In BlueConic, a Channel is a unique website, email interaction, or mobile app where the real-time, online conversations between you and your customers and visitors take place.
BlueConic channels
Channels are a key concept within BlueConic. Online marketers can define channels and monitor the visitor streams among channels. When setting up Listeners for data collection in BlueConic, you can specify which channels you want to monitor for data collection. You can also set up Dialogues with online visitors for each of your channels.
Learn more: Visit BlueConic University
See the Setting Up Channels video in the BlueConic University.
Types of channels
Website channel
Use a website channel for customer interactions with your website. A website channel is defined by a hostname and its aliases. It is very common for websites to have hostname aliases, e.g. "www.taylorshop.com", "taylorshop.com", "shop.taylorshop.com" or "m.taylorshop.com". Make sure that all hostnames and hostname aliases where customers can touch the channel are added as a website. BlueConic will only recognize customers landing on URLs of defined website channels. Also be sure to place the BlueConic script on your website pages to be able to use it as a channel.
Email channel
Use an email channel when you want to send emails from BlueConic or from an integrated external emailing system, and you want to be able to track traffic from those emails to your other channels.
Mobile App channel
Use a mobile app channel for a native Android or iOS app. To interact with this app, this app needs to contain the BlueConic mobile SDK for Android or iOS.
Adding a new channel in BlueConic
To add a new channel, choose "Channels & BlueConic hostnames" from the BlueConic Settings menu. When you click on the green Add channel button, you are prompted to select which type of channel you want to add.
If you select Website, you can follow a step-by-step wizard interface that guides you through these steps for setting up a channel:
- Add the web address of your channel. This is typically the hostname or an alias of your channel, e.g. "www.taylorshop.com", or "taylorshop.com".
- Select which domain the channel belongs to, or add a new one.
- Add a BlueConic hostname to ensure that web browsers and ad blockers correctly identify this channel as first-party. Select whether to send DNS setup instructions to yourself and/or members of your IT team. Learn more about BlueConic first-party hostnames.
- Either confirm that the BlueConic script is already on the site, or get instructions on how to install the BlueConic script.
- Verify or optionally add connections to other systems.
- Create the channel.
If you select Email or Mobile, you will be taken to a screen to configure the channel name, the domain that it belongs to, and the App ID for mobile apps.
Channel Identifier
The BlueConic tag offers the option to explicitly define a channel instead of using the hostname from the URL. To help BlueConic recognize the channel identifier of your explicitly defined channel, follow these steps:
- Set up a Website channel for the regular website as described above. Use the hostname of your website, e.g. "www.taylorshop.com", and finish the wizard.
- Change the Hostname of the created channel to the channel identifier, e.g. "extrachannel.www.taylorshop.com"
Channels REST API
BlueConic application developers can refer to the BlueConic REST API documentation for information on accessing channels in BlueConic applications.
Defining channel positions
BlueConic dialogues use channel positions in order to identify specific areas and fields within a channel. In the example below, two positions have been defined (Position 1 and Position 2):
You use positions in BlueConic dialogues to display customized or personalized content. Before you can use a position for web or mobile content, you need to define the positions for your channel(s).
How to define channel positions in BlueConic
To define one or more positions for a channel, follow these steps:
- Select Channels & BlueConic hostnames from the BlueConic settings menu.
- On the Channels page, find the domain containing the channel to which you want to add one or more positions.
- Click the channel to which you want to add a position in the list. The properties for the channel appear.
- On the individual channel page, click Add position under "Positions."
Name
Enter the name of the position in the "Name" text box.
Selector
Enter a valid jQuery Selector to define the position on the page in the "Position" text box. A position is defined using a jQuery Selector. For complete information on jQuery Selectors, refer to this documentation.
To define the position using the Visual Picker, click the Visual Picker icon.
Preview URL
The Visual Picker is a tool you can use to visually select positions within a channel. The positions define the location within the HTML in a channel where content is shown by an interaction, as well as when action is taken by an interaction based on specific content appearing at a specific position or a click occurring in a specific position. Depending on the circumstances, the Preview URL is the default URL that the Visual Picker opens to when you click the link for the Visual Picker. For information on when the "Preview URL" is used, review Initial URL opened by the Visual Picker.
Used by
- Click the "Related items" link to see a list of the interactions and variants that use this channel position. The total number of interactions and variants is shown. If no interactions or variants use this channel, the number is "0" and the "Related items" link is unavailable.
- Click Save to save the position.
The positions created appear in the list of defined positions. The following is an example of a channel position definition:
Editing positions
To edit a position, follow these steps:
- Click the position you want to edit in the list of positions. The properties for the position appear.
- Make the desired modifications to the position definition and then click Save.
Deleting positions
To delete a position, follow these steps:
- Hover the mouse over the position in the list of channel positions. The "Delete" icon appears in the far right column.
- Click the Delete button.