Profile clean up
The BlueConic database will grow over time. For every new visitor to your site, a new profile is created. If visitors do not return within a reasonable amount of time, their profiles lose value when actions that took place long ago are less relevant. If these profiles do not contain any personal identifiable information, and visitors have not returned, these profiles blur the statistics on segment sizes, with the likeliness that these profiles ever will be activated are close to zero. In addition, they use costly database space.
We recommend a cleanup rule be set to automatically clean up profiles that have not been updated over a year if they do not contain information of value, especially personal information which would make it possible to use this profile information again in a merge with a newer profile.
Settings > General
In the Profile Clean up section, you can create rules that determine when a visitor profile is removed from the BlueConic database. The rules are based on a specific period of inactivity and they can also be enhanced by adding criteria based on one or more empty profile properties. Any visitor profile that matches a clean up rule is removed. The clean up of visitor profiles does not happen at a specific time — it is a continuous process.
All clean up rules are based on a period of inactivity. The start time of the period of inactivity is the last visited date/time. The minimum period of inactivity that a clean up rule can have is 90 days. If you create more than one clean up rule, they have an "OR" relationship with each other which means that multiple rules can be in force at the same time.
To create a clean up rule, follow these steps:
- Click [Add Rule].
- Enter a number, 90 or higher, in the input field. This is the number of days that the visitor profile must be inactive in order to satisfy the rule and trigger a clean up. To the right of the clean up rule, the number of visitor profiles that will be affected is shown along with the percentage of the total number of visitor profiles this represents. For example:
If the number of visitor profiles affected by the clean up rule is more than 1% of the total number of profiles, the number of profiles affected and its percentage of the total appear in red as a warning to you that the rule will affect a significant number of visitor profiles. For example:
- Click [Save]. The clean up rule is saved. The number of profiles affected is no longer shown. For example:
In the example above, all visitor profiles older than 120 days will be deleted.
Adding constraints to a clean up rule
You can enhance a rule that triggers a clean up based not just on a specified period of inactivity but with the further constraint that one or more profile properties must be empty. In this case, the clean up rule can be, for example, "Purge all profiles that haven't been active for 150 days and the profile property E-mail is empty". This makes it possible to be much more specific regarding the circumstances under which a visitor profile is deleted.
To add a constraint to a clean up rule, follow these steps:
- In the clean up rule, click the "there are no further constraints" link. The Select Profile Property dialog box appears.
- Select one or more profile properties that must be empty in order for the rule to be triggered. To search for a profile property, type a full or partial string in the text field at the top of the "Select Profile Property" dialog box. Note: Profile properties that are not selectable in the Segments tab appear in the list(s) of available profile properties in italic font. Typically these are profile properties that are not filterable such as e-mail addresses, first and last names, and so forth.
- Click [Save]. The clean up rule and its constraint(s) are saved. For example:
In the example above, all visitor profiles older than 150 days with an empty "E-mail" profile property will be deleted. - To modify a constraint, click the link to it in the rule.
