# Personalizations - Getting Started

Personalizations let you deliver tailored experiences to specific visitor segments — without running a test. Instead of splitting traffic between variations to find a winner, you show a specific experience to a targeted audience based on rules you define.

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### What Is a Personalization?

A personalization takes a change you want to make — a different page layout, a custom price, a tailored banner — and shows it exclusively to visitors who match your targeting criteria. Everyone who matches sees the personalized experience. Everyone who doesn't sees your store as normal.

Think of it this way:

* **Experiment** → "Which version works better?" → Split traffic, measure, find a winner
* **Personalization** → "Show this version to this audience" → Targeted delivery, track performance

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### How It Differs from an Experiment

|                              | Experiment                                                 | Personalization                                                                       |
| ---------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Goal**                     | Find which variation performs best                         | Deliver a tailored experience to a specific audience                                  |
| **Traffic split**            | Visitors are randomly assigned to variations (e.g., 50/50) | All matching visitors see the personalized experience (100%)                          |
| **Control group**            | Yes — a portion of visitors see the original               | No split — if a visitor matches the audience rules, they see the personalized version |
| **Statistical significance** | Evaluated — you wait for enough data to declare a winner   | Not applicable — there's no comparison being tested                                   |
| **Audience targeting**       | Optional — can run for all visitors or a specific audience | Required — the audience rules define who sees the personalization                     |
| **Traffic allocation step**  | Yes — you configure the split                              | No — there's no traffic to split                                                      |

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### When to Use Personalizations

Personalizations are most useful when you already know what works for a specific audience and want to deploy it permanently:

* **After a winning experiment** — You ran a test, found that mobile visitors convert better with a specific layout, and now want to roll it out just for mobile visitors
* **Audience-specific pricing** — Show different prices to visitors from different countries, traffic sources, or customer segments
* **Campaign-specific landing pages** — Redirect visitors from a specific ad campaign to a tailored page
* **Targeted messaging** — Show different banners, headlines, or content to new visitors vs. returning visitors
* **Seasonal or regional content** — Display different images or promotions based on visitor location

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### Available Personalization Types

Personalizations use the same underlying tools as experiments. You can create personalizations for:

| Type                              | What You Can Personalize                                                                                           |
| --------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Page Personalization**          | Show different page templates to targeted audiences                                                                |
| **Pricing Personalization**       | Offer dynamic pricing to specific visitor segments (Shopify Plus: native pricing; other plans: duplicate products) |
| **URL Redirects**                 | Send specific audiences to targeted landing pages                                                                  |
| **Product Image Personalization** | Show different product images to different audiences                                                               |
| **Content Edits Personalization** | Use the Visual Editor to customize text, images, and layout for targeted visitors                                  |
| **Custom Code Personalization**   | Inject custom JS/CSS for specific audiences                                                                        |

The creation flow for each type is the same as the corresponding experiment — with two key differences: there's no traffic allocation step, and audience targeting is required instead of optional.

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### How It Works

1. You create a personalization and select the type (page, pricing, URL redirect, etc.)
2. You configure the personalized experience — the change you want visitors to see
3. You set up **audience targeting rules** — device, location, traffic source, UTM parameters, visitor type, or any combination
4. When a visitor matches your targeting rules, they see the personalized experience
5. Visitors who don't match see your store as normal
6. Elevate tracks performance metrics so you can monitor how the personalization is performing

All matching visitors are assigned to the personalized variation — there's no random split and no control group receiving a different experience.

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### Setting Up Audience Targeting

Audience targeting is the foundation of personalizations. Without it, a personalization would just be a change applied to everyone (which is what experiments are for).

Common targeting setups:

* **Mobile visitors** → Show a simplified, mobile-optimized layout
* **Visitors from Facebook ads** → Show a landing page that matches the ad creative
* **Returning visitors** → Display a loyalty discount or personalized recommendation
* **Visitors from the US** → Show US-specific pricing or promotions
* **Visitors from a specific UTM campaign** → Tailor the page to match the campaign messaging

You can combine rules with AND/OR logic for precise targeting. For the full list of targeting options, see [Audience Targeting](https://docs.elevateab.com/elevate-helpcenter/experiment-setup/audience-targeting).

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### Monitoring Performance

Even though personalizations don't have a control group for A/B comparison, Elevate still tracks all performance metrics — conversion rate, revenue, add-to-cart rate, session duration, and more. You can monitor these in the same Results and Advanced Analytics tabs as experiments.

This lets you see how the personalized experience is performing and catch any issues early. If metrics drop after launching a personalization, you can pause it and investigate.

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### Next Steps

To create a personalization, go to **Personalizations** in your Elevate dashboard and select the type of personalization you want to create. The setup follows the same steps as the corresponding experiment type — refer to the relevant experiment guide for detailed instructions:

* [Page Testing](https://docs.elevateab.com/elevate-helpcenter/page-testing/how-to-create-a-page-experiment)
* [Price Testing (Native)](https://docs.elevateab.com/elevate-helpcenter/price-testing/how-to-create-a-price-experiment) / [Price Testing (Duplicate Products)](https://docs.elevateab.com/elevate-helpcenter/personalizations/broken-reference)
* [Split URL Testing](https://docs.elevateab.com/elevate-helpcenter/split-url-testing/how-to-create-a-split-url-experiment)
* [Product Image Testing](https://docs.elevateab.com/elevate-helpcenter/product-image-testing/how-to-create-a-product-image-experiment)
* [Visual Editor Testing](https://docs.elevateab.com/elevate-helpcenter/visual-editor-testing/how-to-create-a-visual-editor-experiment)
* [Custom Code Testing](https://docs.elevateab.com/elevate-helpcenter/custom-code-testing/how-to-create-a-custom-code-experiment)