Inline Carousel with CleverTap

This guide walks you through creating an Inline Carousel in the Digia Engage Dashboard, connecting it to CleverTap Native Display, and testing it inside an app slot.

By the end, you should have:

• an Inline Carousel campaign saved or active in Digia Engage
• a slot key that matches the inline slot added by your app team
• a CleverTap Native Display campaign that sends the Digia campaign key
• a test device where you can verify the carousel renders inside the right app section

Inline campaigns are different from Nudges, Guides, and Surveys because they do not appear as an overlay. They render inside a developer-defined slot in your app layout. Use an Inline Carousel when you want swipeable content inside the app, such as:

• a homepage offer carousel
• product discovery cards
• feature banners inside a feed
• limited-time merchandising slots

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Prefer a quick visual walkthrough first? Watch Creating Native Inline Content Experiences.

Before You Start

Make sure you have:

• Access to the correct Digia Engage project.
• Access to the matching CleverTap project.
• Your app must already be integrated with Digia Engage and CleverTap. Share the CleverTap developer integration guide with your app team if this setup is not complete yet.
• Your app team must have added a DigiaSlot or DigiaSlotView where the carousel should render.
• The available slot key shared by your app team.
• The audience and trigger rules decided in CleverTap.
• The carousel image URLs and tap actions ready.
• A test profile or test segment in CleverTap so you can verify the campaign before launch.

Slot keys

A slot key is the name your app team gives to a place in the app layout where Inline content can render. The slot key in Digia must match the app implementation exactly.

For example, your app team might share:

Slot key	Where it appears
home_carousel	Homepage hero carousel area
product_offers	Product detail offer slot
checkout_banner	Checkout reminder banner

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For developer setup details, see Setting Up Inline Widgets. After slots are synced, review usable pages and slots in Component Registry before building the campaign.

For this walkthrough, we will use:

Field	Value
Campaign name	Homepage Carousel Inline - CleverTap
Campaign key	homepage_carousel_inline_clevertap
Slot key	home_carousel
Variables	None

Create an Inline Carousel Campaign

Go to Campaigns and choose New Campaign.

Use a name that your team can recognize later:

Homepage Carousel Inline - CleverTap

On the Basics step, select Inline and choose Carousel as the widget type.

Select Inline and choose Carousel as the widget type.

Confirm Setup Values

The Setup step shows the campaign key, optional screen targeting, optional variables, and the CleverTap Native Display handoff section.

Use Target screens only if the carousel should render on specific app screens. Leave it empty when the slot key is enough to decide where the carousel appears.

Variables are optional. For this carousel example, keep variables empty because the carousel uses fixed images.

Confirm the campaign key and decide whether screen targeting or variables are needed.

Build the Carousel

On the Choose UI step, add your carousel items.

For each image:

• Paste the image URL.
• Add a tap action only if tapping that image should open a deep link, URL, or another action.
• Keep the action chain empty if the carousel is informational.

In the Settings panel, enter the slot key provided by your app team.

home_carousel

Keep the default carousel settings unless you need to adjust the fit:

Setting	What it controls
Height	The vertical space the carousel occupies inside the slot
Auto-play	Whether items advance automatically
Interval	Time between auto-play changes
Infinite scroll	Whether users can keep swiping in a loop
Viewport fraction	How much of one item is visible at a time
Indicator dots	Whether pagination dots appear below the carousel

Add carousel images, check the mobile preview, and set the exact slot key shared by your app team.

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Once the Inline campaign UI is saved, use Live Testing Campaigns to send it to a connected debug device and confirm it renders inside the expected slot before moving into review and CleverTap setup.

Review the Inline Campaign

On the Review step, check:

• The campaign name is correct.
• The campaign type is Inline (carousel).
• The slot key matches the app slot.
• The expected number of images is present.
• The Native Display setup task is still tracked for CleverTap.

You can save as draft while CleverTap setup is still pending, or activate when the carousel is ready. Nothing renders in the app until the CleverTap Native Display campaign is configured and live.

Review the campaign summary and launch checks before saving or activating.

Copy the Native Display Config

In Digia, copy the custom key-values from Set up your CleverTap Native Display campaign.

