Smart searches

A smart search is a query which returns all users that match a set of configurable criteria – like Country = Denmark or Viewed a Product = {some product}.

There are three kinds of criteria to choose from:

  • User information, such as name, country or email permission
  • User audit information, such as creation date, created by, and email permission updates
  • User behavior, on your website, e.g. pages visited or time spent on site, and for email marketing, e.g. has received and opened a particular email, has clicked these links in a specific email, etc.

With this you can identify users who share some properties and use them as recipient in email marketing, as groups when setting up email personalization, and so on - for example:

  • Find all users who live in a certain geographical location, e.g. Denmark or the city of Copenhagen, and send them an email with a special offer in their local store
  • Find all users who opened an email, and clicked a specific link in the email
  • Find all users who bought a specific product
  • Find all users created within a specific timeframe (e.g. new users)
  • Etc.

Once a smart search has been created it can also be selected as the basis for a user group, which makes membership of the user group dynamic. 

Please note that smart searches are recalculated using a scheduled task so changes to a user will not remove a user from or add a user to smart search instantly. In some cases smart searches can also be replaced with index queries which may improve performance.

Please note that smarts searches are dependent on the old Statistics feature being enabled under Settings > Web and HTTP > Tracking.

To create a user smart search:

  • Click Users on main menu
  • Open a context menu for the Smart Searches node in the user tree
  • Click New smart search (Figure 2.1)
Figure 2.1 Click New smart search to create a new smart search

This takes you to the smart search configuration area (Figure 2.2).

Figure 2.2 The smart search configuration window

From here, you must:

  • Name the smart search
  • Add the smart search criteria – the rules defining which users should be included and which should be excluded in the smart search
  • Specify the maximum number of users you want to include in the smart search with rows to fetch. By default the smart search will fetch all users meeting the smart search criteria.
    • If you have limited the number of users a smart search can contain, you can detail how they are selected with the Select by (primary/secondary) options. If ID is selected, and ascending order is specified, the smart search will select the users with the lowest ID’s, until the specified maximum number of users is reached.

To delete or edit a smart search:

  • Right-click or click the three dots next to the smart search to open the context menu (Figure 3.1)
  • Click Edit smart search or Delete smart search
Figure 3.1 Editing or deleting a smart search

You can also export users from a smart search – the procedure is similar to exporting users from a user group. Read more here.

The heart of a smart search is the smart search criteria – or smart search rules.

Smart search criteria are divided into four different areas:

  • User information
  • Audit information
  • Behavior on website
  • Behavior for Email marketing

The basic principle is this.

  • You select a field for the rule to look at
  • You select an operator like is, is not, contains, is in the range – the operators available to you depend on the field data type (string, int, Boolean)
  • You specify a value to test for

For instance, in (Figure 4.1), the rule looks at the user field Country, using the operator is and the value Denmark.

Figure 4.1 A smart search rule finding users who reside in Denmark

This will result in a smart search containing all users who have Denmark as the value in their Country field.

Here’s a rundown of the smart search criteria available to you.

While smart searches based on a single rule may be useful, it’s in combination that smart searches become really useful. A smart search finding users in Denmark could have been a user group – but a smart search matching active users in Denmark, who’ve visited your bike shop, but not made a purchase could not – and sending that group an offer might be very effective.

Checking for values with underscores

Please note that you cannot check for underscores - '_' - with the contains operator, so a criteria which is defined as...

  • FIELD contains VALUE_WITH_UNDERSCORE

.. will fail wo include the users with that value.

The workaround is to use the operator IS:

  • FIELD is VALUE_WITH_UNDERSCORE

User information checks the values of user fields and settings set on the user.

Your options correspond to the database fields for users, minus the ones that don’t make sense to search on (like user pictures), and should be self-explanatory.

The user audit information criteria allow you to create rules based on audit information.

Your options are:

Field                                        

Checks

Created on

User creation date

Updated on

User last updated date

Created by

User created by (specific user)

Updated by

User last updated by (specific user)

Email permission updated on

User email updated

 

For the criteria where time is a factor, you will usually select the operators is before or is after and select a particular date.

The behavior on website criteria allows you to create smart search rules based on how your users interact with your website.

Your options are:

Field                                        

Checks

Last login time

The last know login time of a user

Last order date

The last time a user created and order

Visited a website

If a user has visited a specific website

Timestamp for website visit

When a user visited a specific website

Visited a page

If a user has visited a specific page

Page visit timestamp

When a user visited a specific page

Viewed a product

If a user has viewed a specific product

Product view timestamp

When a user viewed a specific product

Bought a product

If a user has bought a specific product

Product bought timestamp

When a user bought a specific product

Added a product to a favorite list

If a user has added a specific product to a favorite list

Total value of orders

The total value of orders

Order date

An order date

Largest order total price

The largest total price of a single order by the user

Orders placed in the last 30 days

The number of orders placed within 30 days

Total loyalty points

The total number of loyalty points a user has

Date of last added loyalty point

When loyalty points were last added to a user

Next date of expiration for loyalty points

When loyalty points expire next (before or after a specific date)

The behavior for Email Marketing criteria allow you to create smart search rules based on how your users have reacted to, and interacted with, you email marketing efforts.

Your options are:

Field

Checks

Received a specific email

If a user has received a specific email

Email received timestamp

When a user received a specific email

Opened a specific email

If a user has opened a specific email

Email opened timestamp

When a user opened a specific email

Clicked any link in an email

If a user has clicked any links

Timestamp for click on any link

When a user clicked any links

Clicked a specific link in an email

If a user has clicked a specific link

Timestamp for click on a specific link

When a user clicked a specific link

Smart searches are most powerful, when the rules are combined to suit a particular purpose.

For that purpose, you can combine rules using the rules buttons (Figure 10.1).

Figure 10.1 You can create complex smart searches using the smart search grouping rules

By default, all rules added to the rules area are inclusive, and all must be true for the user to be part of the smart search.

By selecting two rules, and clicking the Any must apply button, you can create flexible conditions for your smart search (Figure 10.2).

Figure 10.2 By selecting 'Any must apply', you can create flexible conditions for your smart searches

In this manner, you can create complex smart searches to suit your scenarios.

Because stringing together smart search criteria can be relatively complicated, it may be useful to preview your smart search results.

To do so, simply click the preview button (Figure 11.1).

Figure 11.1 Click the preview button to see a preview of all the users matching a smart search

This will save and run the smart search - and take you to the list of the users matching your criteria.

database

There is no database specific information available for this subject.