Skip to main content

Before you begin

  • Access to AI Decisioning
  • At least one agent, message, or variant created

Overview

Tags in AI Decisioning classify and group message variants so you can compare how different creative strategies perform across your agents. Each tag consists of a key and a value. The key defines a category, such as tone or product, and the value describes a specific attribute, such as playful or sunglasses. Together, these pairs describe both what your message says and how it says it. Once applied, tags let you break down performance in Insights to identify which themes, tones, offers, or structures drive engagement. Tags are most useful when multiple messages or variants share the same concepts, because that overlap makes it easier to compare results and identify patterns. Consistent tagging also helps AI Decisioning learn from past performance, improving future recommendations and experiments.

Plan your tagging framework

Before you start tagging, decide what you want to learn from your campaigns — such as which offers, value propositions, or tones drive engagement. Planning your framework upfront helps you tag consistently from the start.

Decide what to tag

Your tags should capture:
  • What the content says — for example, product, offer, or audience
  • How it says it — for example, tone, urgency, or format
Guidelines
  • Keep tag names short and consistent
  • Use one value per tag type, such as one Tone or one Offer
  • Avoid duplicate concepts, such as Incentive and Offer
  • Don’t recreate system fields like channel, message, or subject line
  • Create tags for any dimension you want to measure or control, such as business unit or product line
Tags describe content attributes, not user traits. It’s okay if they overlap. For example, a message might use the tag Career = Marketer while a user profile also includes a career trait.

Choose message tags vs. variant tags

Use message-level tags for broad attributes that apply to the entire message, such as product, campaign theme, or business unit. Use variant-level tags for finer creative differences, such as subject line tone, CTA style, or emoji usage. Message-level tag configuration

Start small, then expand

As you add new tags, Insights automatically updates results for past agents that use them.

Best practices

Keep a shared reference document for your team’s approved tags, such as Promo Type, Tone, and Audience, to maintain consistency across agents.

Example tag structures

Financial company example

Streaming service example

Use these examples as a starting point. Choose the categories that fit your business, then expand over time.

Tag messages and variants

Once you’ve planned your tag structure, you can start applying tags while building or reviewing agents. Use the Agent view to tag messages in context, or the Tags page to manage tags across your workspace.

Message tags

Message tags classify the overall purpose or focus of a message. You can add them directly from the message configuration view inside an agent.
  1. Go to AI Decisioning > Agents > Select an Agent.
  2. In the Messages tab, choose a message.
  3. Open the Configuration tab.
  4. Under Tags, use the dropdowns to select existing tags or click Add tag to create new ones.
  5. Click Save changes to apply.
Tagging from within an Agent message configuration view Message-level tag configuration Examples
  • Product: Bluelight
  • Motivator: Wellness
  • Incentive Type: Free gift
  • Value Proposition: Convenience
You can also generate message tags with AI by clicking Generate tags with AI under the tag list.

Variant tags

Variant tags help you compare creative differences within a single message, such as tone, offer, structure, or subject line style.
  1. Go to AI Decisioning > Agents > Select an Agent.
  2. In the Messages tab, choose a message.
  3. Open the Content tab.
  4. Under Optimized content, click Edit tags and rules.
  5. Hover over the tag icon next to a variant and click Add content tags.
  6. In the Edit content tags modal, use the dropdown to select existing tag values or type to create new ones.
  7. Click Apply to save your changes.
Expand tags and rules interface Edit content tags button Variant-level tag configuration Examples
  • Length: Short
  • Tone: Savings focused
  • Urgency: Normal
  • Has emoji: Yes
Add variant tags while testing subject lines, images, or CTAs. These tags connect performance differences directly to specific creative choices in Insights.

Analyze tag performance

Use tags to understand how creative themes perform across agents and messages.

Insights

Once your messages and variants are tagged, you can measure how each tag performs across agents in Insights.
  1. Go to AI Decisioning > Insights.
  2. Select the Creative Performance view.
  3. In the Break down by dropdown, choose a tag key such as incentive_type, tone, or motivator.
If your workspace uses these tag keys consistently, they’ll appear as available breakdown fields. Insights – Creative overview by tag: incentive type across all content The table shows how each tag value performs across your agents and messages, including:
  • Sends — total number of messages delivered for each tag value
  • Key conversion events — such as purchases, sign-ups, or other tracked actions
  • Engagement metrics — including click-through rate (CTR), open rate, or conversion rate
Example Breaking down by incentive_type reveals which offers drive the strongest results. For example, fixed_discount may outperform free_shipping or free_gift in conversion rate, helping you understand which incentive types resonate most across audiences.

