In BlueConic, profile properties store customer and visitor data within customer profiles. Profile properties gather data from various sources, such as listeners, customer input in dialogues, and connections with other systems. The data stored in a profile property is called a profile property value.
Types of profile properties
Behavioral profile properties: BlueConic automatically collects these to provide behavioral customer segmentation, tracking activity, frequency, intensity, and momentum on your site.
Read-only, system-created profile properties: BlueConic collects these out-of-the-box, and they are read-only. These are automatically added to new tenants and settings cannot be modified.
Create your own profile properties: Manually create these in BlueConic. ---- where can you create them?
Organize and manage profile properties
Manage profile properties in BlueConic by:
Selecting More > Properties from the navigation.
The Profile properties tab displays all properties.
Search, filter, and adjust columns as needed.
System-generated profiles are grayed out in the table but still clickable.
Create a profile property
Generate
To create a new profile property:
Click Add profile property.
Give the new profile property a name.
(Optional) You can expand a profile properties metadata by clicking the chevron icon underneath the name. Here you can assign your profile property labels or give it a brief description.
The default maximum size for a profile property value is 64KB.
Configure
To create a new profile property, configure the following settings:
The ID is auto-populated as you name your profile property. This ID acts as the internal identifier for the profile property and must be unique. You can make edits to this ID before you save the profile property. Once saved, the ID cannot be modified.
Assign the data type of the profile property from the dropdown. Options are:
Text (limit 65,000 characters)
Email address
Number (maximum value is 2,147,483,647)
Decimal (up to 4 decimal places)
Currency
Date time (Unix millisecond timestamps)
Group ID
(Optional) Use the Available for segmentation option to specify whether or not the profile property should be available in the Segments tab to be used as a filter for segmentation.
If enabling this setting, enter default values for the profile property. These values will be available for building segments — even when no values have been added by listeners to visitor profiles yet.
Click Save to permanently save the profile property.
Expert settings
Expert settings control a profile property’s privacy level, data sensitivity, and behavior during profile merging.
If you aren't sure about how to configure these settings, it's best to leave them at the default value or ask your BlueConic customer success manager.
If configuring, these are the optional expert settings:
Unique identifier: Retrieves profiles with a specific property value and helps define profile merging rules. For better privacy and security, select "Create new profile when identifier changes" to prevent profile hijacking. This ensures a visitor switches to a new profile when the property value changes.
Data sensitivity: Choose whether this profile property contains PII or non-PII. You can change PII to non-PII only if no profiles contain values. PII properties are visible only to users with the appropriate data visibility role.
Permission level: Specifies what visitor permission level is minimally needed to use the profile property. Options include:
Level 1 — The profile property can only store anonymous data.
Level 2 — The profile property can store personal data such as an email address or telephone number.
Merge strategy: Specifies what to do with the value of the profile property if the visitor's profile is merged with another profile. Each individual profile property can be assigned a unique merge strategy. Options include:
Keep both (based on XML value BOTH): The values of both properties are merged together, keeping all values.
Value of current profile (based on XML value KEEP_CURRENT): The values of the property in the dominant profile are retained.
Sum (based on XML value SUM): The values of the two profile properties (must be integers) are added together.
Highest (based on XML value HIGHEST): Keeps the highest profile property value (must be integers).
Lowest (based on XML value LOWEST): Keeps the lowest profile property value (must be integers).
Most recently updated value (based on XML value LATEST): Keeps the value(s) of the profile property that was most recently updated.
First stored value (based on XML value OLDEST): Keeps the oldest or first value stored for the profile property.
Undefined: If the profile property does not have a <mergestrategy> tag assigned to it, then the "Keep Both" merge strategy is used.
Visitor access: Control whether a visitor’s browser can read or write a profile property, including through BlueConic client connections, dialogues, and listeners. By default, visitor access is off for new properties to enhance security. Enable it only if browser access is needed. Visitor access applies only to browser-based interactions, not batch or server-side connections (e.g., Mailchimp, Webhooks, Facebook Custom Audiences).
Hidden from UI: Enable the "Don’t show on Segments tab" option if you do not want this profile property to show up on the user interface of the Segments tab. This is useful if you only want to be able to hand off the profile property in a connection.
Validate and enforce data types
BlueConic validates number, decimal, currency, date-time, and email address types. Validation is always enabled for these when creating a new profile property. Text values are not validated.
Note: Once a profile property contains values, its data type cannot be changed, except for converting Text to Email address.
Modify or copy a profile property
Modify: You can modify any profile property setting except the ID. Changes are saved permanently when you click Save.
Copy: To quickly create a profile property, copy an existing one.
Select the Save button and choose Save as from the dropdown menu.
A new property is created with the same settings but a modified ID.
Update the ID or other settings as needed, then click Save to finalize.
Note: Properties defined in plugins are read-only and cannot be modified or deleted. These appear grayed out with the Save and Delete options disabled.
Delete a profile property
To delete a profile property, select the Save button and choose delete from the dropdown menu.
Note: Properties defined in plugins are read-only and cannot be modified or deleted. These appear grayed out with the Save and Delete options disabled.
FAQs
How do I convert a profile property from type "Text" to type "Email address"?
Open up the text profile property settings you want to convert to an email address type, then:
Choose Email address from the Type dropdown menu.
BlueConic will analyze values and prompt you to confirm.