Throttling

Throttling slows the rate at which a guide or survey appears to a user. Set limits on how many guides or surveys each user sees, and how often they appear, to avoid overwhelming users.

Throttling works identically for guides and surveys, but the settings for each are separate. Separate settings give you more flexibility over how guides and surveys appear.

Built-in display limits

Amplitude has built-in limits that control how many guides and surveys display at the same time. These limits prevent users from seeing too many messages at once:

• Tooltips
  • Display Limit: Unlimited
  • Behavior: Multiple tooltips can display at the same time.
• Pins, Popovers, Modals
  • Display Limit: One at a time
  • Behavior: Only one pin, popover, or modal displays at a time. When one of these form factors is already showing and another triggers, the first continues to show and the second doesn't display.
• Checklists Web only
  • Display Limit: One at a time
  • Behavior: When a checklist is already showing and another triggers, the first continues to show and the second doesn't display.
• Banners
  • Display Limit: One at a time
  • Behavior: When a banner is already showing and another triggers, the first continues to show and the second doesn't display.

Example scenarios

Multiple checklists triggered: When checklist B triggers while checklist A is already showing, checklist A continues to show and checklist B doesn't display.

Pin and modal: When a modal is showing and a pin triggers, the modal continues to show and the pin doesn't display. This rule applies to any combination of pins, popovers, and modals.

Checklist and modal together: When a modal is showing and a checklist triggers, both display at the same time, regardless of priority settings.

Pin and tooltip together: A pin can display while multiple tooltips are visible, because tooltips have no display limit.

Set throttling for Guides or Surveys

1. Go to Guides and Surveys and then select either Guides or Surveys.
2. Click the Settings icon for the list of artifacts.
3. Turn throttling On.
4. Set the throttling. You can set:
   • Limit: The number of guides or surveys that appear.
   • Period: The rate of time in which the maximum limit of guides or surveys can appear. Time periods can be:
     • Day
     • Week
     • Month
     • Session
5. Click Save Changes.

Time between guides

Control the delay between sequential guides for the same user. A delay prevents users from seeing multiple guides in quick succession.

Set the time between sequential guides

1. Go to Guides and Surveys and then select either Guides or Surveys.
2. Click the Settings icon for the list of artifacts.
3. In the Time Between section, enter the delay period.
4. Select the time unit from the dropdown:
   • Minute
   • Hour
   • Day
5. Click Save Changes.

Advanced throttles

Advanced throttles set additional rate limits for guides or surveys grouped by tags. Tag-based throttles give you granular control over how different categories of content appear to users.

Configure advanced throttles

1. Go to Guides and Surveys and then select either Guides or Surveys.
2. Click the Settings icon for the list of artifacts.
3. In the Advanced Throttles section, click Add throttle.
4. Configure your advanced throttle:
   • Limit: The maximum number of guides/surveys for this tag group.
   • Tags: Select one or more tags to group guides/surveys.
   • Period: Choose the time period (Day/Week/Month/Session).
5. Click Save Changes.

Advanced throttle examples

Campaign throttling: Limit product-launch tagged guides to three (3) for each day. Feature throttling: Limit onboarding tagged content to five (5) for each session. Team coordination: Limit growth-team guides to two (2) for each week.

Multiple advanced throttles

Create multiple advanced throttles for different tag combinations to support detailed throttling strategies:

• Urgent announcements: urgent + announcement tags - 1 each day
• Onboarding flow: onboarding tag - 3 each session
• Feature updates: feature-update tag - 2 each week

Mutual exclusivity

Mutual exclusivity groups guides and surveys so that each user sees only one item from the group. Use mutual exclusivity for multi-app announcements where users should see a message only once, regardless of which app they use.

Multi-app use case

When you release a feature across multiple apps (web, iOS, and Android), announce the feature to users on whichever app they use first, without showing the same announcement again on other apps. Mutual exclusivity solves this by linking app-specific guides together.

For example, when you create:

• A web guide announcing a new feature.
• An iOS guide with the same announcement.
• An Android guide with the same announcement.

Add all three guides to a mutual exclusivity group. After a user sees the web guide, they don't see the iOS or Android versions later, even if they switch apps.

Prevent popup fatigue

Mutual exclusivity also helps prevent popup fatigue for users who qualify for multiple similar guides. When you have several guides targeting overlapping audiences, group them so users see only the most relevant one.

Create a mutual exclusivity group

1. Go to Guides and Surveys and then select either Guides or Surveys.
2. Click the Settings icon for the list of artifacts.
3. Expand the Mutual exclusivity section.
4. Click Add group to create a new mutual exclusivity group.
5. Give the group a name (for example, "Feature X Announcement").
6. Select the guides or surveys to include in the group.
7. Click Save Changes.

Mutual exclusivity and throttling

Mutual exclusivity and throttling serve different purposes but work together:

• Throttling limits how many guides or surveys a user sees over time.
• Mutual exclusivity ensures a user sees only one item from a specific group.

Apply both settings to the same guide. For example, a guide can belong to a mutual exclusivity group and also follow global throttling limits.