Personalizing widgets

Enterprise license required

Features described on this page require the Kentico Xperience Enterprise license.

Personalization is an on-line marketing technique that allows you to display different content on pages based on the situation in which they are viewed. This can help you provide more accurately targeted information to visitors and increase the effectiveness of your website. For example, you can show modified text or additional offers to visitors who belong to a specific contact group or persona.

You can personalize content that is displayed through page builder widgets. Individual widgets allow you to create multiple variants, which are then displayed to a different audience based on predefined conditions.

Prerequisite

Content personalization of widgets needs to be configured by your developers. For more information, see:

Creating personalization variants

To personalize widget content, you need to create one or more personalization variants, and set up a condition which decides whether the original or a personalized variant is displayed.

  1. In the Pages application, select a page that contains page builder widgets.
  2. On the Page tab, click on a widget you want to personalize.
  3. Click the Personalize () icon in the widget header.
  4. Choose the condition type that you wish to use to personalize the widget.
    Selecting a condition type
  5. Fill in the configuration dialog and enter a name for the new variant.
    Filling in the configuration dialog
  6. Click Add variantwithin the dialog.
  7. Modify the properties or content of the new widget variant. Consider the target audience of the variant’s condition when preparing the modified content.
  8. Click Save at the top of the page.

The new personalization variant of your widget is now created. In the Edit mode of the Pages application, you can switch between personalization variants of a widget by clicking the Personalize () icon and selecting the desired variant.

When a visitor views the page on the live site, the system evaluates the condition and displays the appropriate variant.

Configuring widget personalization variants

The available personalization condition types, their properties in the configuration dialog, and the properties of widgets all depend on the implementation of your website. For more information, visit your project’s documentation or contact your developer.

Search engine web crawlers

Widget personalization in Xperience does not offer any special handling of search engine web crawlers. Crawlers are treated as regular anonymous website visitors. To avoid cloaking (presenting content to crawlers which is different than content seen by regular users), we recommend using personalization conditions based on contact attributes. Such conditions are not fulfilled by crawlers, so they always receive and process the original widget variant.

However, certain conditions (e.g., time-based conditions depending on the day of the week) can be satisfied by crawlers and result in non-original variants being presented.

Creating additional variants

You can add variants to a personalized widget. All variants of a single widget use the same type of personalization condition, but you can configure different properties for the condition of each variant.

  1. Click the Personalize () icon of a widget to open the variant list.
  2. Click the Add variant button under the list.
    Adding a variant
  3. Fill in the configuration dialog and enter a name for the new variant.
  4. Click Add variantwithin the dialog.
  5. Modify the properties or content of your newly created widget variant.
  6. Click Save at the top of the page.

The newly created variant is created as a copy of the previously selected variant. The new variant is placed on top of the variant list while the original variant stays on the bottom of the list.

Priority of variants

The variants are evaluated from top to bottom according to their position in the variant list. The first variant for which the conditions are satisfied is displayed.

Recommended number of variants

There is no limitation on the number of variants you can create. However, for optimal displaying of the variant list, we do not recommend creating more than 10 variants for each widget.

Working with personalization variants

After you create personalization variants of a widget, you can edit, delete, or change the priority of the variants. To perform these actions, open the variant list by clicking the Personalize () icon in the given widget’s header.

Editing variants

You can edit the properties of your widget variants even after they are created. To edit a variant:

  1. Hover over the variant you want to edit in the variant list.
  2. Click the Edit variant () button. The pre-filled configuration dialog with the current variant properties is displayed.
  3. Edit the desired properties and click Apply within the dialog.
  4. Click Save at the top of the page.

Changing the priority of variants

You can reorder variants in order to change their priority of evaluation. Variants are evaluated from top to bottom, i.e. the first variant in the list for which the conditions are satisfied is displayed. To reorder variants:

  1. Hover over the variant you want to move in the variant list.
  2. Drag and drop the variant within the variant list.
  3. Click Save at the top of the page.

Deleting variants

To delete a variant from the variant list of a widget:

  1. Hover over the variant you want to delete from the variant list.
  2. Click the Delete variant () button.
  3. Click Save at the top of the page.