Campaign surveys in Usabilla for Apps are event-based. This means that a campaign is triggered when an event is fired. In order to provide you with a basic understanding of events, we will answer the following questions in this article:
- What is an event?
- Why use event-based targeting?
- How are events created?
- How can I connect my campaign to an event?
- Can you give any examples?
Note: While this article intends to provide a non-technical overview, the actual implementation of events will require technical knowledge. Most likely, you will need a programmer to help you out.
What is an event?
An event signifies that an action occurred in your app. This action can be anything, from making a purchase to opening or closing the app menu. The event can be initiated by the user (e.g. clicking a button) or by the app (e.g. the user's flight has just arrived).
The events that are available for targeting are defined by the app in question. Once you identified the moment(s) in which you'd like to survey your users, it's best to speak to your technical team to see which events allow you to target on this specific moment.
Why use event-based targeting?
Since events are defined by the app itself, event-based targeting allows for ultimate flexibility. It allows you to target on any action occurring in the app. This means that Usabilla for Apps surveys are very customizable and can be shown to the user at exactly the right time. This benefits the user experience and has a positive effect on your campaign's conversion rate.
How are events created?
Events are created by your development team and sent to Usabilla to signal that a campaign should be triggered. The basic way of creating an event is firing one line of code the moment a campaign survey needs to show.
Let's take the event where you would like to show a campaign survey once the user completed a purchase. In most apps completing a purchase means that the payment has been successful. Therefore we are going to fire the event once the payment has been submitted. For clarity, it's best to use a descriptive name for the event. Therefore, we are going to name this event "purchaseComplete".
Adding the event will require your developer to use a bit of code that sends the event to Usabilla. This code will look very similar to the following line:
Usabilla.sendEvent(event: "purchaseComplete")Using the basic implementation, the above line of code will have to be added for each event on which you would like to target a survey. It is also possible to use event handlers that make multiple events at once available for Usabilla targeting. However, this is largely dependent on the way your app is built and the tools that you use to manage your events.
How can I connect my campaign to an event?
After your developers have implemented the event, you can simply enter your Usabilla account and create a new in-app survey. Create the survey as you normally would and then specify the event in campaign targeting. You can show a campaign to your users as soon as an event is fired, or only after an event has been fired a number of times.
Make sure that the targeted event is identical to the event that your developer specified in your app. Events are case sensitive.
After specifying the event in your campaign targeting, it's time to activate and test your campaign. As soon as the Usabilla SDK has been implemented in your app and your events have been added, you can activate and deactivate new campaigns without making any code changes. It's important to note that your campaign will be live as soon as it's activated.
Since the event is the immediate trigger for your campaign, a campaign cannot be shown without specifying the trigger event.
Event examples
When using event-based targeting, the possibilities are endless. Events are highly customizable and closely follow the behavior of your users in your app. Some examples of possible events are:
Learning more about your users
- When the user opens the app
- When the user performs a number of searches in your app
- When your user leave a certain flow (for instance, when they move from the booking page back to another section of the app)
- When clicking a button
Measuring specific metrics
- After opening the app a number of times
- After taking an offline event such as taking a flight or receiving an order has occurred.
- After completing an action in the app
- After using the search functionality in your app
Now that you are familiar with the concept of an event it's time to get started. Follow these guidelines to create your first campaigns.