---
title: Create a campaign in Optimizely Personalization
slug: personalization/docs/create-a-campaign-in-optimizely-personalization
docTags: 
createdAt: 2026-08-05T20:59:37.285Z
---

Set up your first campaign in [Optimizely Personalization](https://www.optimizely.com/personalization/) and deliver personalized experiences to behaviorally targeted audiences.

A campaign is the framework that organizes your personalization strategy. It takes a piece of your site, like promotions on the homepage, and changes the content for different behaviorally targeted audiences. You can create a campaign for each site section where you want to deliver targeted experiences.

[Set up pages, events, tags, and audiences ](docId\:IRPnddq1sAJsB7qDhi4LB)before creating campaigns. You can then reuse those elements to build campaigns.

[Create a project](docId\:NkIwGDwaT_OBnqlWD92ns) or reuse one you already created then create the personalization campaign.

1. Go to **Optimizations** > **Personalization Campaigns **> **Create Personalization Campaign**.
2. Name your campaign based on the type of targeted message you deliver. For example, if you want to personalize the messaging on the product page of an expensive duffel bag, you can name it *Premium Duffel Bag Campaign*.

   ![](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/t2mWnR2_hg2kShjg0b_JC-20260720-145947.png)
3. (Optional) Add a description for the campaign.
4. Choose how to [target](docId\:NkIwGDwaT_OBnqlWD92ns) using the **Target By** drop-down list.
5. Choose the [Metrics](docId\:NkIwGDwaT_OBnqlWD92ns) for the campaign to measure success.
6. Set the [Holdback Size](docId\:NkIwGDwaT_OBnqlWD92ns).
7. Click **Create Campaign**.

## Targeting

Expand the **Target By** drop-down list and set where the campaign runs. Pages are the places on your site where you deliver targeted experiences. You can choose a single page or add multiple pages to create seamless messaging across a funnel.

- **URL** – Manually enter the URL where you want the campaign to run.
- **Saved Pages** – Add an [existing page](../../web-experimentation/target-visitors/jHT8-pages-and-url-targets.mdx) to your campaign. You can also click **Create New Page** to create a page directly in the modal. See [Set up a page](../../web-experimentation/build-experiments/experiment-configuration/Jp-X-configure-a-page.mdx) for information. 

  ![](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/bO755ndpSFyQu3xyMGhSH-20260720-145947.png)

## Metrics

Add metrics to measure the success of your test. Choose the [events](../../experimentation-strategy/get-started/track-events/events-track-clicks-page-views-and-other-visitor-actions.mdx) that best capture how your experiences perform. Events are attached to your page and are tracked constantly. After you add them to a campaign, they are called metrics.

Set the action your campaign will most likely impact as the [primary metric](../../experimentation-strategy/get-started/the-optimization-methodology/stage-3-organize-your-experiments/primary-metrics-secondary-metrics-and-monitoring-goals.mdx). Optimizely's [Stats Engine](../../experimentation-strategy/measure-and-analyze-results/statistical-concepts/stats-engine-resources.mdx) uses [false discovery rate control](../../experimentation-strategy/measure-and-analyze-results/statistical-concepts/false-discovery-rate-control.mdx) to ensure your most important metric reaches statistical significance with full speed and accuracy.

- Select **Browse for metrics** to search for a specific metric.
- Click **Create New Event** to create an event to measure.
- Expand the sections for **Custom Events** or **Page Events** to find a metric.
- Add a **Global Metric** like **Overall Revenue**.

You can choose one primary metric and up to five secondary metrics.

![AddMetrics.png](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/IqPNk6wlxwkrawp1VikTU-20260720-145947.png)

## Holdback Size

Every personalization campaign has a holdback. Holdback is the percentage of your visitors who do not see the personalized experience. Stats Engine uses this to measure campaign performance.

Personalization sets the holdback at 5% by default.

Click the field and enter the percentage of visitors you want to show the original experience. See [Holdback: Measure overall impact in Personalization](docId\:gfXetmjr3RO089bmuDzYr) to learn more.

![holdback-size-personalization-campaign.png](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/3tf8RVe502noIWZN-4gsZ-20260720-145947.png)

## Add experiences and audiences

You can create a personalized experience for each audience with the Visual Editor later. To add an experience after you create a campaign:

1. Click **Create New Experience**.
2. Expand **Search and add audiences** and select existing [audiences](../../experimentation-strategy/get-started/experimentation-best-practices/target-visitors-with-audience-conditions.mdx) to add to your campaign, or click **Create new audience**. When you add multiple audiences, select if you want customers to match **all** of the audiences in the experience (connect the audiences with "and" logic), or **any** of the audiences in the experience (connect the audiences with "or" logic). 

