This article explains how to create and manage web banners in Tivian Communicate XI (CXI). Web banners are embeddable advertisements for your Communicate Journey that can be placed on your company’s intranet site. The article covers banner sizes, types (animated vs. static), creation process, scaling, testing, editing, scheduling updates, and tracking performance. It also provides information on web banner preferences and answers to frequently asked questions.

Information

Note: You must be added to the Communicate Journey team and hold the permission status of Owner or Editor to create new messages. Read more about team access and permissions here.

Introduction

Much like an advertising web banner you’d see on any public web page, Tivian Communicate XI (CXI) can create an embeddable web banner to advertise your Communicate Journey on your company’s intranet site.

Once created and embedded, the web banner’s message and link can be updated anytime, directly from CXI. The changes can be scheduled from the timeline to automatically update without any further work on your part.

Web banners are useful for companies whose employees regularly use the company intranet site. A public touchpoint like a web banner is a great way to build a presence for your campaign at your company.

Web banner sizes and shapes

CXI web banners come in two sizes:

Web Banner 1 (thumbnail) is a square format with the original size being 336x280px. 

Web Banner 2 (leaderboard) is a horizontal format with the original size being 728x90px.

Animated vs static

Web banners can be animated or static.

Animated web banner: Animates on and continues moving in order to draw the eye. This format uses an iframe to display the moving web banner.

Static web banner: Used in replace of an animated web banner, if your intranet site cannot embed an iframe or if you don’t the web banner to be animated.

Create a new web banner

1. Start in the Campaign section.
2. Click Add New.

3. In the pop-up window, select Web banner and click Create.

4. When you are creating a web banner, select either Web Banner 1 (thumbnail) or Web Banner 2 (leaderboard).

5. Enter the name of the web portal where the web banner will be posted. This will help you to locate this specific web banner if you create additional ones for other locations in the future.
6. Once finished, click Next.

7. Select either the Embed the banner now option or the Save the banner and set it up later option and click Confirm. The embed now option will change the timeline message to today’s date so that the banner will be active now. The set-it-up later option will send you the embed code a few days before the banner is set to go live.
8. The newly created banner entry will automatically open up to the Properties tab. Adjust the following preferences around your message to suit your needs:

Type: A drop-down menu to change the message type. Web Banner should be selected.

Date: This is the scheduled day that the web banner is visible on the host site. Any changes you make to an existing web banner will take place on this date.

Note

If you opted to receive the embed code now, your start date will be shown as today.

Reminder: Set a date you’d like the system to email a reminder about this message or its update, to you and any assigned Notification Recipients. The reminder default is two days before the designated delivery date.

Destination: What your web banner’s Call to Action button links to. This is usually a piece of content from the Experience section. The thumbnail in the Content Experience will be the image in the web banner.

Note

If you use an external link, you will be unable to track the number of users reached from the CXI platform.

9. Click on the Notes tab and fill out the fields that appear:

• Message Title: This is the title you will see in your campaign timeline, as well as what will appear in the Analytics section for tracking purposes. Name it after the message or the content experience you are communicating about.
• Notes: A place to provide additional context to those assigned to the Communicate Journey’s team.

10. In the bottom area of the message, click on the Edit pencil, then fill out your message fields:

• Subject: The web banner’s message body text. Remember to keep it short and sweet
• Call to Action: The text button that links to the content experience.

Spark Tip

Including a clear Call to Action encourages employees to click into the Content Experience. Examples include: “Start here” and “Explore more”

11. Click on the View eye icon once you are finished.

Create a new web banner in Preferences

1. In the Preferences section, under Web Banner Preferences, click Create a New Web Banner.

2. Select either Web Banner 1 (thumbnail) or Web Banner 2 (leaderboard), then click Next.

3. Title the web banner, including where it will be embedded. Click Confirm.

4. It will now be listed under Inactive Banner, in the Web Banner Preferences in Preferences. To activate the web banner, go to the Campaign section.

Create additional web banners in Campaign 

If you have already created a web banner in the past, you can create a new web banner by clicking on an existing web banner in the Campaign timeline.

Note

As mentioned previously, Tivian recommends creating additional web banners in the Preferences section, as it is quicker.

