What’s the Difference Between Similar Tags and Exact Tags?

When creating Event Rules or Quick Filters, you can now choose whether a tag should match Similar or Exact.

Understanding the difference can help you create more precise rules, so your calendar shows the events that matter most to your audience — without having to manually manage them over and over.

What’s the difference?

The easiest way to think about it:

• Tags Similar = looks for the word anywhere within an event's tag.
• Tags Exact = looks for the tag exactly as you entered it.

Tags Similar

Use Similar when you want your rule to apply to tags that contain a specific word.

For example, imagine you create this rule:

Tags Similar → Does Not Equal → bingo

This tells Yodel to exclude events that have “bingo” anywhere in the tag.

That means all of these tags would be excluded:

• Bingo
• Purse Bingo
• Kids Bingo
• Bingo Night
• Community Bingo

This is helpful when you want to exclude or include a broader group of related events without having to create a separate rule for every variation.

Tags Exact

Use Exact when you only want your rule to apply when the entire tag matches exactly what you entered.

For example:

Tags Exact → Does Not Equal → bingo

In this case, Yodel would only exclude an event with the exact tag:

• Bingo

Events with these tags would not be excluded:

• Purse Bingo
• Kids Bingo
• Bingo Night
• Community Bingo

This is useful when you want to be more specific and don't want your rule to affect other tags that happen to contain the same word.

Which one should I use?

Think about the level of control you want:

If you want to...	Use
Include or exclude anything containing a particular word	Similar
Include or exclude one specific tag	Exact
Capture multiple variations of a tag	Similar
Only affect events with a specific tag	Exact

A quick example

Let's say your audience isn't interested in bingo events.

Using:

Tags Similar → Does Not Equal → bingo

will automatically exclude new variations like Senior Bingo, Purse Bingo, or Holiday Bingo as they're added to your calendar.

That's much easier than creating a new rule every time a different bingo tag appears.

On the other hand, if your audience enjoys most bingo events but doesn't want traditional Bingo specifically, you could use:

Tags Exact → Does Not Equal → bingo

This gives you much more precise control.

Make your calendar work for you

The goal of Event Rules and Quick Filters is to reduce the amount of manual work you have to do.

When you set up your rules thoughtfully, Yodel can automatically include or exclude the types of events your audience cares about — even as new events are added.

So, before creating a rule, ask yourself:

“Do I want to match this exact tag, or anything that contains this word?”

• Choose Similar for broader matching.
• Choose Exact for precise matching.

Try both options as you build your filters and rules to see which gives you the results you want. A little setup now can save you a lot of ongoing work later — and help you create a calendar that's even more tailored to your audience.