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      Before you Launch: Best Practices

      Recommendations to go over and make sure your Creative has everything set as expected for a great live interactive experience!

      What this article covers:

      • General proofing concepts (how to Proof your Ion pages & Creatives)
      • Using the Preview feature
      • Creating a 'Sandbox' to review live pages before launch
      • A quick go live checklist

       

      General proofing/review concepts

      Ion gives you several ways to review your Creatives for proper spelling/grammar, consistent messaging/branding and functionality, prior to going live. 

      • Use the Creative Proof feature for line by line review of third-party scripts, content and advanced rules/conditional logic. You can access the "Proof" button on the Creative Management Screen.
      • The Preview feature allows for advanced respondent simulation of your landing page. We recommend using the Preview function for reviewing the user experience and conditional logic triggered by query parameters, previous behaviors, location, browser, etc. Using the "Preview" button is the best way to go through an experience to review and proof it because it simulates the exact experience a visitor will have when they come to your live page.
      • Often, end-to-end testing of data exports or third-party tracking is required. Set up of a 'Sandbox' Portfolio is suggested as a best practice for end-to-end testing on live pages — this ensures A/B test results are tracked separately from any live proofing/review traffic.

      Preview your Creative

      Ion includes a "Preview" mode where you can view a Creative exactly as a user will see it and simulate various scenarios (for example, how the page will appear for a mobile user or for a certain browser).

      From the Creative Management Screen, you can click the blue "Preview" button. When using Preview from the Creative Management Screen you will be able to fully simulate the browsing and clicking, just as a user will experience it. You can also use the "Preview" button on the Creative Studio and see any page within a Creative.

      If you distribute a Preview link to other people inside your organization, keep in mind they will need a user account to login to Ion to view the Preview. 

      Reviewing/proofing pages in a 'Sandbox' 

      Many customers like to take a page live in a 'Sandbox' and run through a complete Proof before officially launching their pages. For this sort of 'Sandbox' testing, we recommend copying the Creative you want to review into a 'Sandbox' Portfolio and Campaign (set one up if you don't already have one created. Just "+Portfolio" from the Portfolio screen, then "+Campaign"). You can set up a traffic source and take your Creative(s) live in the Sandbox Campaign.  

      Anyone who goes to the Traffic Source URLs you create in the Sandbox Campaign will be on a live page and will be tracked as a live respondent. When you have completed your review you can navigate back to the Portfolio/Campaign where the original Creative was copied from, and take it live. Using the 'Sandbox' Portfolio prevents a real A/B test on a Traffic Source results from being skewed. 

      Before you go live… A checklist:

      Remember to review your "go live" checklist! Don't have one yet? Use the general checklist below to help guide the customization of your own.

      • Brand consistency
      • Messaging
      • Functionality 
      • Browser compatibility (if you've created custom templates in Ion)
      • Page titles/meta data
      • Third-party tracking codes/scripts as expected
      • Third-party integration is working as expected
      • Copy/grammar/spelling
      • Behavioral tagging on page elements
      • Advanced logic/rules

      External conversion tracking (if applicable)