Glossary

Plain-language definitions of the marketing automation, CDP, and Bloomreach terms our guides and manuals reference.

A

Abandoned cart flow

An abandoned cart flow is a triggered sequence of messages, across email, SMS, and web, sent after a customer leaves items in their cart unpurchased. Where an abandoned cart is the event, the flow is the automated response that tries to bring them back.

C

Catalog (Bloomreach Engagement)

A catalog in Bloomreach Engagement is a structured dataset of items you import into the platform, such as products, articles, or stores, and reference inside campaigns. Each item has an ID and a set of fields. You look an item up in Jinja and read its fields, for example `catalogs['Products'].item_by_id(product_id)` followed by `item['display_name']`.

Custom Tracking Domain

A Custom Tracking Domain (CTD) is a Bloomreach Engagement subdomain you own that serves Bloomreach's tracking API, so the tracking cookie is set server-side through an HTTP response header instead of by JavaScript. On Safari, HTTP-set cookies aren't subject to the same seven-day cap that applies to JavaScript-set ones.

G

GA4 client ID

The GA4 client ID is the browser-scoped identifier GA4 assigns to a device and stores in the `_ga` cookie. In Bloomreach Engagement it's captured and written to a soft ID, so the same visitor can be matched across GA4 and Bloomreach for analysis and warehouse joins.

H

HTML entity

An HTML entity is a short text code that begins with an ampersand and ends with a semicolon, which a browser or email client decodes into a single character when it renders HTML. Examples: ` ` becomes a [non-breaking space](https://asteroad.com/glossary/non-breaking-space), `&` becomes `&`, `€` becomes the euro sign. Entities exist for characters that are invisible, reserved by HTML, or hard to type.

I

Identity resolution

Identity resolution is the process of matching the many identifiers a single customer leaves across devices, sessions, and tools into one unified profile. It's how a CDP decides that an anonymous web visitor, an email subscriber, and an app user are the same person.

Infinario

The original name of the platform now known as Bloomreach Engagement. Infinario launched for the gaming industry, tracking player behavior and running in-game retention campaigns, before rebranding to Exponea in 2016 to serve broader e-commerce and B2C markets. Bloomreach acquired Exponea in January 2021 and renamed it Bloomreach Engagement.

J

Jinja

Jinja is a templating language that inserts data into text using {{ ... }} for output and {% ... %} for logic like loops and conditions. In Bloomreach Engagement it is the way a message or weblayer pulls in customer attributes and catalog data, and it runs on the server before the result reaches the browser.

N

Non-breaking space

A non-breaking space is a space character (Unicode code point U+00A0) that holds the tokens on either side of it on the same line, so the renderer never breaks between them. It looks like an ordinary space but behaves like glue.

S

Server-Side Rendering

Server-side rendering means the final markup is generated on the server before it reaches the browser, rather than being assembled by JavaScript in the visitor's browser. The browser receives finished output.

Server-side tracking

Server-side tracking sends event and identity data to a server you control, which then forwards it to your analytics and marketing tools, instead of the browser sending it straight to each vendor. Moving collection off the browser keeps it out of reach of ad blockers and some browser privacy limits.

SPF

A DNS TXT record on your domain listing which servers are allowed to send email on its behalf. Receiving mail servers check it on every message; without it, they cannot verify your senders, which hurts deliverability and invites spoofing. Publishing SPF is a DNS edit, not a software project.

W

Weblayer

A weblayer is a Bloomreach Engagement overlay injected into a website: a popup, banner, inline block, slider, or any other on-page surface. It's configured as three fields, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, that Bloomreach renders and delivers to the visitor's page, controlled by segments and scenarios.