Weblayers

Weblayers are personalized banners that can be shown on specified pages of your website to a specified audience to drive engagement and conversion. They are executed using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They are not pop-ups, so pop-up blockers do not block them.

Watch the video to get an overview of the basic features of weblayers. Everything is covered in detail in the textual guide too.

Why should you use weblayers

Weblayers have multiple uses and are generally good as call-to-action solutions. Our customers tend to use them to:

• Highlight important information that can change customers' behavior, such as free shipping
• Incentivize subscription to push notifications or newsletters
• Gather information through surveys or update customer attributes
• Create peer pressure by showing how many people are buying/looking at a product.

Create a weblayer

Create a reusable weblayer template from the Asset Manager and use it in a campaign later, or as part of a campaign directly. To create a new weblayer, go to Campaigns > Weblayers > + Create new.

Create a weblayer from scratch by selecting the "Blank template" option or choose one of the existing templates within your project. These can be either your saved custom templates from Project templates Predefined templates. Use visual and HTML editors to customize the weblayer.

Setting up a weblayer consists of 4 main parts, usually in this order:

1. Design
2. AB test setup
3. Settings
4. Test and evaluation

As with most other campaigns in Bloomreach Engagement, the tabs are available in the top left corner in the app.

Weblayer design

There are 2 possibilities for designing your weblayer:

1. Edit the parameters in the visual editor
2. Change the code HTML, CSS, or JavaScript directly

The properties of each weblayer are defined by its “parameters”. The parameters can contain things like:

• copywriting
• position
• button visuals
• background color

For users with little coding experience, the visual editor allows easy modification of parameters through text inputs and color pickers. This makes configuring the look and behavior of the weblayer easy.

For users with more coding experience, the code editor supports direct editing using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You can also define new template parameters within the code, enabling the creation of custom, editable templates.

You can switch between the visual and code editors to define parameters in the code and then refine them in your preferred editor.

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The JavaScript code editor also allows you to add any advanced conditions that cannot be specified using the general settings of the weblayer, such as gaining information about the contents of customers' carts.

Editor

Use the visual editor to customize your weblayer.

The following numbers reference the numbers in the screenshot.

1. Weblayer preview: A preview of your weblayer is always available next to the parameters editor region and it is updated in real time so that you can instantly preview any changes done in the parameters editor. You can also preview the weblayer and its functionality set up for a particular customer in a particular scenario using the Test tab.
2. Switch between the code and visual editors: Using these 2 buttons will toggle between the code editor and the visual editor that you can see on the screenshot. This is to create a seamless workflow between adding new parameters and behavior in the code editor, and then editing and previewing them using the user-friendly visual editor.
3. The editor region: This region will contain either the code editor interface or the visual editor. You can adjust its size by dragging the 3 dots rectangle at the edge of the region. You can define parameter categories and tooltips for each of your parameters in the code editor. These categories will then translate into collapsable windows, or "groups" of parameters in your visual parameters editor. This helps you with navigating and organizing your weblayer. You can view the tooltip by simply hovering your mouse over the little i icon. Each parameter can be edited separately and the way you do that in the visual editor will depend on the parameter. For text edits, you will be generally able to type into a text field, you can pick a color using the standard color picker or by inputting its HEX code, for other parameters you might use sliders or choose from a drop-down menu.
4. Editor docking style:This button allows you to toggle between docking your parameters editor at the bottom (that is, below the preview) or to the right (as it is on the screenshot). Depending on your personal workflow, the size of the weblayer, or the orientation of your monitor you might prefer one or the other, thus we are giving you the option to customize it yourself.
5. Jinja personalization:Get information from metrics, and reports, or include personal attributes using Jinja via the personalization button in the bottom right corner. You can select the relevant customer attribute or metric from a drop-down menu and simply copy and paste the created Jinja tag. This button will always be available in the bottom right corner of the screen.
6. A/B Testing switch:This button allows you to toggle A/B Testing on and off. Upon turning it on, you will be able to work with multiple variants of the weblayer at the same time. Read more about A/B testing later in this article.
7. Snippets and HTML Blocks:Use your saved Snippets or HTML blocks or use one of the predefined ones to streamline the creation of new campaigns and save time on repeating tasks. Read more about how to create and use snippets and HTML blocks.

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Dimensions and scale are now measured in pixels.

Predefined templates

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To comply with US wireless carrier policies, your logo must be shown in all SMS opt-in weblayer templates. Update your SMS templates to meet compliance standards for US short codes.

