Tagging returning contacts for a workflow

[SamAdler]

I want to send an internal email notification when someone comes back to our website, after not having visited the site for over 30 days.

The problem i'm running into is that if I use the 'Last Time Seen' or any of the date fields in the Contact Properties, I'm not sure I can create a workflow that will tag someone who has not been to our site in 30 days.

If I say, Time Last Seen is Longer than 30 days, they won't qualify, since their Time Last Seen will have already been updated to right now.

Any suggestions here?

[MFrankJohnson · Accepted solution]

You'll want to build TWO smart lists and use the inclusion list shown below as enrollment criteria for your workflow. That way, contacts will automatically fall off this list after 1-day passes AND automatically be re-added to the list (and re-enroll in your workflow) should they return yet again AFTER ANOTHER 30-DAY ABSENCE! 🙂

- see image

HubSpot Smart Lists - Returning Visitors (In The Last Day) From >30-Days Ago

[SamAdler]

Hey Frank,

Thanks for the quick reply!  I tried to mimic your criteria, but i'm not sure if I understand the logic you're creating.  It seems like what you have put in there will only show someone who has visited our site in the last 31 days and also visited before 30 days ago, meaning everyone except someone who visited our site exactly 30 days ago, no?  Can you explain what type of activity will qualify for this? Here's how i set it up, and got 46 contacts:

[MFrankJohnson]

Thanks for the clarification @SamAdler. I updated the original post and removed the old image to avoid confusion for future readers.

Basically, we're saying ...
INCLUDE returning visitors from the past 1-day who have visited more than 30-days ago, but ...
EXCLUDE returning visitors who've visited within the past 2-30 days.

These contacts are also known as those who come "back to our website [in the past day], after not having visited the site for over 30 days" -- your original specified criteria.

Feel free to play with the 'in the past 1-day' criteria to make it 'today' if you like, but this should get you where you need to be.

HTH

Best,

Frank

(signing off)

[SamAdler]

Thanks Frank,

I'll keep this open until next week, as it's showing 0 people in the list, so i'm hoping it's working. since it's such a specific subset, might have to wait a while for someone to qualify, but hopefully this will work. thanks!

[MFrankJohnson]

Your welcome @SamAdler 

Gotcha. Funny thing about marketing automation ... it tends to work even sometimes when you don't want it to. 🙂

True -- since the subset is sooo specific it could be a while before 'old' visitors meet these criteria. Just make sure you have at least a couple different 'alert' types set (e.g., email, task, &/or internal sms push), so you don't miss the notifications.

Remember, RE-visitors will only be in our final smart list for one (1) day each 30+ days!

Normally, we'd create a custom contact property and increment its counter every time the contact enters the smart list. That way we can query historical re-visitors, increase their lead score, etc.. I mean, the data is still in the CRM without this flag, but it's just a pain to go BACK and dig it out. And, even though these numbers are traditionally low, they are important because they show repeat interest.

Finally, whenever we look at HISTORICAL repeat interest we specifically like to track the pages they visit and dwell time. (typically great indicators of interest)

Really looking forward to hearing good feedback on this.

Good luck

[MFrankJohnson]

@SamAdler, did you forget about us? 😉

[SamAdler]

Hey Frank,

Thanks for checking in. I don't think the solution is working. I was giving it time to see if it would work, but there still is no one who is qualifying. This screenshot shows the current list that's not picking up anyone : 
 

[MFrankJohnson]

Understood. However, can't comment without seeing the actual criteria you're using in your other smart list ('Web Visitors - Last 30 days').

++
While we can certainly achieve our goal using two (2) Smart Lists, it's easier to double-check our work if we further break them down. That way we can quickly see the numbers used to populate our final list -- i.e., Target RE-Visitors (Last 1 Day AND 31 Plus Days).

Our Objective - Target KNOWN RE-Visitors (Last 1 Day AND 31 Plus Days)

- see image

Objective: Target RE-Visitors (Last 1 Day AND 31 Plus Days)

Here are actual smart lists we use on some dev LPs we stood up for the HubSpot Community about 35 days ago.
- see Smart Lists (updated)

HubSpot Smart Lists to Target RE-Visitors (Last 1 Day AND 31 Plus Days)

- see Smart List Criteria

HubSpot Smart List Criteria to Target RE-Visitors (Last 1 Day AND 31 Plus Days)

This break-out version of our solution makes it easier to ...

-1- view up-to-date numbers generated by our final list.

-2- view up-to-date criteria that feeds our final list.

-3- modify, duplicate, and scale our solution.

-4- maintain and troubleshoot. (important to geeks like us)

Again, using our criteria, RE-visitors will only be in our final smart list for one (1) day each 30+ days after which they'd need to re-visit again to be seen!