Accessibility Tools

Why do we use Alert Bars or Lightboxes?

Simply put, they are built to grab the immediate attention of a viewer to entice them to click on a link, donate or take an action. Though often disregarded as annoying, it is proven that they work!

Our conversion tools offer 5 calls to action types: Simple, Button, Form, Donate Button & Video.

Before you begin building your conversion tool you should organize and layout the following in a Word or Google Docs:

Headline: This is usually what catches the visitors attention, so you should start with URGENT:, Breaking News, Victory, This Tuesday, Take Action, etc. and explain what you got there attention for.

Ex.: This Tuesday, March 26th we argued before the Supreme Court– this could be the lawsuit that ends Gerrymandering. (Alert Bar)

Ex: Protect Our Elections Against Hacking (LightBox)

Text: This text is usually a little longer than the headline and takes a deeper dive into what is happening and explaining why they need to take action.

Ex.: We found decisive evidence of the North Carolina GOP’s blatant partisan gerrymandering, and we sued. Our lawyers went before the Supreme Court– we could win a landmark decision against gerrymandering.

Link Text: Here you are indicating what action you want them to take; that could be reading a press release, reading a resource/report, go to a landing page, etc.

Ex. Read the Release  or Learn More

URL:  Link to the page you want the visitor to land to take the action you requested them to do.

Ex. https://www.commoncause.org/press-release/common-cause-asks-supreme-court-to-end-partisan-gerrymandering/

Action Network Embed: You can find an action network embed on the manage page of your action under EMBED THIS PETITION Once you find the embed you only need a short piece of the code:

Full code:

<link href=’https://actionnetwork.org/css/style-embed-v3.css’ rel=’stylesheet’ type=’text/css’ /><script src=’https://actionnetwork.org/widgets/v3/petition/dont-let-mcconnell-kill-democracy-reform?format=js&source=widget‘></script><div id=’can-petition-area-dont-let-mcconnell-kill-democracy-reform’ style=’width: 100%’><!– this div is the target for our HTML insertion –></div>

Code you need:

https://actionnetwork.org/widgets/v3/petition/dont-let-mcconnell-kill-democracy-reform?format=js&source=widget

Recommended: Change the word widget to alert bar so your new code should read: https://actionnetwork.org/widgets/v3/petition/dont-let-mcconnell-kill-democracy-reform?format=js&source=alertbar

This will allow you to track the source of where your signers came from.

Video: Youtube Link

To add a donation alert bar please contact Christina at cmonroe@commoncause.org.

How do I set up an Alert Bar?

  1. From your dashboard navigate to & select Theme Settings (it’s toward the bottom)
  2. The first section in Theme Options is Alert Bar, select Alert Bar if it’s not already highlighted.
  3. Select Yes to turn on the alert bar
  4. Type: Choose the type based on the descriptions above
  5. Enter relevant information based on the descriptions above.
  6. Is it cookied? Select Yes
  7. Alert only once per session? Select Yes, if you want the alert to show only on the first-page view in any given user session (visitors see this only one time). If you do not select yes this alert will show on every page every time they visit our site.
  8. Suppress Alert based on URI (Optional) Enter a relative URL of any page you want to be suppressed from the alert bar.

How do I set up a lightbox?

Lightboxes are set up on a page by page basis and should be relevant to the content on the page.

  1. Go to the Page Pop Up Override section (2nd section)  on the post your adding the lightbox.
  2. Turn Popup On: Select Yes
  3. Is it cookied? Select Yes
  4. Lightbox Type: Choose the appropriate conversion type
  5. Popup Timed Load: Choose when you would like to have your pop up appear.
  6. Design your lightbox with relevant information based on the descriptions above.

 

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