About attributes

Attributes are the foundation of your implementation and are used to define your customers’ behaviors and interactions with your brand. Attributes define the properties of a visitor, a visitor’s session, and events collected. Common examples of attributes include Email Address, Member ID, Product Category, Date of Last Visit, and Active Browser.

Each profile can contain a maximum of 500 visitor and visit attributes. You can see your current attribute total on the Visit/Visitor Attributes screen:

If you need more than 500 attributes in a profile, contact your Customer Success Manager.

Scope

Scope refers to how long an attribute persists in real-time.

The following table lists supported scopes:

Scope	Description / Examples	Uses
Event	Attributes associated with individual events that describe the page, content, and real-time actions being taken by a customer. Examples: Page Name, Product Price, Event Name, Order Total, etc.	Attribute Sources Event attributes are sourced from the following values: Universal Variable Universal Data Object Javascript Page Variable Global JavaScript variable (browser) HTML Metadata Metadata tag (browser) First-Party Cookie Browser cookie Querystring Parameter Current page’s URL querystring (browser)
Visit	Attributes about a particular visit (or session). Data persists for the length of the visit. Examples: Visit Duration, Browser Used, Referring URL, and Carted Products.	These attributes represent visitor activity from the current session on a single device. Visit attributes persist for the length of the session. See Session Length for more detail.
Visitor	Attributes about a particular visitor across all visits. Examples: Email Address, Member ID, Lifetime Order Total, and Category Views.	This data follows a visitor from session to session and across different devices. Visitor data persists even after the current visit ends.
Omnichannel	For importing offline data via the Omnichannel service. This scope does not require a data type.	Omnichannel attributes are defined when you define your file imports.

Session length

Session length determines when AudienceStream ends a visit. When a visit reaches the session length without a new event, the visit ends and AudienceStream performs end-of-visit processing. The next event from the visitor starts a new visit. AudienceStream has a maximum visit length of 24 hours, regardless of event activity.

In AudienceStream, the default session length is set based on the platform that sends the events:

• Web: 30 min (10 min if one event and no follow-up events)
• Mobile App: 2 min
• Omnichannel: 1 min
• File Import: 1 min
• Collect API: 30 min

The platform is based on the reserved attribute named platform according to the following values:

• Web - platform is set to web or not set.
• Mobile - platform is set to one of android,ios,win,bb10,native_mobile.

To customize the session length, set the data layer variable _dc_ttl_ to a value in milliseconds on the first event of a session. For example, to set the session length to five minutes, add the following to the event: "_dc_ttl_": 300000. The session length cannot be changed after it has been set.

To set a custom length, you must omit the platform variable. If you set a custom value for platform, the session length defaults to 30 minutes.

Data types

Attributes come in a variety of types, from a basic number to the more powerful tally and badge. The data type determines the format in which the attribute value is stored.

The following data types are supported:

Data type	Description
Number	Stores numerical values such as order total, lifetime event count, or number of days since last visit.
String	Stores text values such as first/last name, address, favorite product, and page name.
Boolean	Stores only one of two values: ’true’ and ‘false’. Boolean can be used for indicating the status of a visitor action or visit.
Array of Numbers	Stores multiple numeric values as an array. The array may contain unique or duplicate numeric values.
Array of Strings	Stores multiple string values as an array. The array may contain unique or duplicate string values.
Array of Booleans	Stores multiple Boolean values as an array. The array may contain unique or duplicate Boolean values.
Tally	Stores one or more key-value pairs.
Set of Strings	Stores a collection of unique string values as a set.
Date	Stores the date of an event, a visitor event, or particular visit.
Funnel	Tracks the status of every step in a multi-step event, such as payment funnel and registration.
Timeline	Records all occurrences of a visitor action within a time range.
Badge	Assigns a visual mark or symbol to visitors who meet certain criteria or browsing behavior.
Visitor ID	Stores visitor’s unique traits as their secondary identifier.

Scope and data type matrix

This matrix shows which data types are available for each scope.

Data type	Visitor scope	Visit scope	Event scope
Number	✔	✔	✔
String	✔	✔	✔
Boolean	✔	✔	✔
Array of Numbers	✔	✔	✔
Array of Strings	✔	✔	✔
Array of Booleans	✔	✔	✔
Tally	✔	✔
Set of Strings	✔	✔
Date	✔	✔	✔
Funnel	✔	✔
Timeline	✔	✔
Badge	✔
Visitor ID	✔

Attribute IDs

All event, visit, and visitor attribute have a unique attribute identifier. The value of this ID may influence the order in which enrichments run and may be required for more complex data source or visitor stitching configurations.

