Overview

Segment Recency targeting allows you to target users based on how recently they were added into your segments, which enables you to handle use cases such as the following:

• I would like to display different messaging to users who have visited my site in the last 7 days than users who’ve visited more than 7 days ago

• I would like to run a re-engagement campaign against users who have not used my product in the last 30 days

• I would like to exclude users who were added to my segment more than 14 days ago

Segment Recency targeting is only available for 1st party segments because Beeswax does not have visibility into how recently a user was added into an external data provider’s segment. For example:

• Many third party data sources continually “refresh” segment data, meaning they will periodically send us the same user <> segment associations. Each time a given user <> segment association is sent to us, its recency will be reset and appear as if it’s new.

• Additionally, a user may have existed within a 3rd party segment for, say, a year, but if the segment was only mapped to Beeswax yesterday, their recency would appear as if it were only 24 hours.

For segments populated via Segment Uploads (as opposed to Segment Tags), the start time used for recency is when you perform the Segment Upload to Buzz, and not when the file is eventually processed. Segment Uploads will take a varying amount of time, so if you wish to target specific segments that cannot be populated using Segment Tags with a very low segment recency targeting (e.g. Less than 45 minutes), it would be recommended to use real time Segment Postbacks instead of Segment Uploads.

How it Works

To enable recency on a targeted segment, click the clock icon with the word “Recency”:

You may set a recency using Less Than a given time interval, More Than a given time interval, or Between two durations of time:

The feature supports units of minutes, hours, days, or weeks. Currently a combination of different units or fractional values is not supported. If you would like to set a segment recency of, say, 1.5 hours, you can input 90 minutes.

Multiple segment recency can be set for each first party segment so one first party segment can be set to less than 10 days while another first party segment can be set to more than 1 week.  You can also apply the same segment recency setting to all 1st party segments if the “Apply to all selected segments” checkbox is checked.

Segments with recency enabled can be applied to targeting using both INCLUDE and EXCLUDE logic.

FAQ

Q. Is there a max segment recency that can be set for targeting?

• 90 days is the maximum duration you may specify within recency targeting.

Q. Do first party segments that are derived from cross device extensions work with segment recency?

• Yes. If a bid request matches a segment through cross-device extension, that user’s recency will be derived from the time the “original” user ID was inserted into your segment. 

Q. What happens if I use recency on a segment populated by my data augmentor?

• If recency is enabled on an INCLUDE or REQUIRE segment, a segment populated by a data augmentor will not match that line item.
• Conversely, if a segment is using EXCLUDE logic, all bid requests where this segment was added via data augmentor will be excluded.

Q. How is recency handled for DMP data?

• For DMPs that get processed via the 1st party Segment Upload process such as Liveramp 1P Data, Salesforce DMP (fka Krux), and Lotame, the start time used for calculating recency is when the segment data is uploaded to us and not when the user is added to the segment in the DMP itself.
• For DMPs that get processed via our 3rd party data approach such as Oracle Data Cloud (Bluekai), the segments will not be eligible for Segment Recency.

Q. Why is segment recency not available for 3rd party segments?

• Beeswax does not have visibility into when each user was originally added to a given 3rd party segment, and thus the recency is unable to be accurately calculated. 

Q. What happens if segment recency is set to a value larger than the TTL for the segment?

• There is no validation for this, so you must make sure to set a recency that makes sense for targeting. For example, if a segment has a TTL of 30 days, you should not set a segment recency of More than 40 days because it will never match.