Overview
Custom Categories allow you to organize and segment your marketing campaigns using AI-powered rules. This feature enables flexible campaign grouping based on your specific business needs, such as tactics, geography, products, or any other categorization method relevant to your organization.
For example, you can create a "Tactic" category that groups your campaigns by marketing strategy—splitting Meta campaigns into prospecting and retargeting, or combining all search campaigns from Google and Bing together.
Key Concepts
Categories vs. Subcategories
Category: The overarching grouping method (e.g., Tactic, Geography, Product)
Subcategory: The specific groups within each category (e.g., under Tactic: Meta Prospecting, Meta Retargeting, Search Branded)
Each campaign will belong to exactly one subcategory within each category you create. For example, a single campaign will have:
One tactic subcategory (e.g., "Meta Prospecting")
One geography subcategory (e.g., "USA")
One product subcategory (e.g., "Footwear")
A campaign cannot belong to multiple subcategories within the same category (it can't be both "USA" and "Europe"), but it will have one assignment in each different category.
AI-Powered Rules
Custom Categories uses AI to automatically categorize campaigns. Simply describe what should go into each subcategory—you can use plain English, technical formats like regex or SQL syntax, or any description style you prefer. The AI will intelligently interpret your rules and assign campaigns based on their names and attributes.
Example AI Rules:
Plain English: "Meta campaigns focused on finding new customers, excluding retargeting"
Simple text matching: "Campaigns that contain RTG and don't contain NB in them"
SQL-like: "WHERE campaign_name LIKE '%brand%' AND (source = 'google' OR source = 'bing')"
Regex: "^(Google|Bing).*(?i)(retarget|remarket|audience)"
How It Works
Creating Categories
Navigate to Settings > Custom Categories
Create a new category ("Tactic" appears by default, but you can edit this to any name like "Geography", "Product", etc.)
Choose how to add subcategories:
Option A: Manually create subcategories
Add each subcategory with its AI rule, for example:
Subcategory | AI Rule |
Meta Prospecting | Meta campaigns focused on finding new customers, excluding retargeting |
Meta Retargeting | Meta campaigns targeting existing customers or website visitors |
Search Branded | All Google and Bing search campaigns containing our brand name |
Search Non-Branded | All Google and Bing search campaigns without our brand name |
Other | Everything else |
Option B: Auto-generate subcategories Click "Generate Subcategories" at the bottom—our AI will analyze your campaign names and automatically create subcategories broken down by tactic.
Manual Overrides
You can manually reassign a campaign to a different subcategory if the AI miscategorizes it
Manual assignments persist unless the campaign name changes
Example: If a Meta retargeting campaign is mistakenly placed in "Meta Prospecting," you can manually move it to the correct subcategory
Continual Updating
Every 24 hours, our system will check for any new campaigns or campaign name changes and will automatically categorize them.
Common Categories
Tactic: Group campaigns by marketing approach with flexibility to split platforms (Meta Prospecting vs. Meta Retargeting) or combine them (Search Branded across Google + Bing, Social Retargeting across Meta + TikTok + LinkedIn).
Geographic Segmentation: Organize by target markets such as Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, or Global campaigns.
Product Lines: Segment by product categories like Footwear, Apparel, Accessories, or Services.
Funnel Stages: Categorize by customer journey stages—Awareness, Consideration, Conversion, and Retention.
Best Practices
Complete Coverage: Design categories to cover 100% of your campaigns (include an "Other" subcategory as a catch-all)
Clear AI Rules: Write descriptive rules that distinguish between tactics:
Be specific about intent (prospecting vs. retargeting)
Mention platform names when combining (Google AND Bing for search)
Use exclusion terms when needed ("excluding retargeting")
Consistent Naming: Use consistent campaign naming conventions to improve AI categorization accuracy
Limitations
Every time you change a subcategory name or AI rule, you must rerun the categorization
The categorization will only analyze campaigns that have been active in the past 2 years
Each campaign can only belong to one subcategory per category (e.g., can't be both "Meta Prospecting" and "Meta Retargeting")
Troubleshooting
Why was my campaign categorized incorrectly?
The AI interprets rules based on campaign names and attributes. You can manually reassign the campaign, refine your AI rules for better accuracy, or edit the name of your campaign to better match your categorization intent.
Can I have overlapping subcategories?
No, each campaign can only belong to one subcategory within each category. For example, a campaign can't be both "Meta Prospecting" and "Meta Retargeting" in the Tactic category. However, that same campaign will have one assignment in each different category you create (one tactic, one geography, one product, etc.).
How do I handle campaigns from new platforms?
You can either add new subcategories for new platforms or use your "Other" subcategory to catch everything else. You can also update existing rules to include new platforms (e.g., adding Pinterest to your "Social Retargeting" rule).