Index

• Adding Text to a Data Feed
• Adding HTML Tags to your Data Feed
• Adding Images to a Data Feed
• Adding Click-Through URLs to a Data Feed
• Setting Design Metadata in Automated Variations
• Setting Country, Language, or Channel

Once you've created a design to use to generate Automated Variations, you will next need to set up the data feed to create the variations with. This data feed will contain the text, image, and metadata content for each design variation you would like to create. 

When creating a data feed to use for Automated Variations in Flexitive, you can use any of the following file formats:

• CSV
• XLSX
• Google Sheets
  
  

This article contains information on how to add image, text, and metadata content to your data feed. If you would like to see an example CSV or XLSX file to be used for automated variations, reach out to support@flexitive.com.

Adding Text to a Data Feed

To add text to your Data Feed, enter the text as plain text into the feed.

In the screenshot below, the Name and Price columns in the data feed have been set up such that they can be added to a design as text.

When setting text in a Data Feed, you can also apply Paragraph Styling, Superscripts, and Subscripts to the text within your design. This should be applied in the same way you apply tags in HTML for text (e.g. <h1>Learn More</h1> will set the 'Learn More' text to 'Heading 1').

To apply Paragraph styling, when including the text in the feed, you can use the different paragraph styling tags. By default, Flexitive will use 'Normal' styling for all text within a data feed. The tags you may use to set this are:

• Heading 1 (<h1>)
• Heading 2 (<h2>)
• Heading 3 (<h3>)
• Heading 4 (<h4>)
• Normal (<p>)

In addition to paragraph styling, you can also add a line break to your design using the '<br>' HTML tag in your data feed.

Adding HTML Tags to your Data Feed

When setting up your feed, you can use HTML tags for your text (e.g. Qualify for Additional Rewards¹ will superscript the '1' in this text element). 

To apply HTML tags, when including the text in the feed, simply wrap the text you'd like to apply the styling to in the desired HTML tags. The HTML tags you may use in your data feeds are:

• Superscript (<sup>)
• Subscript (<sub>)
• Bold (<b>)
• Strong (<strong>)
• Italics (<i>)

Adding Images to a Data Feed

When setting up a feed containing an image, you will first need to host the image on an external CDN or server. To add the image to your feed, take the URL pointing to the image, and place that in the feed.

When displaying the image, Flexitive will access the URL in the feed, and display the associated design.

In the screenshot below, the Image column in the data feed has been prepared to displayed images, hosted at the URLs listed in the column.

Adding Click-Through URLs to a Data Feed

You can add a background click-through URL to your design by entering your click-through URL under the 'flx-clickthrough' field. The URL used should be secure i.e  include https:// protocol in the URL

Background URLs make it so that the entirety of the design can be clicked on to redirect the viewer. Right now, adding a click-through URL to individual elements is not available via a data feed.

Once you generate your design variations, the click-through URL will automatically be applied to the Background Color layer of each design. If you would like to review the click-through URL, you can click the click-through URL icon in the Layers Panel to see what the URL is.

For more information on click-through URLs, check out our article Click-Through URLs.

Setting Design Metadata in Automated Variations

As part of creating a set of designs with Automated Variations, you can control the Design Metadata using a data feed. Setting these fields using a data feed will help reduce the amount of work that needs to be done re-labeling a design after it has been created.

In the data feed, you will need to create an input for each piece of metadata you want to apply to a design. You can include:

• Title
• Description
• Custom ID
• Country
• Language
• Channel
• Custom Field 1
• Custom Field 2

To set a column of your data feed to be used for a design metadata, you will use a specific title for that column. For example, in the screenshot of a data feed below, the 'flx-title' column will be used to generate the 'Title' metadata for my design.

Any metadata may be set via a data feed. The available metadata, and their corresponding title required for a column in a data feed, can be found in the table below:

When you Generate your designs via automated variations, the metadata you have set in your data feed will automatically be populated into the module for the design.

Populating the metadata for your design can also help with setting up your Automated Variations to work with and Custom Naming Conventions that are set up on your account. For more information on how to set up a Custom Naming Convention, check out our related support article.

Setting Country, Language, or Channel

Because Country, Language, and Channel metadata are drop-down fields in Flexitive with preset values, when setting them via a data feed, you will need to ensure the value you input for those fields is valid.

For each of these fields, the valid inputs are:

• The full name (e.g. 'English' is a valid input for Language)
• A standard abbreviation (e.g. 'EN' and 'ENG' are valid inputs for Language, and are associated with 'English')

For a list of valid abbreviations for Language, we recommend checking the list of ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2/T abbreviations. These abbreviation lists are international standards for 2 and 3-letter abbreviations for language names, and either of these will be accepted as valid abbreviations for language.

For a list of valid abbreviations for Country, we recommend checking the list of ISO-3166 Alpha-2 or Alpha 3 Country Codes. These abbreviation lists are international standards for 2 and 3-letter abbreviations for country names, and either of these will be accepted as valid abbreviations for a country.

If you provide an invalid input for Language, Country, or Channel, the associated design metadata will automatically be left blank by Flexitive. The rest of the design will still be generated as normal.