Build a placement with styles, sections, and variables

Set up a reusable placement in your Business Account, from styles, sections, and personalization to layout, feed type, implementation, and variables for generative sections.

A placement is a configurable container that defines what content appears, how it's structured, and where it shows across your website or mobile app. Instead of creating an embed for each page or context, you create one placement in your Business Account and reuse it anywhere by referencing its Placement ID. One placement can serve your homepage, product listing pages (PLPs), search pages, and apps.

A placement controls four things:

• Layout: grid, carousel, feed, or dynamic.
• Content structure: styles and sections.
• Personalization rules: context, journey, category, and behavior.
• Engagement features: reactions, comments, and redirection.

Placements are part of Onsite, which grows your O&O with video. For the product as a whole, see Onsite: what it does and where to start.

Open placements

1. In your Business Account, go to Grow > On Site > Placement.

The list shows your placements, most recent first, with each one's status: active or inactive. Each placement's quick actions let you edit it, duplicate it, copy its Placement ID, view its analytics, and delete it. Placement analytics mirror embed analytics.

Define a style

A style defines how content is grouped, titled, and personalized within a placement. A placement can have more than one style, and you can switch between styles at implementation time.

1. Click + to create a placement. The placement opens on its style.
2. Enter a Title for the style. The title is required.
3. (Optional) Select Add Subtitle to show a subtitle.

To add another style to the placement, click + Add Style.

Add sections

Sections group videos logically, such as Featured, Trending, and How-To. Sections are optional: a placement also works without them. You can add up to 10 sections to a style.

1. Click + Add Section.
2. Enter a Section Title. The title is required.
3. (Optional) Enter a Meta Description for the section.
4. Drag the sections to reorder them.

Personalize the style

Use the Style Personalization panel on the right to refine which videos the style shows.

1. Open Map to Consumer Journey and select the stages the placement serves. Journeys help you maximize visibility, sales, and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), and they feed analytics and reporting:
   • Pre-Purchase: research and consideration.
   • Post-Purchase: engagement right after a sale.
   • Discovery: introducing the brand.
   • Loyalty: retention and advocacy.

1. Under Tie to Categories, select the categories, topics, and keywords the style draws from. Learn more about brand categories and topics.

1. Under Restrict Video Content to, select the restrictions to apply:
   • Pinned Videos shows only pinned videos.
   • Same Page URL Linkout shows only videos whose link-out is the same page.
   • Same Brand Videos shows only videos from the same brand.
   • Videos from Recommendation Engine uses videos from the recommendation engine.

1. Under Content Mapping, select the mapping rules:
   • Map Unique Videos to Sections in Style shows each video in only its one best-matched section.
   • Map Unique Linkout Videos Only stops duplicate product or link-out videos.

1. Click Next to save the styles and move to the placement configuration.

Configure the placement

1. Enter a Placement Name. The name is required and identifies the placement.
2. Choose a Placement layout. The layout sets how the placement displays to shoppers, which shapes their experience and your merchandising:
   • Grid: a uniform matrix of rows and columns. Best for broad categories, visual hierarchy, and quick comparison.
   • Carousel: a horizontal scrolling component for a limited set of items. Best for trending items, new arrivals, or promotions in a constrained space.
   • Feed: a continuously scrolling vertical list of content and product items. Best for an immersive, discovery-focused shopping experience with rich content blocks and a deep catalog.

• The Feed layout adds one setting, Feed Scrolling Behavior. Free Scroll lets viewers scroll freely through cards. Single Video Swipe moves one card at a time with a swipe up or down.
• Dynamic: you can also choose this layout. As the Placement layout tooltip in your Business Account says, the layout renders based on the content available.

1. Choose a Feed Type. The feed type decides where content comes from and who sees it, so it's the foundational decision for the whole placement:
   • Brand Feed targets your brand's primary feed. Use it for high-impact visibility, major announcements, and direct communication to followers.
   • Community Feed targets broader communities or interest groups. Use it to expand reach, drive consideration, and join topical discussions.
   • Group Feed targets closed, specialized groups. Use it for targeted, contextually relevant messages to dedicated segments, such as collecting feedback or exclusive offers.

1. Choose an Environment: Global, or Custom with Web or App.

1. Select Mark as Active to make the placement visible right away.

For more on the brand feed, see Set up a Brand Feed as an onsite embed.

Set the view

On the Configure View tab, set how the placement looks:

1. Select Show Style Details to show the style's headline and subheadline.
2. Choose the Style Title Color.
3. Set the Placement Size, or select Auto Fit Height.
4. Set the Grid layout rows and columns, up to 3×3.
5. Select Adaptive Video Display to let videos adjust to the screen size. Turn it off to keep a fixed 9:16 aspect ratio. By default, it's on.
6. Under Customize Section Layout, choose the components shown at the top, at the bottom, and outside the bottom of each section.
7. Under Media Play, select Autoplay Video to play videos automatically.
8. Set Auto-Advance Playback, the delay before the next video plays. By default, it's 3 seconds.
9. Select Loop Video to replay the first video until another video plays.

