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CRO glossary

How to personalize your website by campaign or ad

Personalizing a website by campaign means showing each visitor the same message as the ad that brought them: you read the link's UTM tags (utm_source, utm_campaign…) and change the headline, offer or image for people arriving from that campaign, leaving the site as it is for everyone else.

By Fernando Blanco Dosil · Updated November 2, 2026

Why it is worth doing

Someone sees an Instagram ad for "Free shipping on the whole winter collection", taps, and lands on a generic homepage with a summer carousel. They have to search again for what they were promised. Many don't.

When the page repeats the ad's promise, the visitor knows they are in the right place. This is called message match. It is one of the cheapest improvements there is, because you are not changing the site for everyone: only for people coming from that campaign.

How to do it, step by step

  1. Tag your ad links properly with UTMs. For example, utm_source=instagram and utm_campaign=winter-free-shipping. Without tags there is no reliable way to know where each visitor came from.
  2. Create an audience with that rule: "utm_campaign is winter-free-shipping", or "utm_source is instagram" for something broader.
  3. Decide what changes for that audience: the homepage headline, the product page banner, the first offer they see, the main image.
  4. Measure it. Ideally, launch it as an A/B test inside that audience: half see the personalized version and half the normal one. That way you know whether they actually buy more.

Examples by where the visitor comes from

Arrives fromAudience ruleWhat you show
An Instagram ad with an offerutm_source = instagram and utm_campaign = the campaignThe ad's headline and offer, right at the top
Paid search on Googleutm_source = google and utm_medium = cpcA headline with the search's words and the price visible
The newsletterutm_medium = emailA welcome-back line, without the sign-up pop-up
A post on a media site or blogreferrer contains the site's domainA line mentioning where they found you

Common mistakes

  • Tagging every ad with a different UTM and then not knowing which rule to use. Agree a few utm_campaign values with whoever runs the ads.
  • Promising on the page something the ad did not say. The aim is to repeat the message, not add another.
  • Not measuring it. A personalization nobody compares with the original is an opinion.

How it works in Bixlow

In Bixlow you create an audience from the session's UTMs, referrer or landing page, and reuse it in any change. Bixlow remembers the UTMs the visitor arrived with, so the campaign version follows them from page to page. You ask the agent for that campaign's version, review it in the preview and launch it as an A/B test inside the audience to measure whether it sells more. Audiences and tests start on the Standard plan.

FAQ

Personalize by campaign

What are UTMs?

Tags added to the end of a link (?utm_source=instagram&utm_campaign=sale) so you know where each visit came from. Ad platforms add them, or you do when you create the link.

Does personalizing by campaign affect SEO?

No, as long as the page URL is the same and the changes only show when arriving with those UTMs. Google crawls without UTMs and sees the normal page.

Can I personalize without UTMs?

Partly. You can use the referrer (the site the visitor came from) or the landing page, but many apps and social networks do not pass the referrer. UTMs are the most reliable.

How many personalizations should I run?

Start with the campaign that brings the most traffic. Keeping twenty versions live at once is hard to review, and each one needs its own measurement.

START WITH YOUR SITE

What would you test first on your site?

Bixlow analyses your site for free and proposes your first hypotheses, ranked by impact.