💡 Important Note: This guide only applies to flow campaigns that use Extole's upgraded Flow Builder. Check for the flow icon next to your campaign name.
Overview
Targeting in Extole helps ensure the right participants enter the right campaign at the right time. Whether you're using domain targeting, audience membership, profile attributes, or custom rules, targeting keeps your campaigns relevant and efficient.
This guide explains how to use Extole's targeting scenarios, how to configure rules, and how to decide when and where to apply targeting in your campaign flows.
Why Use Targeting?
Targeting in Extole determines:
Who can see campaign marketing placements
Who qualifies to enter a campaign
When they qualify
Which campaign takes priority if multiple apply
How participant journeys are maintained over time
Targeted campaigns to deliver more personalized, effective, and efficient programs. Here's why it's worth the effort:
Reach the right people – Tailor campaigns to specific segments (e.g. new customers, loyal advocates, employees), so you’re always speaking to the right audience with the right message.
Improve performance – Targeted campaigns often convert better because they're more relevant. That means higher participation, more referrals, and stronger ROI.
Avoid conflicts – If multiple campaigns are live, targeting ensures people enter the most appropriate one, preventing confusion or double participation.
Protect your budget – Targeting helps prevent rewards from going to ineligible or fraudulent participants, keeping your spend focused on legitimate activity.
Test and optimize – With separate, targeted flows, you can A/B test messaging, incentives, or timing to continuously improve results.
Targeting Scenarios
Targeting scenarios are pre-configured sets of rules that you can apply within each flow of your campaign. These appear at the top of each flow in the Flow Builder.
You can:
Use default or prebuilt scenarios
Swap between scenarios
Add or modify rules to suit your business goals
Default Targeting
Includes: All participants in the US and Canada
Excludes: Suspicious traffic (via built-in fraud filters)
Use this if your campaign is open to most users by default.
To include a broader audience (e.g., international users), use the Everyone scenario, which removes country restrictions.
Audience Targeting
Use this to include or exclude specific audiences defined in your My Audiences page.
Ideal for: Employees, VIP customers, loyalty members, etc.
Enforces fraud filters: Yes
Where to apply:
Marketing flow: Controls visibility of CTAs
Participation or Share flows: Controls who can participate or refer
Domain Targeting
Restricts visibility of campaign content to specific domains.
Variants:
US/Canada only
No country restrictions
Domains managed in: Tech Center
Where to apply:
Marketing flow: Only show CTAs on selected domains
Understanding Targeting Rules
Targeting rules are grouped into Entry Rules and Ongoing Rules. Both types must be met for a participant to qualify and remain in the journey.
Entry Rules
These define who can enter a campaign. If any entry rule fails, the participant will not start the journey.
Ongoing Rules
These must continue to be true after entry. If an ongoing rule fails, the participant will be removed from the journey, and their future actions will not qualify.
How to Update Targeting in Flow Builder
To modify targeting for a specific part of your campaign, you’ll use the Flow Builder. Each flow—Marketing, Participation, Share, etc.—can have its own targeting scenario.
Step 1: Open the Flow Builder
Open the campaign's Flow Builder. From the Programs page, find the campaign where you want to update targeting and click Manage Flow.
Step 2: Select the Flow
Find the Flow to Edit. In the Flow Builder, choose the specific flow (e.g., Marketing, Share) that you want to modify.
Step 3: Update the Targeting
Remove the existing targeting scenario. If a default or existing scenario is already applied, click the Remove (trash can) icon to delete it.
Click “+ New Targeting Scenario”. This will open a list of available targeting scenarios.
Choose a targeting scenario. Select from prebuilt options like:
Audience Targeting
Domain Targeting
Everyone
Configure scenario details. Depending on the scenario, you may need to define specific inputs:
If using Audience: Choose the audience from the drop-down list of available audiences (from My Audiences).
If using Domain: Select the domain from your list of verified domains (from Tech Center).
Add or modify rules (optional). You can further customize the targeting scenario by adding Entry or Ongoing Rules. All rules must pass for participants to qualify.
Example: For your Audience targeting, you may want to specify that audience members must also be new customers who haven't made a purchase in the last 180 days. In this case, you could add the Is New Customer rule to the scenario's entry rules.
Step 4: Publish Your Changes
Once you've finished making updates to your campaign's targeting, don't forget to Publish your campaign.
Best Practices
Test before going live: Always validate that the right participants qualify after you update targeting.
Be specific: The more tailored your rules are, the more relevant your campaign will be to participants.
Use naming conventions: Label your scenarios clearly (e.g., "Employees Only", "CA Customers") to stay organized.
Ensure continuity: If you are using various targeting scenarios for each of your campaign flows, make sure you are applying changes and customizations to all of them. Example: If you change the country restrictions in the marketing flow's targeting, you will also want to make the same update to the targeting in your share flow.
Targeting Rules
Audience & Membership Rules
Member of Audience – Participant belongs to a defined audience
Is Not Part of Audience – Participant is excluded from a specific audience
Event-Based Rules
Input Event Matches Event Names – Event name matches exactly
Event Contains Parameter – Event has a specific data key/value
Event Data Contains Program Label – Determines targeting based on a label in the event
Event Matches Program Domain – Event originates from a specific domain
Event Value Greater Than – Event includes a value above threshold
Event Value Less Than – Event includes a value below threshold
Transaction Value Greater Than – Participant qualifies if their purchase meets a minimum amount
Profile-Based Rules
Profile Contains Parameter – A specific attribute exists in the participant’s profile
Has Email Address – Participant must have a valid email
Valid Email Filter – Both referrer and friend must have valid emails
Behavior & History Rules
Has Taken Action – Participant completed an event (purchase, signup, etc.)
Has Not Taken Action – Participant has not completed a defined event
Has Previously Qualified – Participant passed the same rule set in the past
Is New Customer – Participant has not made a qualifying action in the last 180 days
Fraud Prevention & Traffic Filtering
Built-in rules designed to block spam, fraud, and poor-quality traffic.
Configuration options:
Blocked Subnetworks – Prevent traffic from known IP ranges
Format: CIDR (e.g.,
192.168.0.0/16)
Blocked Referrer Sites – Block traffic from unwanted sources
Format: Domain and path only (no protocol, e.g.,
badsite.com/path)