Visually.io gives you full control over who sees your experiments. Use pre-defined audience segments or create custom ones to target exactly the users you want.
Audiences:
Visually.io supports both pre-defined audiences and custom audiences, giving you control over who sees an experience.
Pre-defined audiences use ready-made segments to target common user behaviors including all visitors, cart abandoners and first-session users. These audiences are maintained automatically and require no setup.
Custom audiences let you include, exclude, or combine multiple conditions to create precise targeting rules and support advanced experimentation use cases. You can define audiences using behaviors, marketing, geo-targeting and other options.
Understanding Direct Traffic Targeting
Visually's Marketing channel = Direct traffic audience condition identifies visitors who have no UTM parameters recorded in their known tracking history.
Unlike classifications based solely on the current visit, Visually considers previously recorded tracking information when determining whether a visitor qualifies as Direct Traffic.
How Traffic Is Classified
Visually evaluates five standard UTM parameters:
utm_source– Identifies the traffic source, such as Google, Facebook, or a newsletter.utm_medium– Identifies the marketing medium, such as email, social, or paid advertising.utm_campaign– Identifies the marketing campaign.utm_term– Identifies the search terms associated with a campaign.utm_content– Distinguishes different ads, links, or campaign content.
If none of these parameters have been recorded in the visitor's known history, the visitor qualifies as Direct Traffic.
If at least one of these parameters is present in that history, the visitor does not qualify.
How Previous Visits Affect Targeting
Visually considers the visitor's recorded UTM history, not just the parameters included in their current URL.
For example, consider a visitor who:
- First arrives through a Facebook campaign using
utm_source=facebook. - Returns to the website later without any UTM parameters.
The visitor will still be classified as non-Direct because Visually has previously recorded their Facebook traffic source.
This classification depends on the visitor history available to Visually. If browser cookies or tracking data expire or are cleared, the visitor may qualify as Direct Traffic again when returning without UTMs. However, previous history may remain associated with visitors who are logged in.
Understanding Differences Across Analytics Platforms
Visually's Direct Traffic classification specifically evaluates the five standard UTM parameters listed above.
Other tracking identifiers, such as Facebook click IDs (fbclid) and other non-standard URL tracking parameters, are not included in this evaluation.
As a result, visitors arriving through marketing links that contain only these additional identifiers may still qualify as Direct Traffic in Visually.
Other analytics platforms may use different attribution methods and additional tracking signals to classify traffic. Therefore, Direct Traffic figures in Visually may differ from those reported by Shopify, Google Analytics, or other reporting tools.
When comparing these figures, it's important to consider that Visually's Direct Traffic audience condition is based on the visitor's known UTM history rather than a universal definition of direct traffic.
Page Type
Which page type/s in the store do you want to edit for this experience?
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All Pages (for cart drawer / header / footer)
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Homepage
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Collection pages
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Product pages
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Cart page
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Checkout page (available for Shopify Plus only)
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Custom URL (specific product page / specific collection page / landing page) - It's recommended to use the "Includes" option rather than "Is" to ensure that the experience is displayed when there are tracking parameters in the URL. Just ensure that the URL string you define is unique.
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Other (provides the flexibility to include, exclude, or combine multiple definitions. For example: "page type is product AND product is not BlackHat")
Note: Updating the Page Type will cause the Quick Preview to change accordingly. For instance, changing the default "All Pages" to "Product Pages" will cause the preview on the left to display a random product page.
Device
Since mobile and desktop layouts are completely different from one another, for optimal user experience and more valuable insights, it is often best to create separate experiences for mobile and desktop devices.
To specify which device should be targeted, two sections should be defined:
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The device icon on the top left side - affects the Quick Preview
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The dropdown list on the top right side - affects the targeting and measurement
Note that each change you make is either for desktop or mobile.
If you wish to create an experience that combines both Desktop and Mobile, you'll need to switch between them via the top-left device icon and separately create the change for each device. This assures that each change you make to your store is fully optimized.