You can find the attribute ID next to the attribute name in the attribute list or within the expanded details.

Event Attributes

Visitor Attributes

Size limits

Most attributes for EventStream and AudienceStream have storage capacity limits and specific behaviors for when those limits are exceeded. Note that the entire visitor profile has a limit of 400 KB compressed and encrypted.

Event limits

To protect both the Tealium platform and individual customer accounts, AudienceStream has a limit of 10,000 events per visit.

If a visitor reaches 10,000 events in a single visit, the visitor is permanently banned. When a visitor is banned, the visitor profile is deleted and all future events for the visitor ID, or any IDs that stitch to it, are ignored in both AudienceStream and EventStream. In addition, log messages are written that include the account, profile, visitor ID, and an indication that a ban occurred.

The ban is permanent, or until maintenance is performed by the Tealium Operations team to purge the banned visitors collection. If you believe a visitor has been banned incorrectly, or you have a visitor that needs to be removed from the banned list, please contact Tealium Support.

If a permanent visitor ban is removed and the visitor again exceeds the 10,000 events in a visit limit, another ban will occur.

Event attributes

Attribute	Storage capacity limits	Exceeded limit behavior
Strings	1,500 characters	Strings are truncated to 1,500 characters if they are longer than the limit.
Arrays of any type	30,000 entries	If an attribute is set or updated to exceed the limit, the attribute is trimmed to 30,000 entries and set.
Dates	Min: “-292275055-05-16T16:47:04.192Z” Max: “+292278994-08-17T07:12:55.807Z”
Numbers	Represented with java.lang.Number, which has dynamic precision.

Visit/visitor attributes

Attribute	Storage capacity limits	Exceeded limit behavior
Strings	1,000 characters	If an enrichment results in a string larger than 1,000 characters, the value is not saved.
Timelines	100 entries	Earliest entries are discarded when the limit is reached (First-In, First-Out). For example, if a timeline contains 100 entries, and a new entry is added, the first entry is deleted.
Tallies	30,000 entries.	If an attribute is set or updated to exceed the limit, the attribute is trimmed to 30,000 entries and set.
Arrays of any type	30,000 entries.	If an attribute is set or updated to exceed the limit, the attribute is trimmed to 30,000 entries and set.
Set of Strings	30,000 entries.	If an attribute is set or updated to exceed the limit, the attribute is trimmed to 30,000 entries and set.
Dates	Min: “-292275055-05-16T16:47:04.192Z” Max: “+292278994-08-17T07:12:55.807Z”
Numbers	Represented with java.lang.Number, which has dynamic precision.
Visitor ID	2 KB	If the visitor ID is over 2 KB, the record is not saved.
Funnel	No limits*

*No limits, but the attribute is still limited by the maximum size of the profile after encryption and compression (400 KB).

Imported attributes from iQ Tag Management

An imported attribute is a variable that was originally created in the corresponding Tealium iQ profile. Tealium iQ variables are available to the sever-side profile of the same name, where they are imported as event-scoped attributes. When you modify a variable in Tealium iQ (and publish), the changes are instantly applied to the matching attribute in EventStream.

Imported attributes are not editable. You must use Tealium iQ to manage them.

If variables from Tealium iQ do not appear in EventStream, verify that the Tealium iQ variables are in the Tealium iQ profile that corresponds to the sever-side profile and that the variables have been saved and published. Make sure you refresh the EventStream page in the browser after publishing variable changes. If you need assistance with making Tealium iQ variables available in the server-side, contact Tealium Support.

Restricted data

This property is used to identify attributes that contain data that should not be sent out of the system, such as third-party Connectors or DataAccess. Learn more about Restricted Data.

Rule

A rule provides additional logic for the purpose of triggering an enrichment.

• To apply a predefined rule, make a selection from the drop-down list and click Add Rule.
  

  Creating a new rule through the enrichments dialog box automatically applies it to the enrichment.

• To apply a new rule, click Create Rule.
  

  

Preloaded attributes

AudienceStream and EventStream contain a set of preloaded visit and visitor attributes that are preconfigured with statistical information to help you determine useful information about each visitor or visit.

For more information about these attributes, see Preloaded attributes.