Tracking an authenticated user's first visit to a Panels page and forward them to another page on subsequent visits I'm looking to expose authenticated user stat information to CTools / Panels.  Basically, I need to have a Panel variant that says: If the user has never visited the page, display this variant, if they have, display this variant.
You want an access plugin. See What are Ctools plugin (content type, access, etc), and how does one create them? for an intro to how to build one.