The Personalised cards Paragraph | Configuration fields |
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Overview
The Personalised Cards paragraph displays content tailored to each logged-in user’s interests — showing them the articles, resources, or events most relevant to their profile.
It works by matching:
Taxonomy terms that categorise content in the CMS (for example, ‘Themes’ or ‘Areas of Interest’) are matched against custom fields in CiviCRM that store each user’s ‘interests’ or ‘categories’.
When these values align, the user will see content cards that match their personal interests.
This feature is ideal for membership platforms or organisations wanting to surface content that adapts dynamically to the user’s profile.
Before you start
Before adding this paragraph, make sure these two elements are set up correctly:
In CMS:
Use a Taxonomy Vocabulary to categorise your content (for example, a vocabulary called “Themes”).
Use this vocabulary to tag your content types (such as News, Resources, or Events).
In CiviCRM:
Create a Custom Field to store a user’s “interests.”
This should be a Select or Multi-select field, and its options should match the Vocabulary terms exactly (same names/values).
For example, a field called ‘My Interests’ should use exactly the same terms as the ‘Themes’ vocabulary so the content relationship can be established.
Once both are configured, PlusCMS can connect the two systems to personalise content.
How it works
When the Personalised Cards paragraph is added to a page:
The site compares each piece of content’s taxonomy terms with the logged-in user’s CiviCRM “interests.”
Cards matching those shared terms are displayed to that user.
If there aren’t enough matching cards to fill the configured number of rows, the remaining space is filled with recent (non-personalised) content.
Example:
A news article is tagged with the “Carbon Reduction” term from the “Themes” vocabulary. A user’s CiviCRM record includes “Carbon Reduction” under “My Interests.” When that user visits a page containing the Personalised Cards paragraph, that article appears in their personalised list.
Testing setup
To confirm that your setup works correctly:
Categorise several pieces of content with taxonomy terms from your chosen vocabulary.
Pick a test user in CiviCRM and assign one or more of those same terms to their ‘Interests’ field.
Log in as that user and visit the page with the Personalised Cards paragraph.
Confirm that matching content appears automatically.
If the user’s ‘Interests’ field in CiviCRM is available through an ‘Update My Details’ form, you can test this directly on the front end:
Log in as your test user.
Visit the Update My Details form and add one or more interest values.
Ensure at least one selected value matches a term used to categorise your content.
After the user saves their updated details and returns to the page, the Personalised Cards paragraph automatically refreshes to show matching content.
Tip: This same process applies for live users — their personalised content updates automatically when they change their interests through the self-service form.
Fields
Field name | Type | Description |
Title | Text | Add a title to display above your listing |
Lead feature card | Dropdown | Choose a lead card type |
Style | Dropdown | Choose how many cards to display per - row 3 or 4 |
Number of rows | Text | Choose how many rows to display |
Content type | Dropdown | Choose the content types to filter the display |
Filter by | Dropdown | Choose what taxonomy term to filter the display |
Select content queue | Dropdown | Choose whether to display all or use a custom node-queue |
View all link title | Text | choose what text to display for a 'View all' link |
Best practice
Keep your taxonomy and CiviCRM field values in sync — identical naming is essential for matching to work.
Use short, clear term names (e.g. Climate Action rather than Areas relating to Climate Change).
Regularly review user interest data in CiviCRM to ensure accurate content targeting.
Always test with a real user account to confirm the personalisation works as expected before launch.