The Pugpig Smart Banner helps guide your readers to the right place when they land on a single Bolt Web article page before entering your app. It can direct them to your native or web app, display promotional messages, or send them to your main website.

These are for use on Pugpig-powered article pages only and should not be confused with Native App Smart Banners, which are provided by the iOS and Android operating systems.

What Does the Smart Banner Do?

When someone follows a deep link to an article in your app, the Smart Banner ensures they get the best experience. It can:

• Promote your mobile app by displaying a banner that encourages users to download it on iOS and Android devices.
• Automatically open your Bolt Web app instead of showing the native app banner, if preferred. (Note: This is not recommended for mobile devices, as the native app is superior experience.)
• Display a custom header or footer with promotional content, such as ads or subscription offers.
• Redirect users to your website if you’d rather they land there instead of viewing the article in isolation. (Let our support team know if you'd like this enabled.)
• Track engagement using Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Tag Manager, helping you measure how well your content is driving app downloads and usage.
   

How It Works

The Smart Banner is a lightweight JavaScript file (/pugpig-websmartbanner.js) that runs on single article pages. It automatically detects the user’s device and browser to take the right action.

If a user clicks "View" to enter the web reader, the Smart Banner remembers this choice using a cookie (kaldor-pugpig-visited).

Analytics and Tracking

To help you understand how well your sharing and acquisition strategy is working, you can monitor how your Smart Banner is performing with:

• Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
• Google Tag Manager

Pugpig’s analytics specification shows these as article page views under /Share/PageView.

Configuring Your Smart Banner

Want to tweak how the Smart Banner behaves? Our support team can adjust its settings for you via the Distribution Service. Just let us know what changes you’d like.

Updates and Maintenance

The Pugpig Smart Banner is updated automatically, with new improvements rolling out to all clients. Changes only affect articles processed after the update. You can check the Release Notes for details on the latest updates.