Creating audiences from visitor behavior

Use visitor tags to build audiences from activity Cedros has recorded, such as page views, repeated visits, events, or purchases. Define who receives a tag and when it comes off, then create a dynamic email list from one or more tags.

A visitor tag identifies recorded behavior. It does not establish marketing consent, guarantee a purchase, or supply an email address for an anonymous visitor. Creating a tag or audience does not send a campaign.

Start with the behavior you want to identify

Open Analytics in your site's admin and select Tags. This is the Analytics settings page, where you configure tracking and visitor tags. You need settings-editing permission to change tags, and separate list-management access to create an email audience. If those controls are unavailable, see Why can't I see or use a feature?.

Analytics visitor tags are separate from the shared tags you apply manually in People. Use Organizing contacts with tags and filters for interests or relationships your team assigns directly.

Choose one clear purpose, such as people who repeatedly view a service page. Decide both what qualifies someone and what should end their membership. For example, you could tag someone after three recorded views of a service page within 30 days, then remove the tag after 14 days without recorded visitor activity.

Before creating the rule, check that your site records the activity it needs. Page-view rules need page-view data; event rules need the actual recorded event name or ID; purchase rules need qualifying purchase or subscription events from the connected commerce extension. Turning on a tag does not enable missing tracking or create those events.

Visitor tagging controls evaluation for the whole site. When it is off, assignment, removal, deleted-tag cleanup, and the scheduled dynamic-list synchronization stop. Existing tags and recipients are not cleared. Turning it on resumes evaluation of all enabled tags, so review the existing rules before changing that switch.

Choose an assignment rule

Each tag has one assignment trigger in Who gets this tag. Choose the trigger that matches the evidence you need:

• Visit frequency: set Minimum visits and Within (days). This counts recorded page views for a visitor across the site, not distinct sessions, days, or people. Several page views during one visit can contribute to the threshold.
• Page visited: enter the exact Page path, then set Minimum visits and Within (days). Here the count applies to views of that page. Use a route such as /pricing, not a full website address. Matching is exact, so case and trailing slashes matter; this is not a “contains” or whole-folder rule.
• Event fired: enter an Event name, then set Minimum visits and Within (days). Despite the field label, the threshold counts matching recorded events. Cedros matches the event's label or ID, ignoring letter case. Entering a name does not create or start tracking an event.
• Purchase type: enter the purchase value your commerce integration records. Qualifying evidence comes from trusted purchase-completion or subscription-start events associated with a visitor. A product-page view, checkout attempt, or ordinary browser event with a purchase-like name is not enough. Ask the person managing your integration for the correct value rather than guessing from a product's display name.
• Country: select a country. This uses the country recorded for the analytics visitor, not a billing address, nationality, or a location manually entered on a People profile. Visitors without that recorded country cannot match it.
• Referrer source: enter Referrer contains and Within (days). Cedros looks for that text anywhere in the recorded referrer, ignoring letter case. Use a specific value such as a referring site's host; a broad word can match unrelated referrers. This is not a general UTM-campaign filter.

For paths, events, and referrers, use the suggested values when they match your intent. Suggestions come from recorded site activity and help avoid spelling mistakes, but they are not a complete list of everything you can target. The country picker also includes countries not yet seen on your site.

Count and day fields accept whole numbers from 1 to 365. The rule's Within (days) value controls its assignment window independently of the date range you use to browse analytics reports. Purchase-type and country rules do not expose that rolling-window field.

Choose when the tag comes off

Open Change removal rule under When it comes off. Assignment and removal are separate decisions: falling below an assignment threshold does not, by itself, remove an existing tag.

Choose one removal trigger:

• Inactive days: set Days inactive. Removal uses the visitor's last recorded activity, not just activity matching this tag's assignment rule. Someone who stops viewing your pricing page but keeps visiting elsewhere may keep the tag.
• Fixed expiry: set Expire after (days). The period starts when the tag is assigned; continuing activity does not continually reset that original assignment time.
• Made any purchase: removes the tag when a qualifying purchase-completion or subscription-start event is recorded for that visitor on or after assignment.
• Made a specific purchase: enter the Purchase type that should clear the tag. The qualifying purchase must be recorded on or after assignment; an older purchase is not a permanent exclusion.
• Visited a specific page: enter the exact Page path that should clear the tag. The qualifying view must occur on or after assignment and be recognized as activity from that visitor's browser. A page view from before the tag was assigned does not clear it.
• Never: leaves the tag in place without automatic removal by a removal rule. Use it deliberately for a lasting classification, rather than an audience that should expire when interest fades.

Removal is evaluated during tag processing, not at the exact instant the visitor acts. A tag can be assigned again when its assignment rule qualifies the visitor later. Do not use a removal rule as a permanent “never email purchasers again” exclusion; check the resulting audience and campaign eligibility before sending.

Changing an assignment rule is also not a complete reset of its existing audience. People who already carry the tag remain subject to its removal rule. If you need a separate audience with a different meaning, create a distinct tag and verify its membership.

