There are a lot of ways to target your playbooks based on conditions but one of the most common is based on the URL. This often boils down to the URL/Is or URL/Contains dropdowns. 

This article will go over the best practices and when to use each scenario.

Best Practice

In most scenarios, our Drift Customer Success Team recommends you use URL/Contains. This is because you can cover a broad area of your website where you do not have to specify the exact URL string.

Using Contains in the dropdown helps when:

• You want to use targeting parameters
• When you want the playbooks to span your whole website
• You want to include a campaign down the road you may be launching.

URL Contains/Does Not Contain

Both URL/Contains and URL/Does Not Contain should be used when you want a more broad approach to visibility.

In this case, you want to focus on a particular part of the URL and ensure that exists so the playbook fires on those pages. This includes when you want to use a UTM parameter for targeting and don't want to specify it explicitly.

Example:

You want the bot to show on any page that has yourcompany.com/pricing.

So when you use URL/Contains: yourcompany.com/pricing
The URL that this will fire on would include: yourcompany.com/pricing/email_campaign

URL Is/Is Not

URL/Is and URL/Is Not should be used when:

1. you want to focus your efforts on a very specific page
2. when you know the complete URL
3. when the URL will always be the same.
4. There is no confusion about the page where any URL path, host or query parameter will change. Typically this would occur when you want a Homepage Bot for site visitors who are just seeing your homepage.

Example:

You want the bot to show on your homepage only.  The URL of your homepage is https://yourcompany.com 

So when you use URL/Is https://yourcompany.com 

The URL where this won't fire on https://yourcompany.com/anything_else

IMPORTANT NOTE.  We recommend using URL/Contains for the most broad coverage. URL/is should only be used when you want to focus on specific pages. If you are using URL/Is be sure to include http or https in your targeting as Drift is very specific with URL/Is.