June 18, 2024

Slickstream: Engagement and Conversions Plugin

Use Slickstream to upgrade your site search. Get beautiful as-you-type search, relevant content recommendations, user favorites and more!

This plugin is for Slickstream customers. It adds our embed code and key metadata into
your webpages without affecting site speed or performance.

Slickstream users get unlimited access to all of our tools, including:
– Responsive as-you-type search with a heap of advanced features that your visitors will love
– Customizable recommendation carousels and grids backed by real data
– Hassle-free content favoriting to keep your visitors coming back
– A robust analytics portal with engagement insights you can actually use

The Slickstream Difference

What makes Slickstream different is that we handle the hard work for you. We sit outside of WordPress, which means when you sign up we build a model of your site and use it to populate all of our search and recommendation tools. Then you pick the ones you want to use, flip a switch, and we’re live! Your site can be running Slickstream tomorrow, with no complicated technical implementation required.

What’s Included

Floating Search: Search with Slickstream on any page
Hooked Search Buttons: Automatically link your existing search to Slickstream
Inline Search Module: As-you-type search results displaying on page
Infinite Filmstrip: Content recommendations placed above posts
Filmstrip Toolbar: Sticky recommendations that display on scroll
Content Grid: Flexible recommendation module that can be placed anywhere
Floating Favorites: Interactive content bookmarking with no sign-in required
Floating Back-to-Top: Simple option to return to top of content
Web Story Player: Full site integrations for existing web stories
Interactive Games: Automatically generated minigames featuring recommendations
Campaigns: Incorporate custom objectives into user experience (business only)
Analytics Portal: Robust insights into both Slickstream statistics and general

General Features and Integrations:

Supports all major themes and editors
Search or recommend content across multiple domains
Multi-language search results supported
Configurable GDPR settings
Designed for accessibility compliance
Client-side API available
Email provider integrations (MailChimp, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign)
First-party data integration with advertising networks
Google Analytics integration
Recipe card integrations (WP Recipe Maker, Tasty Recipes)
E-commerce integration (Shopify)

Configuration Options:

Pre-made templates to choose from
Granular look and feel controls
Custom messaging on all text prompts
Attribution removal (additional charge)
Built-in CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) handling
Optional opt-in email collection
Optional advertising slot inclusions

Search and Recommendation Details:

Search by category, content type, or author
Default sort by relevance, date, or popularity
Custom result weighting in search and recommendations
Manual categorization and content grouping control
Exclude results by category, content type, or individual posts
Custom taxonomies supported
Progressively detailed results including metadata
Automatic content grouping in results
Fuzzy matching and typo forgiveness
Highlighted search terms in results
Structured data search experience for ingredients or supplies
All search queries recorded in analytics

Installation

Visit https://slickstream.com and tell us about your site.
Install and activate this plugin.
On the settings page (“Slick” under Settings), enter the site code we give you and click Save.
Check with us if you’d like any customization of your widgets

Screenshots

Slickstream Search in action, filtered by "sauce" and displaying results for "chipotle" along with appropriate metadata.
The on-page experience for Slickstream users. On display are Favorites/Bookmarks, Floating Search, Back-To-Top and the Filmstrip Toolbar.
Automatic categorization within the Slickstream panel. Here you can see results for "dessert" grouped by popularity, date, and a related subcategory ("baking").

FAQ

What is Slickstream?

Slickstream is a sophisticated market-leading user engagement suite designed for independent publishers. It helps you turn casual visitors into loyal readers that return again and again through intelligent as-you-type search, content recommendations, favoriting and membership capabilities, email sign-up, and other useful features. You can easily design captivating user journeys that lead visitors to exactly what they’re looking for. The result is higher pageviews, time-on-page, click-throughs, and return visits. As if that isn’t enough, Slickstream’s reporting gives deep insights into its performance and how your visitors are interacting on your site, far beyond what you can see in Google Analytics.

How will Slickstream help me?