In Grid layout, only one of Row or Column can be set to Auto at a time.

For the player options a placement can carry, see Player Controls and Feed Settings.

Preview the placement

A live preview shows the placement in desktop and mobile frames, so you can validate layout and styling. Use it to:

• Switch between styles.
• Check section layouts.
• Validate grid, feed, or carousel behavior.

The preview doesn't affect the live configuration; it's only for validation.

Set the expanded view

The Expand View tab controls what viewers can do when a video opens full screen.

1. Under Engagement Details, select Show Engagement Icons to show Repost, Reaction, Comment, Share, and Intelligence.
2. Select Enable Redirection to let viewers go to community, group, or user pages.
3. Select Enable Report to let viewers report content as Inappropriate Content, Non-Professional Content, Spam, Threatening/Violent, or Other.
4. Under Links, select Show Linkouts to show the links you added to your videos.

Each engagement icon has its own toggle, so you can show some icons and hide others.

Reports go to your moderation queue. Learn more about moderation baselines and the queue. To manage the link-outs themselves, see Manage and block video linkouts.

Implement the placement

The Implementation Guide tab gives your developers what they need to add the placement:

• The Placement ID, which every implementation requires.
• Ready-to-use code snippets.
• Feed Personalization Parameters.

Pass the Feed Personalization Parameters as part of the placement configuration. They refine the feed with real-time context, such as:

• style_id, which shows feed content relevant to the style ID you pass.
• Location, such as geo.
• Context or place.
• Time.
• User segment.
• Product details.

For the code, see Add a Genuin placement to your website. For every parameter and its format, see Deliver contextual feeds with page, user, and location context.

The generated code is HTML. You can paste it into any website editor to show the placement on your site.

Make a placement generative with variables

Variables make styles and sections generative: you reuse the same placement while its content updates from values passed at implementation time. Use them for podcasts, episodic content, shows, campaigns, or categories that change.

A variable is a placeholder inside a style or section, and its value arrives at implementation. Each variable has two names:

• The label brand users see in your Business Account, such as Podcast Name, which says what the variable represents.
• The macro developers pass, such as @podcast_name or {{podcast_name}}, which keeps the technical mapping consistent.

Add a variable to a style

1. Go to Grow > On Site > Placement and click + to create a placement.
2. In the style's Title field, type @ to open the variable list. The list shows default variables, which Genuin provides, and custom variables you created before.

1. If the variable doesn't exist, type its name, such as @podcast_name.
2. Press Enter to create it.

Variable names take up to 25 characters. Underscores are allowed; spaces aren't. Once added, a variable is available across styles and sections. It appears as Podcast Name in your Business Account and as @podcast_name on the Implementation Guide tab.

Add a generative section

1. Click + Add Section.
2. Enter a Section Title that uses a variable, such as @podcast_name.
3. (Optional) Enter a Section Subtitle. It can use variables.
4. Enter a Meta Description to improve contextual understanding and content generation.
5. Add a Thumbnail: upload a static thumbnail, or add a generative thumbnail that uses variables.

When any section in a style uses a variable, that style allows only one section, and the section becomes a generative section. Business Account stops you from adding more sections to it.

Business Account calls a style with variables a dynamic style, and a style without them a static style. If you use a variable in a style that already has more than one section, Business Account shows an error when you save.

Add a section cover (Optional)

1. Open the section's menu and choose Add Section Cover.
2. Choose Upload Cover for a static cover, or Add Generative Cover to build the cover from variables.

In a style without sections, the existing section selection dropdown stays unchanged.

Preview and map the variables

1. Switch between the Web and App environments. The preview updates automatically with the default variable values.
2. Open the Implementation Guide tab. It lists every variable used in the style and its sections, with each variable's name and usage count.

A generative placement shows a preview of one section only. Developers pass each variable's value by its macro name:

{
"podcast_name": "The Growth Show"
}

Here, Podcast Name is what the brand sees in your Business Account, and @podcast_name or {{podcast_name}} is what developers pass at implementation. The business-friendly label stays separate from the technical integration.

What viewers see

The expanded view follows the same rules you set in the view settings.

Limitations

• 9:16 videos when Adaptive Video Display is off. With it on, which is the default, videos adjust to the screen size.
• 10 sections per style. Sections are optional.
• 3×3 grid. The grid layout goes up to three rows and three columns.
• One layout isn't available. Standard Wall appears in the layout list but isn't enabled.
• One generative style and one generative section per placement. Dynamic sections use variables such as @location and @brand_id.
• No mixed text. A field can't mix static text and variables.
• 25-character variable names. Underscores are allowed; spaces aren't.

See also

• Create a placement and map it to the shopper journey
• Add a Genuin placement to your website
• How Contextual Continuity embeds work
• How Generative Contextual Continuity embeds work
• Onsite: contextual placements across homepage, category, and product pages