Banners are often used for:

Banners can be combined with other banners or SmartBlock types. For example, you could have a banner promoting winter coats alongside a Recommendation SmartBlock showing best-selling winter coats.

When you create a Banner SmartBlock, the placement — whether the banner is intended for website or email use — determines which tactics and layouts are offered.

Some tactics and layouts are not recommended, or don’t work, for certain placements. For example, a popover banner won’t work on email.

Layouts are specifically coded to be optimal for either web or email, so it’s important that you select the right placement for usage.

The tactic options are displayed to help create a SmartBlock that best suits your needs, such as the shape and size of banner you require, or targeted information such as geotargeting or weather data. Suitable layout options are then presented based on the tactic you select.

Layouts define how you want the SmartBlock to look and behave.

There is a selection of default layouts available for each tactic, for example, Hero Banner, Hero Banner with Header/Footer, and Popover Hero Banner for the Hero tactic.

After saving the SmartBlock, the Layout selected offers a range of settings on the Design tab that allow the customization of the SmartBlock. A layout might also give other tabs with specific settings for that layout, such as a Behavior tab to configure the popover behavior.

Once you have saved your SmartBlock, the Edit SmartBlock screen gives you a number of tabs to configure the design, properties, links, behaviour and more, for your SmartBlock.

All standard templates have the option to incorporate links in the SmartBlock. This might be through a call to action button or a link in an image, depending on the layout chosen.

Depending on the attribution model chosen, the system’s attribution of revenue is often associated with a click on the SmartBlock.

You can configure where the links go and add any UTM tracking codes using the Links tab.

Geotargeting banners can use a person’s location, for example, to display details of the nearest store to the visitor.

Within the SmartBlock, you can then configure the settings under the Location tab to turn on geocode by IP, and select the relevant location set to find the closest location within a certain radius. You can also configure what is shown in the banner, for example, an image of the store, and its opening times and contact details.

Weather banners display weather information that could be based on either a merged in value, such as destination holiday locations, or personalized for the person’s location, if you have access to the Geotargeting module.

The default template can display a single or multiple day’s forecast, with a number of design options. You can set the location for which the weather forecast is being displayed using the Merge Parameters on the Properties tab. To preview different values that you might be merging in, use the Merges button on the preview panel.

If you have the Geotargeting module enabled on your account, you can access the settings on the Location tab, such as enabling Geocode by IP to pick up the location of the visitor, or finding their closest location from an uploaded location set.

If no exact matching location is found, you can set the radius value within a location set as a fallback. The default is 1500km from the location of the user. For example, if a UK Cities location set is used, and the visitor is located in London, they’re shown the weather for London. The same goes for any other UK city. It’s possible to add or create a location set for other countries, cities, airports, counties, and so on, and they return the weather for the closest area inside that particular location set.

The Location Source settings allow customers to control which order we use the visitor's location data in if they have multiple sources, for example, using their current location or imported data.

The order of location priority within the SmartBlock works as follows: