This article describes Templated Experiences, what they are, and how to use them to enable your revenue teams to create engaging digital experiences for marketing campaigns, customer engagement,  and sales outreach. 

Templated Experiences are digital experiences that are easy-to-build, design and configure using a WYSIWYG (i.e., what you see is what you get) editor. 

A Templated Experience is composed of a Theme file, a Content and/or a Landing Page Template, and content assets. Theme files are master files that dictate the brand, styling, and layout of a digital experience within any Templated Experience you create. Please make sure you have set these up in advance before continuing to the instructions below on creating Templated Experiences. Please see the product support documents Intro to Themes and Intro to Building Content Page and Landing Page Templates for detailed instructions on how to do this. 

How to Create or Configure a Templated Experience

Follow these instructions to follow through the process. 

1. On the main menu, select Content Activation and then click Templated Experiences. Here you see a list of completed Templated Experiences that have already been built by you or your team and that you can modify to suit your needs. You have the option to Edit an existing Templated Experience, Clone one, or Create a new one from scratch. If you want to build a new one vs. edit or clone an existing Templated Experience, click +Create.

2. If you select +Create, a dialog box will appear with a Theme field where you will select from a dropdown list of approved and available Themes that have been created by your organization (this will determine the colors, fonts, and general styling and layout of your Templated Experience).  Below that, enter the Experience Name of your choosing. Also specify the folder in which you want to save the new Templated Experience. Save the new file by clicking the Create button.

3. If you decide to edit an existing Template, select it from the list of Templated Experiences and then click the Edit icon on the right side of the Templated Experience you just clicked.
   
4. Regardless if you clicked Create or selected a Templated Experience to Edit or Clone, you will then be taken to  the Templated Experiences page where you will build your digital experience. There are 5 tabs here.

1. Details 
2. Content Configuration 
3. Content Page Settings
4. Landing Page 
5. Navigation
   

1. Details – Define Your General Settings

The Details tab holds all of the settings for your Templated Experience. Here you see the page with no parameters added or defined. Click Edit to define these parameters, as shown below. Once you have edited the settings here and saved them, this view will update with the details you have defined. 

• The General section is where you can edit the Experience Name. If you change the name, adjust the URL Path to match.
  
• Search Engine Directive is where you set up direction for search engine crawlers. In this panel you can also turn on Cookie Consent toggle, and add up to three External IDs for tracking your Content assets in the Templated Experience.
  
• Access Protection is where you can set up protection for  your Content Page and Landing Page so that only a select external audience can access it. You can set the Protection Type, and then Allow Groups and Disallow Groups. For more information about groups and Access Protection, click here. 

2. Content Configuration – Selecting Your Content Assets

The Content Configuration tab is where you add the Content Assets you want to use in your Templated Experience Content Pages and/or Landing Pages. When you add content assets to this tab, you are copying all of the attributes and settings associated with that asset from your PathFactory Content Library, such as content tags and other content identifiers.

1. In the Content Configuration tab, click Add Content. You will see a popup window that displays your organization’s Content Library. Select as many assets as you want, and then click Insert Content. If you add any assets  in error, just click the associated Trash Can icon for the asset on the Content Configuration tab to remove it. 

Note: When you delete Content assets from the Content Configuration tab, you are not deleting them from your Content Library. 

2. Click the Insert Content button to save your changes. You will now see the list of content assets you just added from your Content Library.
   

3. Content Page Settings – Build a Content Page

Once you have added assets through the Content Configuration tab, it’s time to  create a Content Page by clicking on the Content Page Settings tab.

When the page loads, select a Content Page Template from the dropdown list on the left side of the screen. For more support, see How to Build Content Page and Landing Page Templates.

You will notice you can edit the appearance of the Content Page here, including sidebar position, logo, CTA ID, CTA size, CTA text, CTA overrides and background color. As you change settings in the left panel, you will see a preview of those changes appear on the right side of the page. 

Note: If you are planning to create calls-to-action (CTAs) for your campaign, you must complete the CTA fields. CTA ID is especially important for enabling tracking for your CTAs.

Below is an example of a completed Content Page. Content Pages look similar to campaign content tracks. 

4. Landing Pages – Build a Landing Page Experience

However, if you want to create a more customizable / web-page layout like experience, you can create configurable Landing Pages that leverage the Content Assets you defined in the Content Configuration tab. (For PathFactory customers familiar with Microsites and Explore Pages, the Landing Pages in Templated Experiences offer similar functionality but are easier and faster to create using the built-in WYSIWYG editor.)

1. Click Add Landing Page to create a new Landing Page for your Templated Experience. A popup menu appears, so you can assign a name and select the starter template from the list of available Templates. (You will be able to modify the Template you select in later steps.)

2. The Landing Pages tab updates to display your newly created Landing Page in a list of any/all Landing Pages that have been created to date.

3. Click the Settings link associated with your Landing Page if you want to edit the Name, URL Slug, Thumbnail Image, Page Title, Page Description and Visibility. If you plan to share this experience with anyone, you must set the Visibility to Public. The following popup appears.
   
