Comparison of web activities and dialog activities

You can use the Activity Builder in the Marketing tool to build both web activities and dialog activities. To decide which type of activity you need, consider the purpose of your activity.

Here is a simple comparison of the purpose of a web activity and a dialog activity:

Web activity purpose: Use a web activity to display something to a customer when the customer views a store page that contains a specific e-Marketing Spot. Web activities always run when a customer is shopping on your store.
Example: When a customer views the shopping cart page e-Marketing Spot, display an ad for cameras.
Dialog activity purpose: Use a dialog activity if you want to communicate your marketing message to customers in some way other than displaying something on a store page. Dialog activities do not always run when a customer is shopping on your store. In addition, dialog activities can span time.
Example: When a customer abandons a shopping cart for three days, send the customer a reminder email message.

The building blocks of both web and dialog activities are triggers, targets, and actions. The following table describes how these building blocks are used differently for web and dialog activities.


Building block	Web activities	Dialog activities
Triggers	A web activity is always triggered when a customer views an e-Marketing Spot on a store page.	A dialog activity is triggered by a specific event or customer behavior other than when a customer views an e-Marketing Spot. The following events are examples of dialog activity triggers; note that the last three triggers do not require the customer to be currently shopping online: A customer registers A customer places an order A customer posts a blog comment, photo, or review A customer abandons a shopping cart A customer is celebrating a birthday in a week A customer belongs to a particular customer segment Unlike a web activity, a dialog activity can also contain the Wait trigger. You can use the Wait trigger to specify a waiting period in the activity and then automate follow-up actions when the waiting period passes. Dialog activities can span periods of time if they include a Wait trigger or a sequence of triggers and actions.
Actions	Most web activity actions display something in the e-Marketing Spot the customer is viewing, such as advertisements, products, or categories. Web activity actions can also add the customer to, or remove the customer from, a customer segment. Web activity actions can be customized to return other types of data to a specific store page that a customer is viewing.	A typical dialog activity action is to send the customer a marketing email. Other options are to: Send the customer a text (SMS) message Issue the customer a coupon Add the customer to, or remove the customer from, a customer segment Dialog activity actions do not require a customer to be currently shopping on your store.
Targets Web and dialog activities support many of the same targets in the Activity Builder palette; only the differences are described in this row.	The list of targets for web activities includes targets that require customers to be currently shopping on your store. This is because web activities are always triggered when a customer is viewing a store page. As a result, you can be certain that the customer's current session data is available for the target when the web activity runs. Based on this logic, the following targets are applicable for web activities, but not for dialog activities: Current Page: Targets customers who are currently viewing a specific store page, for example, the category display page for product X. Cookie Contents: Targets customers whose computers have a cookie from your site that contains certain data. External Site Referral: Targets customers who enter the current session on your site from a link on an external site.	The list of targets for dialog activities excludes targets that require customers to be currently shopping on your store. This is because dialog activities can run when a customer is offline. As a result, there is no certainty that the customer's current session data is available for the target when the dialog activity runs.