Kickstart your workflow by selecting one of our new Predefined templates when creating a new weblayer. If you want to save your changes, you can only save the template as a copy. This is because Predefined templates are loaded from a centralized repository and cannot be edited directly. Learn more about Predefined Templates.

Other functionalities

Here is an overview of some other functionalities present but not mentioned previously:

Specific predefined templates

Example: if you want to create a “Subscription box”, you have to set up parameters in those templates:

• EMAIL
• EMAIL & PHONE; PHONE: here you have to set parameters in the Phone Number Validation section:
  • Initial Country - country code that will be preselected in the dropdown (e.g. us)
  • Preferred Countries - countries that will appear at the top of the list (e.g. us, gb)
  • Only Countries - If specified, only phone numbers from these countries will be allowed (e.g. us, gb); you should leave it empty if you want to allow all countries
  • Invalid Phone Number Message - An error message is shown when an invalid phone number is entered
  • Required Fields - you have to fill out the required fields such as Both, Email, Phone number in order to submit the weblayer (available only in the EMAIL & PHONE banner)
• TEXT (mobile only)
  • This is a Click-to-Text weblayer, which means that after clicking the subscribe button, it will open a messaging app where you will see predefined text and a phone number of a customer that will see the text in order to sign up for messages from your brand - that is called SMS Short Code.
  • Specify SMS Short Code and Prefilled text message in the weblayer parameters.

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We changed the text “By signing up you agree to our Terms and Conditions” in the subscription weblayers to “Insert your consent text/privacy policy/terms and conditions/other mandatory notices as may be required by applicable laws. For information about personal data processing please see Privacy Policy”.

Define parameters

Define your custom parameters in the HTML code editor. These parameters will then become visible in the visual editor so that non-technical users can adjust them too. Read more about parameters in Bloomreach Engagement and how they work in our template parameters guide.

With the button in the top right corner of the editor, you can switch between the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript parts of the code. You can configure your parameters using code if that is what you prefer to the visual editor.

As you can see in the screenshot above, newly defined parameters have to be in a certain format to allow for collapsible categories and tooltips. The right format of the parameter notation is:

[[ { name: 'paramName', tooltip: 'Tooltip text', category: 'Category name', isJsonParam: true }: type | ‘default value’ ]]"

isJsonParam: true must be present for our parser to recognize the notation otherwise the whole content of {...} will be displayed as the parameter name.

A/B test setup

Enable the AB test settings after toggling on the "A/B test" button in the upper part of the editor. This will create a new line of tabs above the editor. By default, Bloomreach Engagement creates a "Control group" and a "Variant A" which is your current design of the weblayer. To add more variants, click the + button next to the tabs. This will duplicate the previous variant. You can also use AI Loomi to generate multiple variants of the weblayers. Learn more about the Weblayer Variant Generator.

You can find all of the settings relating to the A/B testing under the "A/B test" tab next to the "Editor" tab in the top left corner, where you can specify things like the type of distribution. Read more on AB tests in our detailed guide.

Settings

Because weblayers do not have any frequency capping, several weblayers may appear on the same page that can even overlap.

To overcome showing multiple weblayers at once, create an 'Audience' for the weblayer with these conditions.

1. For the weblayer with a specific audience, choose the 'Save filter template' option.
2. For the second weblayer without a specific audience, choose the 'Fill from template' option, using the template from the first weblayer but negating it (N).

Now, you have set up the conditions so that only only weblayer is displayed at once.

Show on - attributes

You can choose for the weblayer to appear on certain pages by using one of the four Show on" settings explained below. By clicking on add rule you specify multiple settings for a single weblayer. By clicking on add exception you can specify where the layer should not be shown if you chose a too broad show on setting.

1. Any page
The weblayer will appear on all your URL pages.

2. Page with URL
The weblayer will appear on the specific URL page that you choose.

3. Page URL containing
The weblayer will appear on the URL pages that contain the specific string you define.

4. Page matching regexp
If you can use regular expressions you can use them to define where the weblayer should be shown even more effectively. For example, the setting in the image below defines that the weblayer should appear on pages with URLs containing a character from 0 to 9 positioned in front of a "+" sign but behind "/".

5. URL Global Lists
You can use the URL Global Lists feature to create and manage your URL lists in one place.

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Display conditions

Bear in mind that the display conditions explained in the table in the Settings section rely on the tracking of the event banner and attributes action = show and interaction = true/false. If you change this structure in the JavaScript editor, these conditions won't work properly.

