from the UK, the crawler indexes the personalized content only when the crawler's IP resolves to the United Kingdom; otherwise, the content is not indexed.

A second example uses a date or time audience criterion. For a weekend-only audience, the crawler indexes content only when the crawl occurs on a weekend.

Use Everyone content in a group when an area of the page must always display, including for crawlers.

Restrict content access with audiences

Administrators grant access to specific content with audiences. For example, an administrator restricts a page or block to audiences from the UK. See Access rights.