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Troubleshooting Dialogues

How to troubleshoot personalization in BlueConic via DialoguesCan't seem to get your dialogue to work properly? Here are some tips and tricks to help you figure out what might be going wrong with BlueConic dialogues on your site.

 

What to check if your Dialogue is not working

First make sure that the BlueConic dialogue is actually eligible for execution on your page by opening the BlueConic Simulator and checking the Dialogues widget.

Testing dialogues in the Simulator; How to tell if a content dialogue is turned on or off in the BlueConic CDP by testing dialogues

The widget shows all Dialogues for the page shown in the Simulator grouped by position. The name of your dialogue or variant should be visible in the widget.

If it is not listed:

  • Hover over the position where you would expect your Dialogue to appear. See if one of the Dialogues lights up in the Dialogues widget. Click on the "+" icon to see all Dialogues for that position.
  • Is the Dialogue configured for the right channel(s) on the Where tab?
  • Are there any URL restrictions? If so, make sure they are properly configured.

Check whether your Dialogue is listed in the Dialogues widget

If it is listed with a red switch next to its name, then the Dialogue is not active. This may be intentional, in which case you can toggle the switch in the Simulator to make it act as if the Dialogue was active. If the Dialogue was supposed to be active:

  • Check if there are any restrictions on Start/End Date, Targets, or Frequency Caps under 'Advanced Settings' for the Dialogue.

    How to use the Dialogues widget to administer Dialogues in the BlueConic customer data platform (CDP); testing dialogues in the Simulator
  • Is the Dialogue interaction targeted at a specific segment of visitors? Check the Who tab. If so, make sure you are also part of that segment. The Simulator offers a configurable list of segments which you are part of.
  • Check the Optimization tab of your dialogue, specifically the distribution percentage of the original in the top row. Is there a chance that you randomly have been picked to be part of the control group? If so, try changing that percentage to 0 to eliminate the chance completely.

You can also click on the name of the Dialogue in the Dialogues widget. This will show some information about it, plus a plain text explanation of the situation for the Dialogue:

How to use the Dialogues feedback box in the right-hand column in BlueConic; testing dialogues in the Simulator

  • Is the name of the Dialogue in bold font? No? Perhaps there are other Dialogues configured at the same position. BlueConic will round-robin Dialogues which share the same position. You can force the Simulator to show a specific Dialogue by clicking the "eye" icon in front of the name.
  • Is the position of the Dialogue actually available on the page? Check the 'Position' column.
    in the Simulator. If the position is displayed in cursive font, then the position is not available.
  • Are there any JavaScript errors in the browser's console? If so, contact your customer success manager.

Learn more about using the Simulator.

Tips if your Dialogue is not showing when a user enters a segment

BlueConic segments form the audience for your BlueConic Dialogues. Profiles enter and exit segments in real time as they fit (or cease to fit) the Segment definitions. However, because BlueConic retrieves a profile's segment memberships at the beginning of each page view, newly created segments are not available until the visitor refreshes the page or navigates to another page. To account for this scenario, you can define the Dialogue's audience directly in the Dialogue Who tab rather than calling on a segment to define the audience.

Tips if your Dialogue is taking forever to load

One possible cause is your browser refusing to download insecure content into a secure environment. The browser silently warns about this by placing an indication in the browser window. The warning is easy to overlook.

The shield icon is located in the top right of the address bar in Chrome:

Testing dialogues in the BlueConic simulator and Chrome browser

The shield icon is located to the left of the address bar in Firefox:

Testing dialogues in the BlueConic Simulator and Firefox browser

In each case: click the icon or button and allow the content of the dialogue to be loaded.

Note: Dialogues are served by BlueConic from a secure server, so the dialogue is not causing the warning. However your dialogue might reference insecure content (e.g. a lightbox based on an HTTP URL).

If you notice that you need to disable the warning to be able to see your dialogue, it is best to see if you can avoid it in the first place (e.g. base the lightbox on an HTTPS URL).

See also: Browser warning when loading http pages in BlueConic

Tips if no conversions are being attributed to your Dialogue

By default, conversions are recorded only after a click is registered. This means Conversion events can only be attributed to a BlueConic Dialogue after a Click event has been attributed to that dialogue.

The exception is if you choose to allow view-through conversions (on the Why tab of the Dialogue window), where a conversion is recorded after only a view has been registered.

Other points to know about registering conversions in BlueConic:

  • Make sure you select a channel for the dialogue on the Where tab. Only dialogues with a channel will be attributed events.
  • Check the Why tab to make sure the ‘Allow conversions with no click’ box is checked. If the conversion moment happens (but no click) and you don’t have the ‘Allow conversions with no click’ box checked, the conversion won't be tracked. 
  • See the section "Choosing a conversion moment" for tracking conversions on the Why tab for notes and caveats about setting up conversion moments in the Why tab of Dialogues.
  • Make sure you use correct syntax when specifying the Conversion URL for a dialogue. See Specifying URLs in BlueConic for information.
  • If two or more dialogues share the same Conversion URL (or have matching URL specifications) then only the dialogue to which a Click event was last attributed will be attributed the Conversion event.
  • For 'Content' and 'Lightbox' dialogues, Click events will only be attributed if the URL of the link is a 'Shortened URL' created with the link icon in the editor.
    How to test content dialogues in the BlueConic Simulator

Learn more about dialogue conversions in the Why section. For details on tracking direct conversions and indirect conversions, see Metrics for views, clicks, and conversions.

Tips if there are duplicate content recommendations in your dialogue

Duplicate content recommendations are caused when the articles collected for recommendation do not have a unique identifier. The content collector needs a unique ID for the articles or items being collected. If you add an identifier to your article metadata, you should use this unique identifier in the content collector.

Tips for setting up a Dialogue's audience

You specify a Dialogue's audience in the Who tab. In the rule you create for the dialogue's audience, if you set the audience rule to specify a certain profile property 'does not contain' a selected value, if the associated profile property is empty that profile meets the requirement for that rule. This is because the empty value does not contain a matching value for that profile property.

Specifying a dialogue audienc on the Who tab and using the rule 'does not contain a profile property value' with empty profile property or no value for that profile property

Contacting Support

For information on contacting our Support Team with questions, see Contacting BlueConic Support.

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