For this example, the values are:

Custom key	Value
digia_campaign_key	homepage_carousel_inline_clevertap
variables	{}

Use the exact campaign key copied from your own Digia campaign. If your campaign key is different because you used a different campaign name, paste the value shown in your own setup section.

Copy both custom key-value rows into the CleverTap Native Display campaign.

Create the CleverTap Native Display Campaign

Now switch to CleverTap. Inline campaigns use Native Display, not the CleverTap In-App editor used for Nudges, Guides, and Surveys.

Create a Native Display campaign. Configure the audience, trigger, schedule, and priority as you normally would in CleverTap. For the first test, keep the audience narrow so only your test users qualify.

In the What section, keep the message type set to Single Message and choose Go To Editor.

Create the Native Display campaign and open the editor from the What section.

In the template picker, choose Custom key value. This template lets CleverTap send the digia_campaign_key and variables values that Digia needs.

Select Custom key value for Digia Inline campaigns.

Link CleverTap to the Digia Inline Campaign

In the CleverTap Native Display campaign, add the custom key-values copied from Digia.

CleverTap custom key	Value
digia_campaign_key	The Inline campaign key copied from Digia
variables	The variables JSON copied from Digia

For this carousel example, variables is {}.

Add the Digia custom key-value rows copied from the Digia setup section.

Keep the carousel images, slot key, and carousel behavior in Digia. CleverTap should only carry the campaign key and optional variables.

Test the Inline Campaign End to End

Before launching to a real audience, test the full path from CleverTap trigger to Digia render:

1. Use a test audience in CleverTap.
2. Activate or preview the Native Display campaign for that test audience.
3. Open the app screen that contains the home_carousel slot.
4. Trigger the CleverTap event from a test device.
5. Confirm the carousel appears inside the correct slot.
6. Swipe through all carousel items.
7. Tap any configured item action and confirm it performs the expected action.

Use Preview & Test with a test profile or device before launching.

If the Inline campaign does not appear, check:

What to check	Why it matters
The Digia campaign is active	Draft campaigns will not render for users
digia_campaign_key matches exactly	The key is case-sensitive
The CleverTap campaign is Native Display	Inline campaigns use Native Display delivery
The user qualifies in CleverTap	CleverTap owns audience and trigger rules
The trigger event fired	CleverTap only sends the campaign after its trigger
The app screen contains the slot	Inline content needs a mounted DigiaSlot or DigiaSlotView
Slot key matches exactly	A typo prevents the carousel from rendering in the slot
Variables are valid JSON	For this example, the value should be {}

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CleverTap can sometimes take up to an hour to start delivering a new campaign. If the campaign still does not appear after that, reach out to Digia support.

Launch Checklist

Before going live, confirm:

• Digia Inline campaign is active.
• CleverTap campaign is a Native Display campaign.
• digia_campaign_key matches the Digia campaign key.
• variables is valid JSON.
• Slot key matches the app team's DigiaSlot or DigiaSlotView placement key.
• The slot exists on the screen where CleverTap will trigger the campaign.
• Audience and trigger rules are correct in CleverTap.
• The campaign was tested on at least one real device.

Once these are complete, schedule or activate the CleverTap campaign for the intended audience.

What to Measure

After launch, review:

Metric	What it tells you
Native Display impressions	How often CleverTap delivered the payload
Inline renders	How often Digia rendered the carousel in the slot
Carousel item taps	Which image drove action
Downstream conversion event	Whether the carousel moved the intended business metric

Use CleverTap for audience and downstream conversion analysis. Use Digia campaign reporting to understand how the rendered carousel performed.

Recap

1. Create an Inline campaign in Digia.
2. Choose Carousel as the widget type.
3. Add carousel images and optional tap actions.
4. Set the slot key shared by your app team.
5. Copy the Native Display custom key-values from Digia.
6. Create a CleverTap Native Display campaign.
7. Add digia_campaign_key and variables as custom key-values.
8. Test on a real device before launch.

For developer setup, see Setting Up Inline Widgets. For the technical mapping between Digia and CleverTap, see How Digia Maps to CleverTap Campaigns.