Best practice for banners
Banners allow for custom content to be shown when specific search terms are used. Before setting up a banner, it is recommended to consider the use case for it and which search terms it should be triggered by.
What to consider before setting up a banner
Banners are a great way to promote more current information, such as seasonal content, current or upcoming events, or promotions – but they also serve as a great tool when it comes to making more general information, such as contact info or opening hours, more visible to the visitors.
Banners can easily be deleted or deactivated, and it is also possible to set a start and end date for a banner to control when it should appear.
Banners can be utilized with the Audiences feature to further limit which visitors are allowed to see a certain banner. This allows for showing the banners based on a visitor’s past history as well as their current search.
Search term syntax
When defining a search term for a banner, it is possible to use special syntax to make the triggering search terms more effective. 3 special characters are supported, which can be used in combination if needed.
Wildcard (*)
Depending on the placement, the asterisk (*) symbol will match any alphanumeric string of any length.
Examples
*permit would match any search term that ends with the word “permit”, such as “building permit”.
accessibility* would match any search term that starts with the word “accessibility”, such as “accessibility compliance”.
*contact* would match any search term that contains the word “contact”, such as “how to contact the company”.
Question mark (?)
A question mark will match any alphanumeric character (numbers or letters).
Examples
???? would match any search term with exactly 4 letters or numbers, such as “ab12”, “1234”, “cats” ect.
happy ???? would match any search term with the word “happy” followed by 4 letters or numbers, such as “happy days”, “happy dogs”, “happy 1234” etc.
The question mark, potentially in combination with the pound key (#), is especially useful when we know the length of the search term, but not the content, e.g. for support case IDs or product IDs.
Pound (#)
The pound character will match any number.
Examples
#### would match any series of exactly 4 numbers, such as, “1234”.
###-###-#### would match common American phone numbers like “202-555-0109″.
The pound key, potentially in combination with the question mark (?), is especially useful when we know the length of the search term, but not the content, e.g. for support case IDs or product IDs.