Geo Bars

What Are Geo Bars?

Geo Bars are notification bars that appear at the top or bottom of your page based on where your visitor is located. They are the simplest way to deliver location-specific messages without changing your page content or redirecting anyone.

Think of them as smart banners. A visitor from the UK sees "Free shipping to the UK on orders over £50!" while a visitor from Australia sees "Now shipping to AU — visit our Australian store." Everyone else sees nothing, unless you add a catch-all rule for an all-countries segment.

Common Use Cases

How to Create a Geo Bar

Open Geo Bars in your dashboard

Navigate to Geo Bar in the sidebar and click New Bar.

Name it and set page targeting

Give your bar a descriptive name (e.g., "UK Shipping Banner"). Then choose where it should appear: all pages, specific URLs, or a URL pattern. Patterns are regular expressions, checked against both the full address and the path, so ^/shop(/.*)?$ matches your shop section. See page targeting.

Configure appearance

Choose position (top or bottom), style (fixed or floating), size, text alignment, and colors. Top bars also get a display mode (overlay or push).

Add a rule

Pick a segment (e.g., "United Kingdom"), write the bar content, and optionally make the whole bar a link or add a CTA button. You can add multiple rules for different regions.

Set dismissal behavior and save

Each rule has its own dismiss behavior: how long the bar stays hidden after a visitor closes it, or whether it can be closed at all. Click Create Bar and your bar is live.

Appearance Options

Geo Bars are designed to be flexible enough to match your brand. Here are the options you can configure:

Variants

Each Geo Bar can have multiple variants. A variant ties a specific message to a specific segment (a group of countries or regions). When a visitor arrives, GeoSwap checks their location against your rules from top to bottom and shows the first match.

The bar content is HTML, and you can drop in content variables like {{country_name}} or {{flag}}, which are filled in with the visitor's details. Each rule can also set a Bar Link, which makes the whole bar clickable.

If a visitor does not match any variant, the bar is not shown at all. This means your page stays clean for visitors outside your targeted regions. Separate bars are independent, so a page can show more than one at once (for example, one at the top and one at the bottom).

CTA Buttons

Each variant can include an optional call-to-action button. Tick Show a call-to-action button to use it. It works well for sending visitors to a regional store, a promotion page, or any other destination.

Dismissal Behavior

You control what happens when a visitor closes the bar. Dismissals are remembered with a cookie, per bar. Choose the mode that fits the importance of your message:

Device Targeting

Each variant can be shown on all devices, or limited to specific device types: desktop, mobile, or tablet. This is useful when your message or CTA only makes sense on certain screen sizes.

Example

Show a "Download our app" bar only on mobile devices for visitors in the US, while desktop visitors see a standard promotional bar instead.

A/B Testing

Want to test which message gets more clicks? Geo Bars support traffic splitting between two versions of your bar. Tick Enable traffic split (A/B test) on a rule, write a second version of the bar content, and set the split with the slider (anywhere from 1% to 99%). Only the content changes; the button, link, and colors stay the same for both versions. The split is based on the visitor's IP address, so a returning visitor usually sees the same version.

Best Practices

Keep bar messages short and action-oriented. You have limited space, so lead with the benefit.

Use the "push" display mode on a top bar if the message is important and you don't want it covering your header.

Set dismissal to "session" for promotional bars. Visitors who dismiss once probably don't want to see it again during that visit.

Use "never" dismissal mode only for legal or compliance notices. Undismissable bars on every page will frustrate your visitors.

Match your bar colors to your brand, but make sure text is readable. High contrast between bar color and text color is essential.

A/B test your bar copy before committing to a single version. Small wording changes can make a big difference in click-through rates.