1. When you are in the edit window of the web banner, select the Type drop-down menu and hover over Web Banner.
2. Click Create a new banner in the drop-down menu.

3. Follow steps 4-10 from Create a web banner, above.

Scaling a web banner

The web banners come with the fixed sizes mentioned previously in the About web banners chapter. The web banner can be scaled to proportionally fit your needs by changing the HTML code. If you need assistance with scaling your web banner, contact our Support team at support@guidespark.com. (The web banner must be scaled proportionally in order to display correctly.)

Testing a web banner

1. In the edit window of the web banner, click on the preview to the right.

2. Click Send Embed Code at the top of the preview and enter the email addresses to send the code to.

3. The denoted recipients will receive an email with the embed code for that web banner.

4. For the first step in the email, select the embed code you will be using, either the animated version or the static version. Be sure to copy the entire code.

5. Then for the second step, check to ensure your web banner is functioning properly.
6. You can test the iframe embed code by going to this link: https://jsfiddle.net/dsbenson/psxzeuno/
   
7. Enter the iframe embed code you have copied into the HTML section.
8. Click the Run button in the top left corner.
9. It should show the web banner in the bottom-right corner.
10. Once you have confirmed that the code works, send the iframe embed code to your IT team or whoever manages the external site, to embed the iframe code.

Edit a web banner

If you want to edit your web banner, simply go into Campaign, select the web banner you want to edit, and click Edit. Once your web banner has been set up on your intranet site, any changes that you make and save will automatically reflect on the web banner on your site.

Schedule an update to an existing web banner

Throughout your campaign, you may need to change the destination and messaging in your web banner to engage your employees with different content. This will not only provide employees a familiar place to find key aspects of the campaign but can also give your web banner a refresh, encouraging additional engagement.

If you want to have a web banner’s message change at a later date, follow these instructions.

1. Click Add New in the Campaign section and select the web banner you want to update.
2. Set the date for when the web banner will be updated.
3. Select the destination to the piece of content the web banner will lead to.
4. Change the subject to catch your audience’s eye. The messaging should allude to the new destination, to let employees know it’s been updated.
5. To encourage more engagement, a new Call to Action phrase will give the web banner a fresh look.

Once you have scheduled the web banner message, it will track to the existing web banner, as it shares the same embed code, so there is no need to resend the embed code to your IT administrator. It will update to the new message on the scheduled date and replace the existing message and/or destination. Use this to notify your employees of a new aspect or piece of content within the journey.

Spark Tip

Updating the web banner from time to time also keeps it fresh and engaging for employees.

Web banner preferences

In the Preferences section, under Web Banner Preferences, you can view your active and inactive web banners.

Active banners are live for this specific campaign. Inactive web banners do not have embed codes set up to add them to the intranet site.

If you click on the symbol “</>” you can request to receive an email with that specific web banner’s embed code. If you click the pencil icon to the right of each web banner, you can edit the title for that specific web banner.

The Create a New Banner button allows you to create a new web banner from scratch without having to tie it to an existing one.

Tracking your web banner’s performance

Look for the web banner icon in the Analytics section to see how many people have entered the CXI platform through this message type. You can measure how effective your web banners are in various ways. For example, you can put a different web banner on each intranet page and see which one you receive the most engagement from. You can also compare a message’s success versus if it is updated and if the engagement increases, decreases, or stays the same.

FAQ

Why choose the static version web banner?

Some company intranet portals prevent iframe embedding. For these situations, a non-iframe static version that simply loads an image is provided. Both versions will update as messages change.

Are we limited to how many web banners we can create? Can we use the same embed code for multiple intranet pages?

You can create as many different web banners as you like and use them for different messages. You can reuse a given web banner’s code snippet on as many intranet pages as you like.

How do web banners appear on mobile devices?

Web banners don’t automatically scale to your mobile device unless you know how to manually adjust the scaling. They will be viewable, but may not scale to the size of your mobile screen.

What if I just want to embed the entire journey experience or a video, not the message?

Videos, graphics, or the entire Communicate Journey experience can be displayed on your company’s intranet site. Please refer to the Embedded Content article for more information.