Drill-down views

You can also drill down into a specific message or variant to explore deeper insights:
  • Personalization insights — Compare how engagement differs by user attributes such as device type, region, or affinity
  • Timing insights — Identify when messages perform best by day or time of day
Drill-down views in Insights: personalization and timing
Use the Insights tab to evaluate your content strategy at scale. Tag-driven breakdowns connect creative attributes — such as incentive type, tone, or motivator — to measurable performance outcomes.

Content analysis

Each message also includes content-level insights to help you understand relationships between creatives. In the message’s Content tab, scroll to Content analysis to view:
  • Tags — Applied tags such as Motivator: Efficiency or Value Proposition: Convenience
  • Similarity analysis — Messages with similar structure, tone, or intent
Content analysis and similarity analysis view You can expand each comparison to see why messages are related. This helps you identify patterns in your creative library and understand how messages may influence model learning.
Content analysis focuses on creative similarity and reuse, while the Insights tab focuses on quantitative performance and impact. Use both to understand what works and why.

Manage and govern your tags

As your tagging system grows, use these tools to keep tags consistent, apply them efficiently, and extend their use beyond analysis.

Manage tags on the Tags page

The Tags page (AI Decisioning > Tags) provides a centralized view of all tags in your workspace. Changes made here apply globally to every agent that uses the tag key. The Tags page separates tags into Message tags, Variant tags, and Channel tags. Tags page – message tags Tags page – variant tags Tags page – channel tags Product key value examples

Add tag instructions

On the Tags page, hover over a tag key to reveal its options menu, then select Edit tagging instructions. In the Edit tag descriptions modal, add tag-level and value-level instructions that define when the tag — and each of its values — should be applied. Clear instructions improve consistency across teams and help AI apply tags more accurately. Tag instructions UI navigation Edit tag descriptions modal

What to include in tag instructions

Effective tag instructions answer one question: When should this tag or value be used? Good instructions help people tag consistently and give AI the context it needs to distinguish between similar values.

Writing effective instructions

When writing tag or value instructions:
  • Describe when to apply the tag or value
  • Explain how it differs from other values
  • Avoid generic definitions or restating the tag name
  • Use short, directive language

Example: tag-level instructions

Tag: incentive_type Good instruction Use this tag to classify the primary incentive offered in the message. Select the value that best represents the main benefit emphasized to the user. Weak instruction Indicates the type of incentive.

Example: value-level instructions

Value-level instructions are most useful when values are similar or easily confused, messages include multiple incentives or concepts, or you use AI-assisted tagging. Tag: incentive_type
  • discount Use when the message emphasizes a price reduction, percentage off, or limited-time deal.
  • free_gift Use when the message highlights a free item added to a purchase, regardless of purchase amount.
  • free_shipping Use when the message emphasizes waived shipping costs as the primary incentive.

Use AI to suggest and apply tags

AI-generated tags must be enabled by Hightouch. to turn it on.
AI can help you tag faster, whether you’re working on a single message or tagging across your workspace.

Generate tags for individual messages or variants

When editing a message or variant, click Generate tags with AI to get suggestions based on your content.
  1. Click Generate tags with AI.
  2. Review the AI-generated tags.
  3. Edit or remove any that don’t fit your naming conventions.
Example suggestions
  • Message: “Earn double points on every booking this weekend” → AI suggests Loyalty, Limited Time Offer
  • Variant: “Book now to unlock rewards faster” → AI suggests Urgent CTA, Rewards Focused
Add AI generated tags in agents view Add AI generated tags in tags view
AI-suggested tags do not apply automatically. Always review suggestions before saving to ensure accuracy and consistency.

Bulk-apply tags on the Tags page

To tag many messages at once, select the messages, then use Actions to Let AI tag the selected messages or Manually tag them. To apply AI tags for a single tag key across messages, hover over the tag key and select the magic wand button. Bulk apply AI tags on the Tags page

Set send frequency caps using tags

You can also use tags to apply send frequency caps more granularly. This helps you control how often users receive messages within specific categories, such as by business unit or product line. For example, if your agent includes messages across multiple business units, you can tag each message with a Business Unit value such as Insurance or Banking, then set separate frequency caps for each one. This helps prevent users from receiving too many messages from the same category, even when the overall agent-level cap has not been reached.
You can also set send frequency caps at the channel level (email, SMS, push, and so on). You do not need to tag whether a message is email, push, or SMS because AI Decisioning identifies the channel automatically.

Troubleshooting

Tag visibility in Insights depends on your workspace’s sync schedule. If you recently applied tags, wait for the next sync cycle before results appear.

Next steps

After tagging your AID messages and variants, explore related features:
  • Insights to analyze tag performance across agents and messages.
  • Inspector to inspect delivery behavior for individual users.
  • Agents to create agents that automate decisions.
Last modified on September 1, 2026