# Audience Targeting

Source: https://docs.arcxp.com/en/products/pagebuilder/pagebuilder-editor/audience-targeting.html

Audience Targeting is Arc XP’s integrated, server-side tool that lets you build audience segments and deploy targeted digital experiences through the PageBuilder Editor.

A targeted experience combines a default page and up to _five_ page variants that map to a single URL. Based on a site visitor’s type of audience—defined by their country, device, and cookie criteria—they get either the default page or a page variant.

Arc XP’s Audience Targeting CDN-powered solution allows you to create this customized content for different visitor segments without developer support, and is included in your subscription with the following parameters:

- You can enable Audience Targeting on _one_ website for your organization. If yours is a multi-site organization, select a preferred website.
- Design and publish up to _six_ visitor experiences—one default plus five variants—for a single page URL using PageBuilder Editor’s curation and preview capabilities. For more details, see [Creating a page version](https://docs.arcxp.com/en/products/pagebuilder/pagebuilder-editor/managing-pages.html#UUID-37aa7b4f-dcda-3829-6725-012255820b8c%5FUUID-d80129f1-4968-d632-e713-a2a9ab21ef21).
- Apply audience segments directly to your page variants within the PageBuilder Editor’s Optimizations workspace.
- Monitor and manage all targeted experiences from the Audience Targeting dashboard without requiring any code changes.

## Audience Targeting limitations

Audience Targeting _does not_ currently support the following:

- Individual user-level personalization. If you want to personalize for individual users, use targeting and testing tools on the client side instead.
- Websites with an enabled server-side paywall.
- Multiple website provisioning.
- PageBuilder’s templates; Audience Targeting works _only_ with PageBuilder pages.
- Setting a variant as the default page.

> **Note:**
> 
> If you use Micro Experiences and have multiple experiences in your environment, Audience Targeting works _only_ on the default PageBuilder experience.

> **Caution:**
> 
> If you use PageBuilder data sync to copy data between environments, deactivate any active page variant segments in the target environment before starting the sync. Page variant IDs from the source replace the existing ones in the target after the copy completes. Segments that are still active and reference the old variant IDs end up in a locked state that you can’t resolve from the UI. If this happens, contact [Arc XP Customer Support](https://arcpublishing.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/2) to deactivate the affected segments.

## Privacy considerations

As a data controller, you are responsible for compliance with privacy laws such as GDPR and CCPA when using Audience Targeting. These responsibilities include:

- Providing clear information about data processing activities.
- Obtaining legally required consent for cookie deployment.
- Honoring opt-out requests for data processing.

Audience Targeting uses _cookies_ for audience segmentation. Talk with your legal counsel to ensure your implementation complies with the applicable legal and regulatory standards.

## Prerequisites

Before working with Arc XP’s Audience Targeting feature, you must: 

- To enable Audience Targeting in your environment, contact [Arc XP Customer Support](https://arcpublishing.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/2).
- Enable the following Delivery and PageBuilder Editor permissions:

  - Delivery application permissions:

    - **Access** \- allows you to access the Delivery application.
    - **Content Editor** \- allows you to create, edit, and delete content.
    - **Configuration Editor**\- allows you to create, read, update, and delete site configurations, and view all content in your site.
  - PageBuilder Editor application permissions:

    - **Write and Publish** \- allows you to create, edit, and publish default pages and page variants.
    - **Edit Audience** \- allows you to add, edit, and remove audiences for page variants.
    - **Manage Audience Targeting** \- allows you to add, edit, and remove audiences for page variants.
    - **Unpublish Page** \-allows you to unpublish pages and page variants.
    - **Delete** \- allows you to delete pages and page variants.
- Define your audience using the Delivery application. To learn more about setting audiences, see [Audience Targeting: Create and Manage Audiences](https://docs.arcxp.com/en/products/delivery/audience-targeting--create-and-manage-audiences.html).

## Getting started

## Creating a targeted experience

To create a targeted experience for your audiences, complete the following:

1. Go to **PageBuilder Editor** \> **Pages** \> select a published page. The PageBuilder dashboard opens.
2. On the top navigation bar, open the Variant drop-down and click **\+ Create variant**. The Create page variant panel opens.
3. Complete the following:

  - **Name** \- enter a name for the variant.
  - Select how you want to create the variant:

    - Create page variant from existing, or
    - Create blank page variant
  - **Default output type** \- select an output type from the drop-down menu.
  - **Audience** \- select an audience from the drop-down menu.
4. Click **Create variant**.

Your page opens in the Curate workspace, and a `Ready to activate` tag appears beside your page variant in the **Pages** page.

## Activating your page variant

After creating the variant, you still need to activate it to make it available to your target audience. To activate your page variant, complete the following:

1. Go to **PageBuilder Editor** \> **Pages** \> your page variant. The page variant opens in the PageBuilder dashboard.
2. Click the Optimize workspace icon ![icon_optimize.png](https://docs.arcxp.com/images/learning-center/image/img-7aff7f82c0f8af21fb6af58fae1dfdf6.png). The Audience Targeting card opens.
3. In the **Select an Audience** card, click the drop-down menu to select an audience for your variant.  
TipAudiences are defined by your organization, using the Delivery application. To learn more about setting audiences, see [Audience Targeting: Create and Manage Audiences](https://docs.arcxp.com/en/products/delivery/audience-targeting--create-and-manage-audiences.html).
4. Toggle on the **Ready to activate** option.
5. Navigate back to **Pages** \> **Optimizations** \> **Audience targeting**.  
The Audience targeting dashboard opens, with a list of **Ready to activate** page variants and the already **Activated** variants on your site.
6. Click **Activate all page variants**. The Activate all page variants modal opens, showing a list of all the variants to activate.
7. Click **Activate**. The activation process takes 15 to 20 minutes to complete.

## Publishing your page variant

After the activation process completes, you _must_ publish your page variants to make them accessible to your audiences. To publish your page variant, complete the following:

1. Go to **PageBuilder Editor** \> **Pages** \> your page variant. The page variant opens in the PageBuilder dashboard.
2. Click the Publish workspace icon ![icon_publish_workspace.png](https://docs.arcxp.com/images/learning-center/image/img-650c933e03b474f4fbd97675ed45e6e2.png).
3. Click **Share & Publish**.  
Your targeted page variants are now live, and site visitors who meet the audience criteria see a unique experience.

## Managing audiences

See the following documentation to manage your site’s targeted audiences and enable the Audience Targeting from a developer’s perspective:

- [Creating and managing audiences](https://docs.arcxp.com/en/products/delivery/audience-targeting--create-and-manage-audiences.html)
- [Audience Targeting: Developer guide](https://dev.arcxp.com/audience-targeting/developer-docs/audience-targeting-developer-guide/)