Create and save the tag

1. In Analytics → Tags, select Add tag.
2. Enter a descriptive Name, such as Repeated service-page interest.
3. Under Who gets this tag, choose the Trigger and complete its fields. Read the sentence above the fields to check the intended rule.
4. Under When it comes off, open Change removal rule, choose the Trigger, and complete any required value or day count.
5. Open Advanced if you want to add Notes explaining the rule or review its Tag key. The key follows the name until you customize it and must be unique. It becomes fixed after the first save; changing the display name later preserves the key.
6. Choose a color in This tag if helpful. Check that site-wide Visitor tagging is on and that this tag is active when you want evaluation to run.
7. Select Save. A successful save returns to the tags list. Reopen the tag and confirm the saved assignment, removal, and enabled state.

For the service-page example, choose Page visited, use the exact recorded service-page path, set Minimum visits to 3 and Within (days) to 30, then choose Inactive days with Days inactive set to 14. Substitute your own page path and thresholds; do not save an example path that your site does not use.

New tags are enabled by default. If you want to save a rule without starting its evaluation, choose Tag actions → Pause tag before Save. Edits inside the tag editor are drafts until you save them. By contrast, the switches on the tags overview save immediately.

If a name, unique key, or required rule value is missing, Save reveals the problem. Correct it and try again. If saving fails, the editor stays open with the error; keep your draft until the save succeeds. Exit or Back to tags prompts you to handle unsaved changes rather than silently saving them.

Build an email audience from the tag

Saving a tag makes its rule available for evaluation; it does not automatically create an email list.

1. Open Lists and select New List.
2. Choose People with a tag, then select your enabled visitor tag.
3. If you select several tags, choose Any of these to include people carrying at least one, or All of these to require every selected tag.
4. Review Who's on it today, including the count and sample recipients. Check the list name and, under Advanced, its description and visibility. Private is the default.
5. Select Create list, then check the saved list's recipients and subscription status before using it for a campaign.

For the full list workflow, see Creating an audience list.

A tag can belong to an anonymous visitor, but an email audience needs a linked person with a usable email address. Cedros groups recipients by normalized email address and excludes automated or no-reply addresses. Tag counts therefore do not equal email-recipient counts. Nor does a confirmed list membership override suppression, email preferences, or campaign consent checks.

Dynamic list processing has a 10,000-candidate limit. A preview marked first 10,000 checked is limited too. For a larger audience, use narrower rules and review the resulting lists instead of assuming every tagged visitor is included.

The automatic membership cleanup applies to recipients added through the dynamic tag rule. Separately added recipients may remain even if they do not match it. Review the actual list if you need membership to follow tags strictly.

Verify updates and maintain the rule

Cedros periodically reevaluates tags, with a scheduled check every 15 minutes; recorded activity can prompt an earlier pass. Allow for processing time. A saved rule is not a promise that the displayed counts have already refreshed.

1. Reopen Analytics → Tags after processing and check the tag's Users count. In the editor, People is the count captured when the page loaded; changing draft fields does not run a new audience preview.
2. Check that the expected page views, event, or purchase evidence exists for the same visitor and fits the assignment rule. Existing retained activity can qualify someone when a new rule is saved; you do not always need to wait for new activity.
3. Open the dynamic list and inspect representative recipients. Compare the tag count, the list preview, and the saved membership without expecting them to be identical.
4. Check the removal condition separately. For purchase or page removal, the qualifying action needs to occur after the tag was assigned. Verify the resulting membership after processing, especially before using a changed rule for a campaign.

Use these controls according to the change you want:

Edit a rule: open its row or Edit action, make the change, and Save. Existing lists continue to refer to the same tag key. Review those lists after a meaningful rule change.

Pause one tag: disable its switch in the overview, or use Tag actions → Pause tag in the editor and Save. This stops both assignment and removal evaluation for that tag and hides it from the list builder's choices. Existing assignments are retained, and existing lists can still contain their recipients. Pausing a tag is not a way to pause a campaign or clear an audience.

Resume one tag: enable its overview switch, or use Resume tag and Save in the editor. Site-wide Visitor tagging must also be on.

Delete a tag: review any lists that rely on it, choose Delete, and confirm Delete tag. The definition is removed; its active automatic assignments are cleared during a later synchronization while tagging is enabled. Historical records remain. Deleting a tag does not delete its email lists or replace their criteria with another tag, so check those lists before using them again.

If the audience does not match your expectations

A tag is missing from the list builder. Confirm that you created it in Analytics → Tags, not People, and that it is enabled. Check for a tag-loading or permission error before treating an empty picker as proof that no tags exist.

The tag count is zero. Check the site-wide switch, the individual tag state, exact path or event value, threshold, and time window. Check that the necessary activity was collected and associated with a visitor. A count-loading error is not a zero count; use Retry when offered.

The tag count is larger than the email audience. Some visitors may be anonymous, lack an email address, share an address, or fall outside the selected Any/All combination. Check the preview limit and actual list members as well as subscription restrictions.

A visitor still has the tag after no longer meeting its threshold. Review the removal rule. The assignment window controls how someone gets the tag; it does not automatically define when they lose it. A paused tag or site-wide tagging switch can also prevent removal.

A purchase or page view did not remove the tag. Check that the action happened on or after assignment, belongs to the same visitor, and matches the removal value. Purchase rules need qualifying commerce events; a visit to a checkout or thank-you page is only a page view unless that separate page-removal rule is selected.

Editing the rule did not change its People count. That count describes the loaded state, not a simulation of unsaved changes. Save, allow processing time, then reload the page and inspect the list.

If you need help, provide the tag name, assignment and removal settings, related list name, approximate action time, and exact error message. Avoid sharing a full recipient list. See Getting help with your Cedros site.