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Overview

Your site’s network log shows a request from the Extole tag for a zone named blank. No campaign publishes a zone with that name, your integration never asks for it, and nothing renders from it. This is not a broken tag and not a missing campaign. The request is the Extole tag doing what the page URL told it to do, and the URL was written by a share link redirect. This page explains how the tag reads that URL, where the name blank comes from, and why the request still matters.

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How the Tag Reads Parameters from the Page URL

When the core tag loads, it reads the page’s query string. Every parameter whose name starts with extole_ is meant for Extole, and the tag handles three shapes:
  • extole_zone_name=<name> asks the tag to request that zone on page load, the same way a createZone call on the page would. If the URL carries this parameter, the tag requests the zone whether or not your page has a placement for it.
  • extole_zone_<key>=<value> becomes data named <key> on that zone request. For example, extole_zone_shareable_code=ABC123 reaches the zone as shareable_code.
  • Any other extole_<key>=<value> is passed to Extole as data named <key>. For example, extole_share_channel=SHARE_LINK reaches Extole as share_channel.
Parameters that do not start with extole_ are left alone. Your own UTM parameters and any other query string your page uses are not sent to Extole.
A zone request that appears on a page with no placement for it is almost always this mechanism. Read the page URL for extole_zone_name before looking for a createZone call in your code. The name in the URL was put there by whatever redirected the visitor to the page.

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Where the Redirect Comes From

A share link opens on your program domain first. Extole records the click there, then redirects the friend to the address in your campaign’s Destination for Clicks on Share Links setting. The redirect appends the parameters Extole needs to recognize the referral on the destination page:
  • extole_zone_advocate_code, the advocate whose link was clicked.
  • extole_zone_share_channel, the channel the share was made on.
  • extole_zone_name, the zone the destination page is asked to request, when the campaign is configured to name one.
  • Your UTM parameters, and anything you added to the destination address’s own query string.
What the destination setting holds decides whether a redirect happens at all:
  • A bare zone name, letters, digits and underscores only, such as friend_landing_experience_microsite, renders that experience on the program domain without redirecting to your site.
  • Anything else, including a full address, a path, or a value with a query string, redirects the friend to that address with the parameters above appended.
See Share Link and Promote Link Behavior for where the destination is set in My Extole.

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Why the Zone Is Named blank

Some campaign themes carry a Show Extole Landing Creative setting on the share destination. When it is on, the redirect names the friend landing zone in extole_zone_name, and the friend landing experience opens on your page. When it is off, the redirect still has to carry the referral to your page, so it names a zone called blank instead. blank is not a reserved name and no campaign serves it. The tag requests it, no campaign has a candidate for it, and the response is empty. That is the intended result: the request exists to deliver the advocate code, the share channel and the click to Extole on your page, so the visitor is recognized as a referred friend. Nothing has to render for that to happen. Campaigns built on the current share destination component do not use blank. They either render the experience in place or name your friend landing zone directly.
An empty zone response is not an error, so it does not appear in Extole’s error reporting or in your browser’s console as a failure. If you are reconstructing what a share link click recorded, read the data on the request itself. Each extole_zone_ and extole_ parameter on the page URL maps to one field on it.

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What to Check

  1. Read the page URL in the network log, not only the zone request. If it carries extole_zone_name=blank, the request came from a share link redirect and is working as designed.
  2. Confirm which share destination your campaign uses. If it has a Show Extole Landing Creative setting that is off, blank is expected. If you want the friend landing experience to open on the page, turn the setting on and publish.
  3. If the friend landing experience should open and does not, check that the page loads the core tag and that a live campaign publishes the zone named in the URL. A zone with no live campaign returns the same empty response as blank does.