Choose who sees an offer
Targeting decides which customers get an offer. It is step 3 of the offer wizard, headed Who sees this offer? Use a ready-made preset, or build your own rules from what customers bought, what they spent, who they are, and when they ordered.
What this does
An offer shown to everyone is wrong for most of them. Someone who just bought a coat does not want another coat.
Targeting narrows the audience so the offer makes sense.
Start with a preset
Six presets cover the common cases:
- New customers only — First-time purchasers
- Returning customers — At least one prior order
- High-value carts — Cart total of 100 or more, in your store's currency
- VIP customers — Customers tagged VIP in Shopify
- Weekend customers — Saturdays and Sundays only
- No active discount — Hides the offer if the customer already has one
No active discount is worth knowing about. It stops you stacking a new discount on top of one a customer already used.
Build your own rules
Sixteen conditions, in four groups.
What they bought
- Product — Specific products in the order
- Collection — Products from these collections
- Product tag — Shopify product tags
- Product type — Shopify product type
- Variant name — A named variant
Cart, shipping and discount
- Cart total — What they spent
- Item quantity — How many items
- Shipping value — What shipping cost
- Discount code — A code they used
Who the customer is
- Customer tag — Shopify customer tags
- First-time vs returning — Whether they have ordered before
- Specific customers — Named customers
- Customer segments — A Shopify segment
Order and timing
- Market or region — Where they are
- Day of the week — Which day
- Time of day — What time
How to use them well
Start with everyone. Your first offer should have no targeting at all. You need to know whether customers respond before you narrow the audience.
Add one condition at a time. Two conditions can shrink an audience to almost nothing, and you will not notice — the offer simply stops appearing.
Match the offer to the trigger. If the condition is "bought a coffee machine", the offer should be coffee. Targeting is only useful when the product follows from it.
Segments beat tags for anything complex. Build the segment in Shopify, then point the offer at it. Shopify keeps it up to date.
Good to know
Targeting is invisible when it fails. A customer who does not match sees nothing at all. There is no message and no error. If an offer seems dead, targeting is the first thing to check after the app block.
Every condition has to be true. Conditions narrow together, not separately. Add three and a customer must match all three.
Cart total uses your store's currency. For international stores, a threshold of 100 means different things in different markets. Use Market or region alongside it.
Exposure limits are separate. How often one customer sees an offer is set in step 4, not here.
Troubleshooting
- The offer never shows — Why: Conditions are too narrow, or the block is missing — Fix: Set targeting to everyone and re-test
- It shows to the wrong people — Why: A condition does not mean what you expected — Fix: Check each one against a real order
- Tag conditions match nothing — Why: The tag is spelled differently in Shopify — Fix: Copy the tag from a real product or customer
- A segment does not work — Why: The segment is empty or was renamed — Fix: Check it in Shopify
- It works for some markets only — Why: A market condition, or a currency threshold — Fix: Check both
- Nobody sees it at weekends — Why: A day or time condition is set — Fix: Check the timing group
FAQ
Should I target my first offer?
No. Run it to everyone until you have enough data to judge. Targeting a new offer means you cannot tell whether a poor result was the offer or the audience.
What is the difference between a customer tag and a segment?
A tag is a label you add by hand or with an app. A segment is a live rule Shopify keeps up to date. Segments are better for anything that changes, like spend or order count.
Can I show different offers to different people?
Yes. Build one offer per audience and target each. Set priorities so the right one wins when several match.
Why do so few customers see my offer?
Every condition has to be true at once. Remove them one at a time and watch when the offer starts appearing again.
Does targeting slow the page down?
No. It is worked out when the page loads, and customers who do not match simply see nothing.
Related articles
Updated on: 21/08/2026
Thank you!