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Sites & snippet

Snippet behavior

Once the snippet is installed, a Behavior card on the site's Snippet tab lets you fine-tune two things: how long adfit remembers a matched variant as a visitor moves around your site, and how long adfit will briefly hide an area before showing the original content if a personalization hasn't applied yet.

Where to find it

Open the site, go to the Snippet tab, and scroll to the Snippet behavior card. Change a setting, choose Save changes, and it takes effect on the next page load. You don't need to reinstall the snippet.

Screenshot coming soon
The Snippet behavior card with the variant-persistence options and the safety-reveal timeout field.

Variant persistence

When a visitor matches one of your personalizations, adfit shows them the matching variant. Variant persistence controls whether adfit keeps showing that same variant as the visitor moves to other pages on your site, and for how long. There are three modes:

  • Session (default): adfit remembers the matched variant until the visitor closes the browser tab. This is the recommended setting for most sites.
  • Persistent: adfit remembers the matched variant for 30 days across visits. Best for longer campaigns, where a visitor might come back over several days and should keep seeing the same tailored experience.
  • None: adfit never remembers a variant. Each page load is matched fresh, so personalization only shows on the pages a visitor arrives at directly from the ad (with the matching link).

No cookies involved

adfit remembers the variant in your visitor's browser storage, not in a cookie. It stores only which variant matched, nothing that identifies the visitor.

Anti-flicker safety timeout

To avoid a flash of the original content before a personalization applies, adfit briefly hides the area it's about to change, swaps in the personalized version, and then reveals it, all in a fraction of a second. The Safety reveal timeout is the safety net for the rare case where the personalization is slow to apply or something goes wrong.

  • It sets the maximum time adfit will keep that area hidden.
  • If the change hasn't applied by then, adfit reveals the original content anyway, so your visitor is never left looking at a blank space. This is a deliberate “fail open” to your original page.
  • You can set it between 100 and 3000 milliseconds. The default is 800 ms, which suits most sites.

Choosing a value

The default of 800 ms is a good balance: long enough for personalization to apply on a normal connection, short enough that a visitor never waits noticeably if something is off. Raise it a little if your site is heavy or slow to load; lower it if you'd rather show your original content sooner in the worst case.

When a new timeout takes effect

Changing the timeout applies right away for returning and cached visitors. The very first (uncached) page load for a new visitor uses the value that's built into the snippet code on your site. If you want your new value to apply on that first load too, reinstall the snippet with the updated embed code from the Snippet tab. For most sites the default is fine and no reinstall is needed.

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