LiveReveal is a dynamic image that reveals a hidden message when clicked or scratched. The aim is to entice openers to engage with your email campaign in a new, exciting, and somewhat mysterious way. LiveReveal can be used in combination with LiveCoupon for a complete experience, or with a LiveTimer to create urgency around a limited offer.
Examples are scratch-off offers to reveal promotional codes, product releases, special offers.
You typically want to measure clicks and conversions.
In this topic, we will discuss the different configuration options specific for the LiveReveal as well as the preview and embed codes. Check out the topic Create a new campaign first for more information on how to initially create a campaign.
Once your campaign has been created including the LiveReveal element, a series of steps need to be followed:
2. Preview and test the LiveReveal
Configure the LiveReveal
Configure basic settings
The settings configured in the Basic Settings section apply to all the different variants of the element, if these exist.
Linking — In the basic settings you define if a clickthrough URL is required or only the embedded image, without the possibility to click through. If you choose the option to add a clickthrough URL, you will have to define the url in the configuration of the element further down.
Landing Page experience — This option allows you to provide a touch-based scratch-off experience to the opener. In order to achieve this, we need to take the user away from the email and to a landing page. Toggle the option on if you want to make use of this functionality.
Once activated, you can choose between a click to reveal or a scratch to reveal experience.
In addition, when the Landing Page Experience option is toggled on, iOS optimization becomes available. This allows you to achieve the touch-based scratch-off experience but in the email itself, without having to take the opener to a landing page. As the option indicates, this is only for iOS email clients.
You can define specific dimensions for iOS based email clients.
Alt text — This is the text that will be displayed when the image cannot be rendered. It is recommended to always set an alt text in case openers have disabled image rendering in their email clients or for openers that use screen readers. The alt text is appended to the embed code of the element.
Click Save and Next, to continue to the next step: the configuration of the elements.
Further configuration of LiveReveal
When a LiveReveal campaign is created, there is always a default LiveReveal element that will be the fallback image when the targeting rules do not apply to the opener of the email or when no targeting rules have been defined.
Start by configuring the default LiveReveal.
Depending on the selected options in the basic settings, different configuration options are available:
LiveReveal with NO landing page experience
1. The first step is defining the dimensions of this element. Enter the width and height of your LiveReveal element, or leave the default settings.
2. Upload the Cover Image. This is the image that will be shown when the opener opens the email. If you want to provide an instruction to the opener, it needs to be added to the image itself.
3. Upload the Hidden Image. This image is served when the opener clicks the Cover Image.
Note: You can also use an existing coupon to serve as the Hidden Image. Toggle the option Use LiveCoupon as hidden image if you want to do so. A drop-down is now available for you to choose the LiveCoupon from:
More details on how to do this can be found in the topic Using LiveCoupons as Hidden Image in a LiveReveal.
4. Turn Personalization ON if you want to add personalized text to the Hidden Image. (This option is not available when using a LiveCoupon for the Hidden Image.)
Enter the personalization text in the dedicated field. You can customize the text with Custom fields. To do so, you need to use the following syntax: %%tag%%. This tag will be replaced with the ESP value for the Custom field, as defined in the Account settings.
You can change the font settings, alignment, position, orientation, letter spacing and character limit. The character limit determines when the fallback image is displayed when the personalization text exceeds this limit.
5. A preview of the LiveReveal is shown.
6. Define a clickthrough URL.
Note: You can use a regular clickthrough link or a mobile deeplink. Mobile deeplinks are URLs that the mobile device will interpret as an instruction to open the app if it is installed, and go to a specific location in the app. If the app does not exist, in general it will take the opener to the location where the app can be downloaded.
Note 2: Clickthrough URLs can be personalized with ESP tags. Please check out our dedicated topic on this subject if this is something you consider doing.
7. If you want the opener to be taken straight to the clickthrough URL after reveal, toggle this option on. If not, the opener will have to click the Hidden Image to go to the clickthrough URL.
8. Upload a Personalization Fallback Image. This is only necessary when Personalization is turned on (step 4). This image will be served instead of the Hidden Image if it is not possible to retrieve the Custom fields or when the text exceeds the set character limit.
9. Set the dimensions for the Fallback Image.
LiveReveal with Landing page experience
1. The first step is defining the dimensions of this element. Enter the width and height of your LiveReveal element, or leave the default settings.
2. Upload a Scratch Cover Image. This is only required when the Scratch to Reveal option was selected in the Basic settings. This image is displayed on the landing page, after the opener clicked the Click cover Image in the email.
3. Upload a Click Cover Image. This image is displayed when the email is first opened. It will also be displayed on the landing page when the Click to Reveal option is selected in the Basic settings.
Note: Instead of using images and the default peel-off animation, you can also choose here to upload a GIF file with custom animation. Liveclicker will detect these GIF files and instead of serving the default animation, it will serve your custom animation.
4. Upload the Hidden Image. This image is served when the opener clicks or scratches the Cover Image. It is recommended to make this Hidden Image visibly different from the Cover Image when openers start to scratch.