Show weblayer on home page only

There are 2 ways to display a weblayer only on the home page irrespective of any UTM parameters in the URL:

1. A complex one, using regular expressions: Choose Page matching regex display condition and enter the following regular expression into the input field: ^(http(|s):\/\/)(my-domain\.com)(\/|)(($)|(\?.*)|(?!.*))$ — my-domain\.com should be changed to the actual domain name of your website. You may escape the dots by adding a backslash, \ , just like in the example.
2. A simple one, making use of a combination of display conditions: Add one display condition for the home page visits without any UTM or other parameters by adding a Page with URL equals to /. Add 2 more conditions that handle visits with UTM or other parameters: Page with URL containing equal to my-domain.com/? and to my-domain.com?. For an example, review the screenshot.

Weblayer testing

For testing purposes, we recommend setting the condition "Show on page URL containing" to "#test". After you have launched the weblayer, go to www.yourwebsite.com/#test and you will see the weblayer in the real environment. You can even send this link to someone else. The link works until you stop the campaign.

Manual triggering of the weblayer via SDK

Apart from the automatic triggering based on the relevant settings mentioned above, weblayers can also be triggered manually via the SDK function exponea.showWebLayer(). This can be useful if you want to trigger the weblayer by, for example, a button click, or based on the viewed product attributes.

When using showWebLayer(), the grouping policy and some of the settings from the weblayer setup are ignored (Schedule, ShowOn, Target devices) while some still apply (Audience, Display). The function can be called by a custom JavaScript, for example, using the Tag Manager, or another weblayer. It is, however, not possible to trigger a weblayer by backend events.

Test and evaluate

The TEST tab provides a preview of the weblayer and a quick summary of the weblayer's settings. Preview your weblayer in a specific environment - choose a specific device, the section of the website to preview it on, and a specific customer to preview it for.

Once you start the campaign, you will be able to get insights immediately using the predefined dashboard located in the EVALUATE tab.

Events generated by weblayers

Weblayers generate banner events when being interacted with. These events are defined and tracked in the JavaScript code of each weblayer (enabled by default).

The banner event can have the following attributes.

• action - show, click, close
• banner_id
• banner_name
• banner_type
• variant_id
• variant_name
• interaction

Some weblayers can track additional actions and attributes specific to their UC:

• Subscription banners: upon subscription, they track action=subscribe with form inputs as attributes (email, first_name, last_name, birthday)
• Web push subscription: upon subscription, they track action=subscribe

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Subscription weblayers

The email property is tracked as email attribute of the banner event, but not into the email customer property. You need to create a scenario to track the email address as a customer property.

Lag handling

Do not worry about a hypothetical lag in processing events that might lead to a weblayer being shown repeatedly despite being closed by the customer. Our SDK has a session storage logic to prevent weblayers from being displayed after being closed for display settings ‘Until interaction’, ‘Once’, and ‘Once per visit’.

Use cases

Weblayer on a specific day

Sometimes you want to inform your customers about a particular sale/product through a weblayer that pops up on a specific day of the week.

For this, you can either use a JavaScript code or your expression. The expression is very easy to create:

Review the example of JavaScript code. Let´s say you want your customers to see this Weblayer only on Sunday.

var today = new Date(Date.now());
var day = today.getDay()
if (today === 0){
//show banner
    console.log("Sunday")
} else {
//do not show banner
    console.log("Not Sunday")
}

The getDay() method returns the day of the week for the specified date according to local time, where 0 represents Sunday.

In the Bloomreach Engagement app, you can create this model: You display the Weblayer to customers where the expression equals a specific day of the week, which all customers would pass through only on that day. Expression starts on Monday with value 1 and ends on Sunday with value 7. The expression for this model is:
(floor((((((now() / 86400) - 4) / 7)) - floor(((((now() / 86400) - 4) / 7)))) * 7)) + 1

An example is weblayer shown on Friday, so the customer filter needs to be set for this expression to equal 5.

Troubleshooting

Read this article to find answers to the following issues:

• I have launched the weblayer but cannot see it.
• The campaign showed once but it doesn't load again.

Limitations

Special characters used in the weblayer parameters need to be escaped based on their context:

• For parameters used in JavaScript " needs to be escaped as " (for example, Prefilled Text Message parameter)
• For parameters used in HTML these symbols should be escaped:

Custom images in weblayers

If you want to use a custom image in the weblayer you can do so by putting the following code into the weblayer's HTML editor: <img src="URL LINK OF YOUR IMAGE" />. This means that you already need to have the picture uploaded somewhere on the web. If you do not, you can upload it to our CDN domain via the asset manager. Read more on how in the Asset manager article.