---
title: "Create and implement a custom marketing taxonomy"
slug: "create-and-implement-a-custom-marketing-taxonomy"
abstract: "Create taxonomy tags to identify campaigns, referring channels and other information about your marketing activities."
---
# Create and implement a custom marketing taxonomy

In the Sitecore Experience Platform, taxonomies are a way of organizing items. You apply taxonomy tags to identify campaigns, referring channels, and other information about your marketing activities. This allows you to identify and track relationships between various marketing activities, providing you with deeper insight into campaign effectiveness and how your contacts interact with your brand.

Sitecore XP includes channel, campaign, and asset taxonomies, but you can also define custom marketing taxonomies based on your business needs. You can create custom taxonomies that identify different business markets, business units, geographical units, individual brands in your organization, and so on.

This topic describes how to:

- [Create a custom marketing taxonomy](https://doc.sitecore.com/xp/en/users/101/sitecore-experience-platform/create-and-implement-a-custom-marketing-taxonomy.html#UUID-9dc3403b-278d-f5d6-3efa-f7d75e21ec2f_N1530266427882 "Create a custom marketing taxonomy")
- [Create a new taxonomy group and a new taxonomy tag](https://doc.sitecore.com/xp/en/users/101/sitecore-experience-platform/create-and-implement-a-custom-marketing-taxonomy.html#UUID-9dc3403b-278d-f5d6-3efa-f7d75e21ec2f_N1530266584313 "Create a new taxonomy group and a new taxonomy tag")
- [Deploy a marketing taxonomy](https://doc.sitecore.com/xp/en/users/101/sitecore-experience-platform/create-and-implement-a-custom-marketing-taxonomy.html#UUID-9dc3403b-278d-f5d6-3efa-f7d75e21ec2f_N1530266570679 "Deploy a marketing taxonomy")

## Create a custom marketing taxonomy

To create a custom marketing taxonomy:

1. In the **Marketing Control Panel**, in the content tree, expand the *Taxonomies* node and select the taxonomy you want to use.

    For example, select *Campaign facet 1*.

2. In the warning in the content area, click **Unprotect Item** to allow you to edit the taxonomy item.

    ![UnprotectItem_Create_and_implement_a_custom_marketing_taxonomy.png](https://doc.sitecore.com/api/markdown-image/xp/en/users/101/sitecore-experience-platform/images/UnprotectItem_Create_and_implement_a_custom_marketing_taxonomy.png)

    > [!note]
    > Only users with specific access rights can unprotect an item

3. On the Home tab, click Display name and give the new taxonomy a name and click OK.
4. To make the item protected again, click the **Configure** tab and in the **Attributes** group click **Protect Item**.
5. Click **Save**.

## Create a new taxonomy group and a new taxonomy tag

Once you have created a marketing taxonomy, you can create your own taxonomy groups and tags.

To create a new taxonomy group and tag:

1. In the **Marketing Control Panel**, in the content tree, select the taxonomy that you renamed in the previous procedure (for example, the *Business Market taxonomy*).
2. On the **Home** tab, in the **Insert** group, click *Custom group*.
3. In the **Message** dialog box that appears, enter a name for the new taxonomy group and click **OK**.

    ![MessageDialog_Create_and_implement_a_custom_marketing_taxonomy.png](https://doc.sitecore.com/api/markdown-image/xp/en/users/101/sitecore-experience-platform/images/MessageDialog_Create_and_implement_a_custom_marketing_taxonomy.png)

4. Click **Save** to save the new taxonomy group.
5. To create a new taxonomy tag, in the content tree, right-click the taxonomy group that the new tag belongs in, click **Insert** and then click **Custom Taxonomy Tag**.

    ![CustomTaxonomyTag_Create_and_implement_a_custom_marketing_taxonomy.png](https://doc.sitecore.com/api/markdown-image/xp/en/users/101/sitecore-experience-platform/images/CustomTaxonomyTag_Create_and_implement_a_custom_marketing_taxonomy.png)

6. In the **Message** dialog box, enter a new name for the tag and click **OK**.
7. Click **Save** to save the new taxonomy tag.

## Deploy a marketing taxonomy

When you create a new marketing taxonomy and when you add new tags to an existing taxonomy, you must [deploy the taxonomy](https://doc.sitecore.com/xp/en/users/101/sitecore-experience-platform/deploy-marketing-definitions-and-taxonomies.html "Deploy marketing definitions and taxonomies") before you can start to associate campaigns with the new taxonomy tags.

To deploy a marketing taxonomy:

1. In the content tree, select the root node of the new or changed taxonomy, for example, the *Business Market* taxonomy.
2. On the **Taxonomy** tab, click **Deploy**.

    ![DeployTab_Create_and_implement_a_custom_marketing_taxonomy.png](https://doc.sitecore.com/api/markdown-image/xp/en/users/101/sitecore-experience-platform/images/DeployTab_Create_and_implement_a_custom_marketing_taxonomy.png)

Once you have deployed a custom taxonomy, you can apply the new tags to campaigns. This enables you to classify your campaigns and to track aspects of your campaigns in Experience Analytics.