Core concepts

This page explains the words you meet in the dashboard. Read it once and the rest of the docs will make sense. For short definitions in alphabetical order, see the glossary.

The big pictureCopy Anchor Link

You design a screen and publish it. You create a placement, which is a named spot on your site, and point it at the screen. Your website asks Miniwall for the placement by its key, and the SDK shows whatever the placement says to show.

Screen (draft)  --publish-->  Screen (published version)
                                      |
Placement "upgrade_button"  ----------+   display, audience, experiment, schedule
        ^
        |  asks for the key
Your website  +  Web SDK

Because your site only knows the placement key, you can change the screen, test another one, or run a promotion for a week without changing or deploying your code.

ProjectCopy Anchor Link

A project is one product or website. It holds its own screens, placements, API keys, members, plan and monthly view count. You can belong to several projects with a different role in each. Switch between them with the project switcher at the top of the sidebar. See Projects.

ScreenCopy Anchor Link

A screen is one thing a visitor sees: a paywall, an upgrade prompt, a promotion banner, an onboarding step, a permission prompt, an announcement, a rating request or a survey. The dashboard calls the list Screens. In a few places, such as the Install SDK page and the API, a screen is still called a paywall. They are the same thing.

A screen is stored as JSON that describes its layout, text, colors and buttons. You never write that JSON by hand. You build it in the visual editor, and the SDK draws it on your page.

Screens come in six types in the gallery: Paywalls, Onboarding, Permission prompts, Announcements, Feedback & ratings and Account moments. The type only helps you browse. All screens use the same editor and the same JSON. Screens that do not sell anything use Run your code buttons instead of plan cards.

TemplateCopy Anchor Link

A template is a ready-made screen to start from. You pick one in the template gallery, name your copy, and edit it freely. Changing your copy never changes the template. A Blank option starts from an empty screen. See Templates.

Draft, version and publishCopy Anchor Link

Every screen has a draft and, once you publish, a published version.

• The draft is what you edit. Each save creates a new draft version. Nothing the visitor sees changes while you edit.
• Publish checks the draft, then makes it the live version. Visitors see it within about a minute.
• If you save changes after publishing, the card on the Screens page shows Unpublished changes. Your site keeps showing the last published version.
• Version history in the editor lists published versions. You can make an earlier version live again, or copy it into your draft.

See Publish and versions.

PackageCopy Anchor Link

A package is a plan card on a paywall, such as Monthly or Annual. Each package has a package ID you choose in the editor, for example monthly. Your website passes a price for each package ID, and the SDK fills in the price text. When a visitor taps the buy button, the SDK calls your onPurchase code with the package ID so you can run your own checkout. See Packages and pricing.

PlacementCopy Anchor Link

A placement is a named spot on your site, with a key like upgrade_button or pricing_page. It decides which screen shows there, how it shows, to whom, and when. A placement's settings sit in six sections: Overview, Screen & display, Audience, Experiment, Schedule and Results. See Placements.

DisplayCopy Anchor Link

Display is how the placement shows its screen and when it shows by itself.

• Format: Popup, Full screen, Banner, Slide-in, Toast, Side drawer or Launcher. The same screen can be a popup on one placement and a banner on another.
• Trigger: Shows when your code calls it, on page load, after a number of seconds, when the visitor scrolls, or when the visitor is about to leave (exit intent). Triggers can be limited to some pages and ranked by priority.

See Display.

AudienceCopy Anchor Link

An audience is a group of visitors, defined by conditions such as locale, device, page path, how many times they saw the placement, or an attribute your site passes in. The first audience that matches a visitor decides their screen, or shows nothing at all. A placement can also have a frequency cap, such as once per session, and a holdout, a percentage of visitors who see nothing so you can measure the screen's real effect.

Your site's attributes stay in the browser and are never sent to Miniwall. Audiences and holdout need the Pro plan; the frequency cap is on every plan. See Audience.

ExperimentCopy Anchor Link

An experiment is an A/B test on a placement. The placement's screen is A. You choose a second published screen as B and the share of visitors who see it. Results show visitors, buyers and conversion for each side, and the chance that B beats A. When you end the test you pick a winner, and picking B makes B the placement's screen for everyone. A/B tests need the Indie plan or above. See Experiment.

ScheduleCopy Anchor Link

A schedule switches a placement to another screen between a start time and an optional end time, for example for a seasonal sale. While a schedule is in force it replaces the placement's screen and pauses any A/B test. Schedules on one placement cannot overlap. They need the Indie plan or above. See Schedule.

Which screen a visitor getsCopy Anchor Link

When the SDK asks for a placement, Miniwall and the SDK decide in this order:

1. If a schedule is in force, its screen replaces the placement's screen and the A/B test is paused.
2. The SDK checks the frequency cap. If the visitor has reached it, nothing shows.
3. The SDK checks audiences in order. The first match shows its screen, or nothing if that audience is set to show nothing.
4. If no audience matched, the placement's screen shows. If an A/B test is running, visitors are split between A and B.
5. If the visitor falls in the holdout group, nothing shows and Miniwall records a holdout event.
6. Otherwise the screen opens and Miniwall records a view.

FlowCopy Anchor Link

A flow is a chain of screens joined by buttons that use the Go to screen action. The first screen is the one the placement returns, so the placement's audience, A/B test and schedule apply to the whole flow. A Back to previous screen button returns to the screen before. Flows can include questions whose answers your site receives. See Flows and questions.

Views and plansCopy Anchor Link

A view is one screen being shown on your site. A three-screen flow is three views. Previews from the dashboard and shared preview links do not count, and neither do placements skipped by a frequency cap, an audience set to show nothing, or a holdout. Your plan sets how many views you get each calendar month (UTC), plus how many projects and members you can have and which features are on. See Plans and billing.

API key and allowed websitesCopy Anchor Link

Your website identifies your project with a public key that starts with pk_. It can only read published screens and send view events, so it is safe in your page's code. You create and revoke keys on the API keys page.

Allowed websites is an optional list of origins, such as https://shop.example.com. When the list is not empty, only those sites can load your screens with your public key. It needs the Pro plan. See Allowed websites.

Members and rolesCopy Anchor Link

Everyone in a project has one role: Owner, Admin, Editor or Viewer. A viewer can look at everything and change nothing. An editor can build, publish and configure placements. An admin also manages API keys, allowed websites and people, and can delete screens and placements. The owner also controls ownership. See Members and roles.

RelatedCopy Anchor Link

• How it works
• Quickstart
• Glossary