When you use Pendo Guides to surface third-party experiences to your visitors from within your application, you can also connect the visitor’s usage of the third-party content with some identifying information from Pendo.
For example, if Visitor ID was added to a third-party survey link, you could then tie the survey responses in the third-party to the visitor who submitted them without an additional identification step in the survey. Without this, visitor usage of the third-party content remains anonymous and the visitor would need to re-identify themselves in the third-party system.
This article describes how to modify the third-party URL to pass identifying information, which differs depending on how you share the third-party content. There are three ways to share third-party content with your visitors through guides in your application:
- Direct the visitor to third-party content through a link in a guide. For information about adding a link to your guide, see Add guide content using building blocks.
- Direct the visitor to third-party content through a button in a guide. For information about adding a button to your guide, see Guide button actions in the Visual Design Studio.
- Embed third-party content directly into a guide through a code block. For information about code blocks, see Customize your guides with code.
Considerations
The instructions in this article are written for web applications. Unless stated otherwise, this applies to applications with Pendo installed through either the install script or through the Pendo Launcher (browser extension). For information about these web-based installation and configuration methods, see Implementation options.
You can only send agent metadata, which is metadata set through the Pendo install script for a direct implementation or through the Pendo Launcher for a browser extension implementation. To see what values are available, launch the Pendo agent debugger and open the Config tab. This shows information about the Visitor IDs and metadata you set up for Pendo. If a metadata field that you want doesn’t appear, it’s not available for this use case.
Salesforce, HubSpot, and custom metadata aren't available for this use case. For more information about metadata types, see Understand metadata groups in Configure visitor and account metadata.
Whatever metadata you add to the third-party URL is visible to both the user and the third-party. This includes potential PII that you might be sending to Pendo, such as name and email values. We don’t recommend sending PII in a URL. For more information about PII, see Data collection and compliance.
You might need to do some additional configuration within the third party so that it understands that additional data is being passed through the URL.
Add metadata to a third-party content link in a text block
The most straightforward way to share third-party content in a guide is to display a URL for your visitors to open. Add the external link to your guide step using a text block, and use Guide Logic to add additional visitor or account metadata to the end of the URL.
For example, if you had a link in your guide labeled “Click here”, you could insert the following Markdown formatting to create the link:
[Click here](https://examplethirdparty.com/examplesurvey?visitor={visitor.id/})
When the link is selected, the visitor is redirected to the third-party content URL with the visitor ID added at the end.
Add metadata to a third-party content link in a guide button
Guide Logic can also be used with Pendo guide buttons to take the visitor to a third-party content link personalized with visitor or account metadata.
For example, if you had a button in your guide labeled “Click here”, you could insert the following Markdown formatting:
https://examplethirdparty.com/examplesurvey?visitor={visitor.id/}
When the button is selected, the visitor is redirected to the third-party content URL with the visitor ID added at the end.
Add metadata to third-party content embedded in a guide
Third-party content can also be embedded as an iframe inside the guide step, allowing visitors to interact with the content without leaving your application. Use a code block and guide variables to pass the desired visitor or account metadata in the embedded iframe URL.
This option is only available for web applications where Pendo is directly installed on your application through the install script. Code blocks aren't available for browser extension installations.
After adding a code block to the guide step, add custom code to the HTML section. Below is an example code snippet that sends the Visitor ID and Account ID to the third party. You must modify it with your survey’s URL.
<iframe id="pendo-survey-frame" style="min-width:425px;height:450px;border:none" src="https://[Your Survey URL]?VisitorID=<%= root.metadata.visitor.id%>&AccountID=<%= root.metadata.account.id%>">
</iframe>
Warning: The above custom code snippet is intended to help you extend the capabilities of Pendo products. However, there's no warranty, SLA, or support available for its use. Although it's free to use, helping with custom code is outside the remit of our Technical Support team's responsibilities. If you have a request for creating new snippets, modifying existing snippets, or customizing functionality, contact Pendo Professional Services (services@pendo.io) instead. These requests require a custom services contract with Pendo.