Can I target users who completed a goal in a previous session?
We track a goal called checkout-started via goalCompleted when a user enters checkout. Some of them never finish. On their next visit I want those users to see a reassurance banner (free returns, secure payment, the usual).
So the targeting I need is "completed goal checkout-started at some point in the past". Are goal completions queryable in CQL across sessions, or do goals only exist as experiment metrics? I could not find a clear statement in the docs and I dont want to duplicate the tracking with a custom attribute if the condition already exists.
2 answers
Goal completions are queryable directly:
user has completed goal "checkout-started"Goals reference events that are already being tracked, whether that is your explicit goalCompleted call with a goalId or one of the auto events, so no duplicate tracking needed.
On the cross-session part: behavioral history persists on the user profile across sessions within your plan's retention window, so previous-session targeting is the normal case here, not a workaround. Compose it with the incompleteness check for your exact banner audience:
user has completed goal "checkout-started" and not user has made purchaseThat gives you "started checkout before, never bought" on any later visit.
Since your use case is basically abandonment: cart abandonment has its own dedicated condition with a frequency form built in:
user has abandoned a cart at least 2 timesIt is backed by the cartAbandoned auto event, so if your store integration tracks carts you get it for free. The frequency threshold is nice for reserving the strongest reassurance messaging (or a discount) for repeat abandoners instead of everyone who ever bounced from checkout once.