What: The BlueConic SDK for iOS, Android, or React Native makes it easy for developers to collect profile data from their apps, and/or customize their apps based on known and anonymous user segmentation and profile data.
Why: Message known and anonymous users with products and offers that are relevant to them based on their real-time interactions with your website. Acquire more customers with consistent messaging from your digital campaigns, save cart abandoners with right-time relevancy, and increase lifetime value with recommendations and communications based on behavioral data.
How: This article describes how to enable your mobile app for use with BlueConic. This is a technical document meant for mobile app (iOS or Android) developers.
BlueConic can work with different types of channels, for example websites, mobile apps, or other systems. To gather data from any channel, the channel needs to communicate with the BlueConic server using the JavaScript front-end API or the REST API.
To enable a website, this means the BlueConic script needs to be placed on its pages. The script will take care of all communication with the BlueConic server.
Your mobile app might use a web view to display the contents of a website, but typically it does not. The script cannot be added, and another approach is needed to enable your app. If you are developing for Android, iOS, or React Native, SDKs are available for this purpose.
What can a BlueConic-enabled app do?
Before we delve into technical details, we'll describe what exactly a BlueConic-enabled app can do.
For starters, BlueConic can listen to the app by monitoring page views and visitor behavior (e.g. clicking buttons or entering values) in the app. BlueConic supports mobile apps from the following BlueConic Listeners:
The app can also send events to signal to BlueConic that something specific happened, e.g. the user clicked a button, signed up for a newsletter, or watched a video.
The information in BlueConic helps you get to know the individual and drive better outcomes.
For example, you can create lightbox dialogues in BlueConic to conditionally show lightbox content in your app. You can deliver any content into your app by creating a Properties Based Dialogue. Also, you can create custom dialogues for your apps by using the BlueConic SDK for iOS, Android, or React Native to create a custom plugin.
Before you start
Before you start changing code in your app, start in BlueConic by setting up the new mobile channel for your app, or ask a BlueConic user at your site to do it for you. BlueConic will not work with your mobile app unless it has been set up as a BlueConic mobile channel.
Set up a Mobile Channel
First, you will have to define a channel for your app.
Select Settings > Channels & BlueConic Hostnames from the BlueConic navigation bar.
Click the Add channel button.
Select the Domain for the new channel, for example Mobile.
In the Channel Settings page, create a new channel of the type "Mobile App".
Give the new channel a name.
Assign the unique ID of your app in the "App ID" field.
Save your changes.
Your mobile channel is now ready to be used. Next, you want to integrate the BlueConic SDK by following the documentation specific to your iOS, Android, or React Native platform.
Testing your mobile app via the BlueConic Simulator
You can now use the BlueConic Simulator to connect to this mobile channel:
Choose Simulator from the BlueConic navigation bar, and enter the App ID (as defined in the channel) in the address bar.
Scan the QR code that appears in the Simulator with your mobile device. Alternatively, click the button Connect via email to receive an email message that will allow you to open the mobile app.
After scanning the code or opening the link from the email, your mobile app should open with a connection to the Simulator. The Simulator responds to the connection by showing information.
With the connection between BlueConic and your native mobile app established, changes to profile properties in your app will be visible in the Profile widget. Also, profile properties from BlueConic should be available to the app.
Note that the BlueConic mobile API assumes that a native mobile app will pull the most recent information from BlueConic. In other words, BlueConic will not push information to the mobile app. So if you make changes in the Simulator, you will have to refresh the mobile app to retrieve the latest information.