Visitor Profile Retention

[KaiB]

Hi,

I have a question regarding the Visitor Profile Retention. 

Currently, we set a visitor attribute capturing the last purchase date using a date visitor attribute that is set when the purchase event takes place. If the visitor profile retention is 2 months:

• If the user made a purchase on January 1st, then returned to the website on February 1st, March 1st, April 1st (without making a purchase), what would be the value in the respective visitor attribute on April 1st? Would it be empty as the date when the attribute has been set exceeds the visitor profile retention (> 2 months). Or would it still be set to January 1st (visitor profile still active with all atributes as the visitor never had a 'downtime' > 2 months)?
• What exactly does a retention of 2 months mean? Equal to ~60 or is it rather related to calendar months?

Thanks and best,

Kai

[TimWaijers]

Hi @KaiB,

My understanding of the retention period is that it is a period that starts after each event that is sent to AudienceStream for that specific visitor/profile.

• If a profile hasn't received any events within the profile retention period it is removed from AudienceStream.
• The retention period is applicable to the storage of the entire profile not the individual profile's attributes
• The attribute for "last purchase date" will not change for a visitor if no rules are triggered for it.
• Event attributes are "forgotten" after the event is over.
• Visit attributes are "forgotten"after the visit is over (with a small time window)
• Visitor attributes are "forgotten" after the period since the last received event for that visitor was longer than the visitor retention period.

As to your second question, wether this is 2 calender months or a preset amount of days, i'm not sure.

All the best,

Tim

[KaiB]

Great, thanks you @TimWaijers, this already helps a lot!

It would be great to have some statement from tealium or some official documentation on the "The retention period is applicable to the storage of the entire profile not the individual profile's attributes" part as well as on the exact definition of a 2 months retention period (=calendar months or ~60 days?).

Best,

Kai

[mark_reddin]

Hi @KaiB 

AudienceStream retentions are specified in days, both for the retention on a particular Audience (that you can configure), and the overall profile retention time (that Tealium staff configure).

It sounds like your contract might specify months, in which case you can reach out to your account manager or support to ask what the actual implemented retention period is on the profile in question.

Mark