Valid key-value entry

There are some restrictions on how you can enter key names and values when you add key-values.

Valid key names

• Are not case-sensitive
• Cannot start with a number
• Cannot contain spaces

Keys used in the pattern match macro and the video metadata macro only support alphanumeric characters and underscore (_).

A custom key within an audience segment only supports alphanumeric characters and underscore (_). Custom keys in audience segments must start with a non-numeric character. For example, abc123 is valid; 123abc is not. Learn more about audience segments.

Valid value names

• Are not case-sensitive
• Can start with a number, contain only numbers, or be a combination of numbers and letters
• Can contain spaces

While value names can contain spaces, key names cannot. For example, this key-value pair is not valid because there are spaces in the key name:

sports car=aston-martin-db5

However, this key-value pair is valid since value names can contain spaces:

car="aston martin db5"

Values are treated as strings even if they are numbers. That means that numbers can't be evaluated or calculated. For example, the following is not a valid expression and wouldn't produce results of users above the age of 18 and below the age of 32:

age >= 18 AND age <= 32

Instead, you need to capture the age range as text in a single key-value pair:

age=18-32

Disallowed characters in keys and values

The following characters are reserved and not allowed in key names or values. The asterisk (*) and tilde (~) characters can be used in "Dynamic" key-values to facilitate match types targeting functionality.

Character	Description	Character	Description
"	Double quotes	;	Semicolon
'	Single quotes or apostrophe	^	Caret
=	Equal sign	()	Parentheses
!	Exclamation point	< >	Angle brackets
+	Plus sign	[ ]	Square brackets
#	Pound or hash symbol	,	Comma
*	Asterisk	&	Ampersand
~	Tilde