Customer Personas
What it is
Customer Personas are representative, synthetic customer profiles created specifically for testing and development purposes. A persona looks and behaves like a real customer profile. It has properties, can belong to segments, and can be used to render message templates. However, it is clearly marked as a test entity and is excluded from production campaigns and analytics by default.
Personas solve a fundamental challenge in customer engagement platforms: you need to test segments, preview messages, and validate workflows with realistic data, but using real customer profiles for testing risks sending unintended communications or corrupting production data. Personas provide a safe sandbox for quality assurance without any risk to your actual customer base.
The platform supports an unlimited number of personas, and they are shared across your entire team. Every team member with the appropriate permissions can create, view, and use personas for testing. This makes personas a collaborative tool for ensuring consistent quality across marketing, engineering, and QA workflows.
When to use
| Scenario | Description |
|---|---|
| Testing segment conditions | You have built a complex segment and want to verify it correctly includes or excludes profiles with specific property combinations. Create personas representing edge cases (no email, expired subscription, maximum values). |
| Previewing message personalization | You are designing a campaign with dynamic content (e.g., Hello {{firstName}}, your {{subscriptionTier}} plan renews on {{renewalDate}}) and need to see how it renders with realistic data. |
| Validating workflow logic | You build a workflow with conditional branches (e.g., "if VIP, route to priority queue; otherwise, send standard message") and need to test each path. |
| Onboarding new team members | New team members need standardized test data to learn the platform without affecting real customer profiles or campaign metrics. |
| Sharing test scenarios across teams | Marketing, engineering, and QA all need to test against the same profile configurations to ensure consistent behavior. |
Steps
Step 1: Navigate to Personas
Click "Customers" in the main sidebar, then select the "Personas" tab to view all existing personas. The list shows each persona's name, key properties (channel, email, phone), and the date it was last modified. You can search and filter personas by name or properties.
Step 2: Create a new persona
Click "New Persona" and provide a descriptive name that reflects the test scenario. Good naming conventions include the scenario, channel, and a distinguishing attribute. Examples: "VIP Customer, US, Premium Plan" or "New Lead, No Email, WhatsApp Only." Consistent naming makes personas easy to find and reuse.
Step 3: Set persona properties
Fill in profile properties that match the scenario you want to test. The property form mirrors the structure of a real customer profile, so you can set values for both built-in and custom properties.
| Property Category | Examples | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Built-in identity fields | firstName, lastName, email, phoneNumber, channel | Core identification and channel routing. |
| Custom business fields | subscriptionTier, leadScore, preferredLanguage, companyName | Testing segment conditions that depend on business-specific attributes. |
| Dates and timestamps | createdAt, lastSeen, renewalDate | Testing time-based segment conditions and message personalization with dates. |
| Consent preferences | Opted in/out per channel and communication type | Testing consent enforcement in campaigns and workflows. |
Step 4: Assign persona to segments
Optionally, manually assign the persona to one or more segments. This is useful for testing segment-dependent logic immediately, without waiting for the system to evaluate segment conditions against the persona's properties. Manual assignment overrides the standard evaluation process for that persona.
Step 5: Apply labels
Add any labels that are relevant to your test scenario. Labels on personas behave identically to labels on real profiles, so you can verify label-based filtering, segment conditions, and workflow branches using your test personas.
Step 6: Preview a message with persona
In the campaign or template editor, select "Preview with Persona" and choose a persona from the list. The message renders using the persona's properties, showing exactly how a customer with those attributes would see the content. This is the most direct way to verify that your template variables, conditional content blocks, and fallback values work correctly before sending to real customers.
Step 7: Test a segment with persona
Navigate to a segment and click "Test with Persona." The system evaluates the segment conditions against the persona's properties and reports whether the persona matches. The result includes a detailed breakdown showing which individual conditions passed and which failed, making it easy to diagnose unexpected behavior.
Step 8: Run a workflow test with persona
In the workflow builder, click "Test Run" and select a persona. The workflow executes using the persona's data, and you can trace the exact path taken through each node. No actual messages are sent during test runs. The trace view highlights which branches were taken and which were skipped, giving you full visibility into the workflow logic.
Step 9: Review persona details
Open any persona to view its complete profile, including all properties, labels, segment memberships, and consent status. Use this view to confirm the persona is configured correctly before using it for testing.
Step 10: Share personas across your team
Personas are visible to all team members with the appropriate permissions. Establish a consistent naming convention (e.g., "[Scenario], [Channel], [Key Attribute]") so everyone can find and reuse existing personas instead of creating duplicates.
Common pitfalls
| Pitfall | Why It Matters | How to Avoid It |
|---|---|---|
| Personas in production campaigns | While BotBat excludes personas by default, custom list-based audiences may not filter them out. | Always verify that campaign audience filters exclude persona profiles. |
| Stale persona data | If your property schema evolves but personas are not updated, they no longer represent realistic scenarios. | Periodically review and update personas to match the current data model. |
| Too few personas | A single "test user" cannot cover the range of real-world variations. | Create personas for different channels, subscription tiers, consent statuses, geographic regions, and edge cases. |
| Skipping negative tests | Verifying that a persona does NOT match a segment is just as important as confirming a match. | Create personas specifically designed to fail conditions and confirm exclusion. |
| Confusion with real profiles | Personas can appear in People searches if filters are not applied. | Prefix persona names with "[TEST]" or use a dedicated label for easy identification. |
Create a standard set of personas that cover your most common customer archetypes and edge cases, then document them in a shared wiki. When anyone on the team builds a new segment, campaign, or workflow, they can immediately test against this established set for consistent quality assurance.
- Personas List
- Create Persona
- Persona Detail
- Message Preview
- Segment Test
- Workflow Test