## Introduction
In product teams, identifying ‘power users’—users who deeply engage with your product’s key features—is critical for targeted marketing, personalized onboarding, and retention strategies. Manual tracking is inefficient and error-prone. By automating the process of tagging these users based on their feature engagement, product teams can quickly act on real-time data and tailor their communications.
This guide demonstrates how to build an automated workflow using **n8n** to tag power users based on their feature engagement. The workflow integrates with product usage analytics data, your user database (e.g., in a CRM or product database), and your communication tool (such as email automation or messaging service).
## Problem Statement
Manually identifying and tagging users with high engagement is slow and inconsistent. There’s a need for an automated, reliable solution that:
– Continuously analyzes user interactions with specific features
– Tags users who meet defined ‘power user’ criteria
– Inserts or updates these tags in the user management system for further automation
## Tools and Services Integrated
– **n8n:** Open-source workflow automation platform
– **Product Analytics API:** e.g., Mixpanel, Amplitude, or custom event tracking API
– **User Database API:** CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce) or product user database (e.g., Firebase, MongoDB)
– **Slack or Email API:** Optional, for notifications or outreach
## Workflow Overview
The automation runs on a schedule (e.g., daily) and performs the following steps:
1. Fetch user engagement data from the product analytics platform
2. Filter users who satisfy the power user criteria based on feature usage
3. Query the user database to get current tags
4. Update user tags to add or remove the ‘Power User’ tag
5. Optional notification to the product team via Slack or email
## Step-by-Step Technical Tutorial
### Prerequisites
– n8n instance available and configured
– API access tokens for your analytics platform and user database
– Understanding of API endpoints and data schema for your systems
### Step 1: Trigger – Cron Node
– Configure the **Cron** node to run the workflow at your desired interval (e.g., once every day at midnight).
– This initiates the automation.
### Step 2: Fetch Engagement Data – HTTP Request Node
– Add an **HTTP Request** node to call the product analytics API.
– Example for Mixpanel:
– Method: GET
– Endpoint: `/api/2.0/engage` or relevant user events endpoint
– Authentication: Use API key/secret or token in headers
– Query parameters: Filter events related to feature usage during the last day
– Response will include user IDs and their feature engagement metrics.
### Step 3: Filter Power Users – Function Node
– Use a **Function** node to iterate over the fetched user data and apply your power user definition.
– For example, select users who have used Feature X more than 100 times in the last 24 hours.
– Output only user IDs who meet this criteria.
“`javascript
return items.filter(item => {
const usageCount = item.json.featureXUsageCount;
return usageCount >= 100;
});
“`
### Step 4: Get Existing User Tags – HTTP Request Node (User DB)
– For each power user identified, query the user database or CRM to get current tags.
– Use HTTP Request node in ‘Continue On Fail’ mode to avoid stopping the entire workflow if a user is not found.
– Use batch processing with SplitInBatches node if supported.
### Step 5: Update or Add Power User Tag – HTTP Request Node (User DB)
– If the user does not already have the ‘Power User’ tag, update their record via API.
– For REST APIs, use PUT or PATCH methods to amend the user tags.
– Handle cases where the tag exists (avoid duplicates).
– Log success or failure.
### Step 6: Optional Notification – Slack Node
– If desired, send a summary message to the product or growth team via **Slack** about newly tagged power users.
– Use Slack node with Webhook or OAuth2 authentication.
### Step 7: Error Handling and Robustness
– Use **Error Trigger** or catch nodes in n8n to log or notify in case of failures.
– Limit API request rates to stay within usage limits.
– Design the workflow to resume smoothly upon failures.
## Common Errors and Tips
– **API Rate Limits:** Use batch processing and configure delays if APIs throttle requests.
– **Data Schema Mismatch:** Validate API response formats before processing.
– **Tag Duplication:** Ensure idempotency by checking if tags already exist before adding.
– **Authentication Failures:** Use environment variables or credentials manager in n8n to securely store API tokens.
## How to Adapt or Scale
– **Additional Features:** Add filters for multiple features or weighted engagement scoring.
– **Real-time Triggers:** Instead of scheduled, use event hooks or webhooks for near real-time tagging.
– **Multiple User Systems:** Extend to update tags across multiple CRM or marketing platforms.
– **De-tagging:** Implement logic to remove the power user tag if engagement drops below thresholds.
## Summary
Automating tagging of power users using n8n accelerates product insights and marketing actions by providing real-time, accurate user segmentation. Combining scheduled data pulls, custom logic, and API integrations creates a powerful pipeline tailored to your product’s engagement metrics.
**Bonus Tip:** Version your workflows in n8n and maintain detailed logs, so you can audit changes and diagnose issues as your product and criteria evolve.