Note: You can also use an existing LiveCoupon to serve as the Hidden Image. Toggle the option Use LiveCoupon as hidden image if you want to do so. A drop-down is now available for you to choose the LiveCoupon from:
Check out this topic on how to use a LiveCoupon for the LiveReveal.
5. Turn Personalization ON if you want to add personalized text to the Hidden Image. (This option is not available when using a LiveCoupon for the Hidden Image.)
Enter the personalization text in the dedicated field. You can customize the text with Custom fields. To do so, you need to use the following syntax: %%tag%%. This tag will be replaced with the ESP value for the Custom field, as defined in the Account settings.
You can change the font settings, alignment, position, orientation, letter spacing and character limit. The character limit determines when the fallback image is displayed when the personalization text exceeds this limit.
6. A preview of the LiveReveal is shown.
7. Define a clickthrough URL. This will take the opener to a defined website when clicking the Hidden Image.
Note: You can use a regular clickthrough link or a mobile deeplink. Mobile deeplinks are URLs that the mobile device will interpret as an instruction to open the app if it is installed, and go to a specific location in the app. If the app does not exist, in general it will take the opener to the location where the app can be downloaded.
Note 2: Clickthrough URLs can be personalized with ESP tags. Please check out our dedicated topic on this subject if this is something you consider doing.
8. If you want the opener to be taken straight to the clickthrough URL after reveal, toggle this option on. If not, the opener will have to click the Hidden Image to go to the clickthrough URL.
9. Upload a Personalization Fallback Image. This is only necessary when Personalization is turned on (step 4). This image will be served instead of the Hidden Image if it is not possible to retrieve the custom fields or when the text exceeds the set character limit.
Note: If Personalization is turned off, the Hidden image will be used as the fallback when account overages are disabled and an account runs out of credits.
10. Set the dimensions for the Personalization Fallback Image.
11. Configure the landing page settings. These control the look and feel of the scratch off image on the landing page after openers click on the Cover Image in the email..
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Appearance — A default appearance is applied but you can select a custom appearance from the drop-down. If you do not have one yet, click the Gear icon to configure a custom appearance. The Code editor is displayed where you can customize the CSS code. Or, select the option Create custom appearance from the drop-down. This will take you to the Account Settings where an appearance can be created.
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Scratch-off instructions — These instructions are displayed on top of the cover image shown in the landing page. They are used to indicate to openers that the content is interactive.
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Scratch-off % — This is the percentage of the image that needs to be scratched off before the Hidden Image and Call to action button is displayed. We recommend setting this between 20 and 50% for best results.
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Font settings: Select the font, font color and size. These are applied to the Scratch off instructions and the Call to action button. You can also use a custom font here.
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Call to Action button text: This is the text that will be displayed once the Hidden Image is revealed on the landing page. You can also set the color of the button and text.
Now you have finished the configuration of your first LiveReveal.
At this point you can either add an alternative version of the LiveReveal or move on to the targeting and testing section.
An alternative version can be used when targeting rules are implemented, presenting some of the viewers with one version, and others with another version.
12. If you want to do this, click the button Add Alternate LiveSlides and repeat the configuration steps as for the default LiveReveal.
13. When done, click Save and Next to set up the targeting rules.
Define targeting rules and AB tests
1. In this last step, you can decide which subscriber should get a specific version of the LiveReveal through the use of targeting rules. A targeting rule will split up the audience and only target a segment of the audience with a specific version. There are 2 options:
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Define targeting rules from scratch.
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When you have already defined targeting rules for a different element in this campaign, you can re-use these targeting rules for the current element.
For more details on setting up targeting rules, please check out the dedicated topic.
2. In addition, you can also set up AB testing for this element. With A/B testing the final version of the LiveReveal shown to the remainder of the audience, is determined by the A/B test.
3. When done, click Continue. You are taken to the next element to configure, if any. Otherwise, you are taken to the Preview.
Preview and test the LiveReveal
The Preview tab for your campaign becomes available when all elements in your campaign have been configured. It provides you with the ability to test the look and rendering of the elements in your campaign, either as a static preview or as a dynamic preview, simulating an opener. You can also send yourself or others an email preview.
For more details on how to test your elements using preview, please read the corresponding topic.
Retrieve the embed codes
In this last step, you need to provide some estimated campaign details, such as expected opens, launch date and Expiration date, as well as the Subscriber ID field.
All this information will be used by Liveclicker to optimize resources but also to create the embed code.
For LiveReveal, you have the possibility to not remember user interactions on reopening an email. As a result, at next reopen of the email, the whole experience is shown again to the opener, as if it is the first time.
When "Remember user interactions on reopen" is turned to "No", openers will be able to reveal the reward in the LiveReveal every time the email is reopened.
This feature is meant to be used for testing, when enabled the analytics are counted differently. Impressions, Daily uniques and Clicks will be counted as usual, but reveals won't be counted or reflected in the Insights Dashboard.
For more details on the Embed codes, check out this topic.