   ![AddAudience_NewExperience.png](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/JTJT9A0oLrPYdixpaXxDM-20260720-145947.png)
3. (Optional) Name the experience, or leave the **Experience Name** blank to use the audience names as the experience name.
4. (Optional) Add variations to [experiment on your personalized experience](docId\:JkeISFrZIkoG590cCeB83).
5. Click **Create Experience**.
6. Repeat steps 1 through 5 for each experience you want to add.

### Prioritize experiences

1. Click **Prioritize Experiences** after you create all the experiences for your campaign.

   ![](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/ZlLfRFx7YMerSiK-AzY80-20260720-145947.png)
2. Drag and drop the experiences to control which visitors bucket into which experience.

   ![](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/Yoa9DA_ZLcCLWniJ2YMhS-20260720-145948.png)

:::Paragraph{indent="1"}
You can also group experiences by dragging one on top of another. Within grouped experiences, you can optionally change the **Traffic Percentage**.
:::

::Image[]{src="https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/KxcVcGMB3qXNCVuI3hlkw-20260720-145948.png" size="100" isUploading="false" showCaption="false" indent="2"}

A visitor sees only one experience by default, so if a visitor qualifies for multiple experiences in the list, they will only see the experience ranked the highest.

Traffic is split randomly by default within grouped experiences, but you can change the **Traffic Percentage** of each experience in a grouping to send more visitors to one experience over the other.

### Target a campaign to multiple audiences at once

1. Go to **More** (**...**) > **Settings** in the **Manage Campaign** window.

   ![AudienceSettings.png](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/-zHdVT2Zi53HwqO2iuj2L-20260720-145948.png)
2. Add each of the audiences you want to match. Set the **Match** drop-down list to **all**.

   ![MatchAll.png](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/WZlvRCy7zNy6oIkk2320l-20260720-145948.png)
3. Click **Save**.

You can also use the **Advanced code editor **to create a custom audience using JSON.

### Create a multi-armed bandit personalization campaign

:::hint{type="info"}
**Note**

This is for plans with Optimizely Web Experimentation.
:::

See [Maximize lift with multi-armed bandit optimizations](../../experimentation-strategy/advanced-strategies/maximize-lift-with-multi-armed-bandit-optimizations.mdx) for information.

1. Go to **More **(**...**) > **Settings** beside an experience or create an experience.
2. Go to **Distributions Mode** and click **Multi-armed Bandit** from the drop-down list.

   ![Personalization_MABs.png](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/I2rPWTwYM8WfBssFFg4IZ-20260720-145948.png)
3. Click **Save Experience**.

### Create a contextual multi-armed bandit personalization campaign

:::hint{type="info"}
**Note**

This is for plans with Optimizely Web Experimentation.
:::

See [Contextual multi-armed bandits](docId\:HEAGVaimK_ctRVAIDugxA) for information.

1. Go to **More **(**...**) > **Settings** beside an experience or create an experience.
2. Go to **Distributions Mode** and click **Contextual** **Multi-armed Bandit** from the drop-down list.

   ![DistributionMode_CMAB.png](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/MAyr2wnqVIhPrLaM0j5Dy-20260720-145948.png)
3. Click **Save Experience**.

## Edit variations

Use the Visual Editor to create your personalized experiences. An [experience](docId\:IRPnddq1sAJsB7qDhi4LB) is the intersection of an audience and a page where you deliver a targeted message.

1. Go to **Experiences** and click a variation to customize it in the Visual Editor.
2. Click an element on the page. A panel displays that shows you the HTML and CSS code for the container you select.
3. Modify these elements to create a personalized message. Click **Undo** to return to the last saved version*.*
4. Click **Save** to keep your changes.
5. Preview your experience to ensure it looks correct.

   ![PreviewVariation.png](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/brN_sBiYz7aLGMHq9Qwm5-20260720-145948.png)
6. Repeat these steps to create a personalized experience for each audience.

## Test and publish

Test your campaign after you create your experiences. Use the [Preview tool](../../web-experimentation/build-experiments/experiment-configuration/RYFb-preview-and-publish-your-experiment.mdx) to view the campaign live without showing it to your visitors.

When the campaign is ready, click **Start Campaign **to release it to your customers.

![StartCampaignPersonalization.png](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/fLYqlT5WqwX-4xtSZsFmx-20260720-145947.png)

A window displays to confirm that you are ready to start your campaign. Click **Start Campaign **to confirm your decision.

![StartCampaignPopup.png](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/i3u-uw78Vc7YY0crewoup-20260720-145947.png)

### View a summary of the campaign

In addition to previewing and testing your campaign, use the **Summary** page in a campaign to view a high-level summary of the campaign settings. You can download and share this summary with stakeholders for easier reporting on the campaigns you are running.

![](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/Q9xsm_3MEQlq40kWp-pvn-20260720-145948.png)

### Experiment with your personalization campaign

After you complete your campaign, you can test different variations of an experience for a specific audience with Optimizely Web Experimentation. See [Experimentation in personalization campaigns](docId\:JkeISFrZIkoG590cCeB83) for information.