Events represent the specific actions your users take within your product like clicking buttons, inviting team members, making payments, or visiting specific pages. You can use Events to target Experiences based on what users do, not just who they are.

Chameleon supports real-time updates for Events, so as soon as an action occurs, the audience Segment that depends on it can see the Experience in your product. You can also create Custom Events from your Dashboard to build more sophisticated targeting rules without additional development work.

👉 Read about understanding data in Chameleon for a full overview of the data types available to you.

Availability and usage

🔐 Startup: 5 Tracked Events

🔐 Growth: 20 Tracked Events

🔐 Enterprise: 50 Tracked Events

📍 Ready to power your Tours, Tooltips, Embeddables, Microsurveys, Launchers

⚙️ Manage from your Dashboard

How do Events work?

Events are attached to individual users and are leveraged to both target and trigger Experiences. This allows you to create dynamic, behavior-based guidance that responds to user actions in real-time.

You can also leverage event properties to refine your audience further. As Chameleon receives your events, it automatically tracks the properties sent with each one. For example, a button_clicked event might include properties for type, page_url, and utm_campaign. Chameleon maintains a running list of these properties, their data types, and recent sample values.

ℹ️ Chameleon receives server-side events, but they are not immediately available on the client-side. Refresh the page to see any changes.

Imported Events vs Custom Events

There are two types of Events in Chameleon:

Event type	What it is	How it's created
Imported Events	Events sent to Chameleon from external sources	Sent via JavaScript API, Backend API, third-party integrations, or a CDP like Twilio Segment
Custom Events	Events you define within Chameleon based on imported events and specific filters on event properties	Created from the Data Management page in your Dashboard

Custom Events are useful when you want to narrow down a broad event. For example, if you track a general button_clicked event, you can create a Custom Event that specifies name is start trial — giving you a precise targeting filter without any additional development work.

👉 Read about creating Custom Events below for the step-by-step process.

Tracked vs Untracked Events

All Events in Chameleon appear as either "Tracked" or "Untracked" in your Dashboard, giving you control over which events count toward your plan limits.

Status	What it means
Tracked	Actively ingested and added to user profiles. Available for use in audience Segments. Counts toward your plan's tracked event limit. Processed onto the respective user within 5 minutes of being marked as tracked
Untracked	Accepted by the API and processed for property categorization. Not saved to user profiles. Does not count toward your plan limits. Not available for targeting or segmentation

⚠️ By default, all your Events will be Untracked, so you can pick exactly what you want to use. Make sure you mark as Tracked any new Events you want to use in Chameleon.

ℹ️ After an Event is marked as Tracked, it can take up to 5 minutes for a specific user to be recognized as "countable." New Events will be processed right away and appear on your Data Management page immediately.

How do I use Events in Chameleon?

You can leverage Events in multiple ways throughout Chameleon:

Use case	How it works
Segment definition	Create audience Segments based on user behaviors. For example, target users who have or haven't completed a specific action
Tour Goals	Set specific Events as success metrics for your Tours to measure whether they're driving the intended behavior
Event-based Recurrence	Trigger Experiences based on repeated behaviors — show guidance every time a user performs a specific action
Launcher Completion Criteria	Define what constitutes completion for Launcher items based on Events
Step Triggers	Trigger a Step by a user action on the page, responding to Events in real-time

How do I send Events to Chameleon?

Via integrations

If you already use Twilio Segment or Freshpaint or another connected CDP, your Events are synced to Chameleon automatically. This is the easiest method if you already have event tracking in place.

Via the API

You can send events using the JavaScript API. Events sent via the JavaScript API are processed immediately, making them ideal for real-time use cases such as Triggers and Recurrence.

🧑‍💻 Developers can help: ask your technical teammates to set up event tracking if you're not comfortable doing it alone.

How do I create Custom Events?

Custom Events let you combine an imported event with specific property filters to create precise targeting rules; all from your Dashboard, with no development work required.

Step-by-step

Head to the Data Management page in your Dashboard and select the User Events tab.
Click the "Add Custom Event" button.

In the modal that appears, select an Event from the dropdown. Chameleon will list all the properties that were ever sent with that event.

Select one or more properties to define your Custom Event. You can combine multiple properties for more specific targeting.
Type in a name for your Custom Event.
Choose whether to Track it immediately or keep it Untracked for later use.
Confirm your Custom Event ✅

Keep in mind that:

Once confirmed, Chameleon can immediately start Tracking your Custom Event.
Chameleon processes new events every 3 minutes, so there can be a slight delay until the event is added to users. However, when a new Event is created, it will be processed immediately.
If you are sending Events via JavaScript, there will be no delay in processing, and you can confidently use your Custom Events as Triggers or in Recurrence.
If you sent events to Chameleon before the release of Custom Events (June 19th, 2024) and want to use existing Events to create Custom Events, you'll need to re-send them. In the events table, check that the "last seen time" is after June 19th.
After creating your Custom Event, it will be ready to use in your Segments, as a Tour Goal, in Event-based Recurrence, or as Completion Criteria for Launcher items.