Having a BDOW! (formerly Sumo) campaign form display when certain URL query parameters are present can be a very useful strategy. Consider the following situation:
You have a pre-existing subscriber list that is populated with email addresses collected by another, non-BDOW! form. You would like to send these subscribers an email containing the URL to a new product on your site, and you would like to prevent BDOW! campaign forms from displaying when the subscribers arrive via the email link.
By default, your subscribers will see the form that is configured to display on this product page. To override this behavior, include a query parameter in the email link and create a Display Rule that prevents your popup from appearing when that query parameter exists in the visitor's URL.
You can apply this technique in a number of situations, including social media traffic, traffic from your paid ads, visitors coming to your site from email newsletters, visitors being directed to your site from affiliate links, etc. It is an effective strategy any time you need to control a form's appearance and you can utilize a specific query parameter!
How to create Display Rules targeting query parameters
To target query parameters, you will need to set up our Query Parameter Display Rule. You can find more information about Display Rules here.
In order to set up a Display Rule that instructs your form to display (or not display) when a query parameter is present, start by accessing the Display Rules utility:
Access the BDOW! site manager and Edit your desired form.
Navigate to the Visibility tab
Ensure that Smart Mode is disabled
Add a new rule in the Display Rules section
Now you can configure the actual rule. If you want to display the form based on the query parameter, use the default Show option. Otherwise, select Not Show to prevent the form from appearing if the query parameter is present.
Select URLs > With a Query Parameter.
Enter the Query Parameter Name in the field and select the option that applies to your use case from the dropdown menu (e.g., Exists or Is Equal To...):
If you select the options Contains... | Does Not Contain... or Is Equal To... | Does Not Equal... you will also need to specify a parameter value to check (i.e., the item after the '=' in a URL query parameter). For example, if you would like your BDOW! form to display specifically on the URL https://mysite.com?tool=bdow, you would create the rule below:
This is just one way you can leverage Display Rules to control when your campaign forms are displayed. Check out our comprehensive guide for more information!