   Note: If you set the visibility to Private, you will not be able to share the Templated Experience or view a preview. 

4. To continue setting up the Landing Page for your Templated Experience, click its associated Customize Page link. 
5. When you click Customize Page, the Landing Page Editor opens. Here you see the default sections and layout that was configured for the selected Landing Page Template in Themes.(See How to Build Content Page and Landing Page Templates for more details.)
   
6. To see a section preview on the left, add or edit info for its corresponding item on the right side panel.
   
7. When you are finished setting up/editing your Landing page, click Save. You will see a save confirmation message at the bottom of the screen. 

Here is an example of a completed Landing page.

5. Navigation 

To customize the Templated Experience and guide the visitor further, you can define the navigation within the Templated Experience on the Navigation tab. To do this, follow the steps below.

1. To add links or text to your navigation, click Add Menu Item as shown below. 

2. A popup menu appears, for you to enter specific information about the menu item. 

3. If you choose to add a link, enter its destination URL as well. To finish adding the item, click Save.
   
4. You are returned to the Navigation tab, where you can reorder the menu items via drag and drop, or delete them by clicking an associated Trash Can icon. 

Cloning a Landing Page or a Templated Experience

You may want to create a number of Templated Experiences or Landing Pages that are very similar to each other. You can save a lot of time by cloning the originals.

To clone a Templated Experience, hover your mouse over that area of the screen as shown below. 

Clone a Landing Page

Within a Templated Experience, you can clone a Landing Page if you want to rapidly build Landing Pages with the same or similar layouts instead of starting over completely each time you create one. 

To clone a Landing Page, open the Templated Experience here and on the Landing Page Settings tab, click the Clone icon next to the Landing page you want to copy, as shown below. 

One scenario where you might want to create multiple landing pages within a single Templated Experience is to create “Level 1” and “Level 2” pages for a website like experience. For example, one Landing Page serves as the main destination page that you will point audiences to wherever you promote the experience. Any additional Landing Pages you add to the Templated Experience) could be “Level 2”  pages that you link to links from the main Level 1 page.

Ready to Share

Sharing a Landing Page

You are now ready to test your new Landing Page. Return to the Landing Page tab and click on the Share icon. You can open your completed Landing Page in a new tab to preview it, and then copy the link to your clipboard from there (you can paste that link directly in an email message or use wherever you want to drive traffic to the experience. You can also copy the link sharing icon to send to others that way. Similar to PathFactory’s other activation experiences, you can also append the query parameter that you have defined in the organization settings if needed.

Click on the Landing Page tab and then you see a share icon associated with each of your Landing Pages, as shown below. 

After you click this link a popup menu appears with more options. 

Need a refresher on Query Strings? Click here. 

Sharing a Content Page

To preview and share your Content Page, select the Content Configuration tab and you see the URLs in your list of Content Assets. Click on any of the URLs here to see your Content Page preview. 

Note: If you designated your content as restricted, you may see a window asking for your email address. Follow the instructions to proceed.

Reporting and Sharing Reports

Templated Experiences Reports tab

This page displays detailed insights into visitors and account engagement on the content that has been shared via the Templated Experience.

Here is a high level view of how Templated Experience reports workflow.

There are 2 sub-tabs on the Reports tab/page: Visitors & Accounts and Performance.

Note: You can customize the data presented on these sub-tabs by using the filters provided on each of the sub-tabs.

Visitors & Accounts

On this sub-tab you see engagement data for Views, Visitors, Accounts, and Time Spent within a Templated Experience. 

Performance 

On this sub-tab you see top performing Content, Topics, and Channels for the Templated Experience.

Downloading and Sharing Reports

To see sharing options for your reports, click on the gear icon, as shown below. 

When you click the gear icon, you see the following popup menu.

Clear Cache & Refresh: This option clears the file cache on your computer and runs the report again, using the filters you had set. 

Download as PDF: When you select this option you see a popup menu for you to set up where on your computer hard drive you want to save the PDF. 

Download as CSVs:  When you select this option, you see a popup menu to download the comma separated values file. This is useful when you want to see this report in a Google Sheet or Excel file. 

Send: When you select this option, a window opens.

As you can see, you can enter a title for the report, you have several delivery options, data formats, and you can add a custom message to go along with the report. 

When you share a report, it is saved as a PDF file and is attached to an email message, webhook, Amazon S3, or sent via SFTP. 

Depending on the option you choose here, the rest of the menu reflects settings for that delivery method. You also see along the bottom of this window a confirmation of the file format and the delivery method.

To precisely specify which content to send out, adjust the Filters. Click its arrow to expand the list.

Schedule – when you select this option, the following window opens.

On this window you can edit the following settings.

• Name the schedule
• Select a delivery method
• Add recipients
• Select a data format
• Trigger
• Set the Date, Time and Interval
• Filters

Within the Template for Content and Landing pages, you can add text and images for the provided sections, which you can then further customize as you wish.