How to Target by Advanced URL with Regular Expressions

Qualaroo lets you use advanced targeting using the Regular Expressions(REGEX).

With Regular Expressions, you can target a diverse range of URLs that dynamically adapt based on their content. This dynamic targeting feature empowers you to exclude specific sections of your website, concentrate on traffic originating from a specific ad campaign, and achieve other granular targeting goals.

Here's a preview of advanced URL targeting in Qualaroo:

This URL(http://forum.subdomain.example.co.uk/threads/tech/tips-and-tricks/how-to-use-urls) targets a more complex structure with multiple subdomains (forum.subdomain). The .co.uk is a second-level TLD specific to the UK. The extended path points to a particular thread in a forum.

Benefits of advanced URL with REGEX:

• Let you target a range of URLs based on the content

• Easy to exclude unwanted sections of your website from targeting

How to Use Advanced URL Targeting With Regular Expressions

1. Select “Use an advanced URL” in the targeting section.

2. Fill in the three fields to specify your target page.

To do so, let us walk through the steps in more detail.

What is a Regular Expression?

A Regular Expression is a concise and straightforward “phrase” that is used to match a specific subset of things. You can use them in Qualaroo to add surveys to a particular group of pages without listing them all individually.

Technical definition: From the Wikipedia Article --

In computing, a regular expression (abbreviated regex) is a sequence of characters that forms a search pattern, mainly for pattern matching with strings or string matching, i.e., “find and replace”-like operations. 

Each character can be a metacharacter with a special meaning or a regular one having a literal meaning in a regular expression. 

Together, they can identify the textual material of a given pattern or process in several instances that vary from precise equality to general similarity.

What can Regular Expressions be used for?

Everyday use cases include targeting visitors using a promo code & dynamic pages and excluding areas of your site from being targeted.

Below are a few examples:

• Targeting visitors from Google Ads campaigns

• Targeting URLs with query strings

• Excluding URLs or sections of your site

• Targeting only URLs containing specific terms

What are the three areas in the Advanced URL field?

1. Subdomain: This field is anything that comes before your primary domain, like blog.yoursite.com or shop.yoursite.com. We do consider “www” a subdomain. You can enter regular expression patterns here. You can also leave it blank as it is an optional field.

2. Top-Level Domain: This is the main URL of your site, and it is required.

3. Path: This part is where most of the regular expressions are added. 

I'm not familiar with regular expressions. Do you have a guide?

We do! Please see How to Write Regular Expressions for URL targeting. This guide is available on our Help Center and is broken up into sections and PDFs for download and later reference.

How can I be sure that my Regular Expression works?

• Simply select this option. 

• Paste your URL directly from the intended page, and click the 'Validate this regular expression' tab to check if your RegEx will target that page!

Ensuring that your nudge will target visitors on certain pages is helpful. It also confirms that you won’t be targeting any unwanted pages. 

What kind of regular expressions are supported?

We use the JavaScript version of regular expressions. This information could be helpful if you use a different type of JavaScript on your website, but most websites use the standard version.

That is all about targeting via advanced URLs with regular expressions.