Slickstream helps you to get the most out of the traffic that visits your site by turning casual visitors into loyal readers, increasing ad revenue.

Customizable features complement your brand and create a more premium site experience. The powerful recommendation engine serves up the best content to your readers so they spend more time on your site. Slickstream also saves you time, money and hassle from not having to rely on developers, multiple products, or other resources to do a bunch of manual site customization handled with one simple Slickstream installation.

Worried about first-party data? Slickstream helps with that too! Slickstream helps you authenticate traffic and build first-party data with logged-in site visitors.

Slickstream also offers an email sign-up feature that you can use to collect email addresses, but you can seamlessly use your existing email subscription method too. Slicksteam’s Highlighter feature draws attention to any element of your site you choose and has proven to significantly improve conversions.

Do You Support Languages Other Than English?

Yes we do. Our underlying recommendation technology is not English-specific, and we have already localized the Engagement Suite for German, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, Norwegian, Swedish, Croatian, Russian, Danish, Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese and more. Reach out to us and we can confirm if we support your language too.

Where can I learn more about Slickstream?

You can find more information about Slickstream here on Slickstream.com.

Changelog

1.0.0

First production release

1.0.3

Revised for configuration
Meta tag for featured image

1.0.4

Tested on WP 5.0.3

1.0.5

Moved to Slickstream.com

1.0.6

Improved image assets

1.0.8

Tested with WP 5.1.1
Cleaned up documentation

1.0.9

Added category metadata

1.0.11

New description, screenshots
Embed code uses app.slickstream.com

1.0.13

Added shortcode support for Slickstream story embedding

1.0.14

New meta tags for user, postID integration
Game shortcode and widget

1.0.15

Fix for game shortcode

1.0.16

Remove (unintended) whitespace from site code

1.0.17

Add category hierarchy into metadata

1.0.18

Fix bug in category rendering

1.1.0

Major speed-up based on new embed code
Removed next-up widget support

1.1.1

Fix bug with widget declaration

= 1.1.2
– Changed embed code to absolute URL

= 1.1.3
– Trim site codes in case someone adds whitespace

= 1.1.4
– Declare compatibility with WP 4.3

= 1.1.5
– New inline embed code that fixes problem with Firefox Private Browsing

= 1.1.6
– Name and description updates only, no functional changes

= 1.1.7
– Revised shortcode for story-viewer

= 1.1.8
– Added widget and shortcode support for content-grid widget

= 1.1.9
– Added widgets and shortcodes for story-carousel and story-explorer
– Revised shortcode for story-viewer to use new embed code style
– Added option for Genesis-based filmstrip container reservation

= 1.1.10
– More options for Genesis-based container reservation
– Internal testing option added

= 1.1.11
– Minor fix to category fetching
– Tested with WP 5.7.1

= 1.1.12
– Filmstrip injection now supports Genesis, Trellis/THA, and Thesis-based themes
– Added Slickstream LD_JSON

= 1.1.13
– Removing Slickstream LD_JSON

= 1.1.14
– Bumping stable version

= 1.1.15
– Support for Kadence theme hooks

= 1.1.16
– Slickstream JSON metadata

= 1.1.17
– Remove extraneous logging
– Add support for custom injection hook

= 1.2.0
– New embed code with support for boot loader

= 1.2.1
– New options for injecting DCM

= 1.2.2
– Revised to clarify support option

= 1.2.3
– Verified compatibility with WP 6.0.1

= 1.2.4
– Security enhancements

= 1.2.5
– Enhanced A/B testing

= 1.3.0
– Automatically reduces CLS without adjustments or setting changes from admin

= 1.3.1
– Security enhancements

= 1.4.0
– Performance improvements
– CLS improvements

= 1.4.1
– Added support for custom margins for CLS

= 1.4.2
– Performance improvements

= 1.4.3
– Include options for Genesis-based container reservation
– Additional performance enhancements

= 1.4.4
– Performance improvement for CLS