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Implement Real-Time Interventions in an Ecommerce App Using Signals

Signals implementation

  • Introduction

  • Set up your Signals connection

  • Define attributes and service with Python

  • Define interventions

  • Test with the demo application

  • Conclusion

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Introduction

Welcome to the Snowplow Signals tutorial.

Snowplow Signals is a real-time personalization engine for customer intelligence, built on Snowplow's behavioral data pipeline. It allows you to compute, access, and act on in-session stream and historical user data, in real time.

This tutorial provides a hands-on introduction to Signals. You'll use Python to programmatically define attributes, services, and interventions, then test them with a demo ecommerce application.

You can follow this tutorial using either:

  • Snowplow Console: if you have a Snowplow account with Signals enabled
  • Signals Sandbox: a trial environment where you can experiment without needing a Snowplow account

This tutorial should take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete.

What you'll learn​

In this tutorial, you will:

  • Set up your Signals connection (via Console or Sandbox)
  • Use the Signals Python SDK to define attributes, services, and interventions
  • Calculate real-time user behavior metrics from ecommerce events
  • Create intervention rules that trigger personalized experiences
  • Test your Signals configuration with an interactive demo application

Deployment options​

Snowplow Console​

If you have a Snowplow account, you can enable Signals through Snowplow Console. This provides:

  • Integration with your existing Snowplow data pipeline
  • Access to your production behavioral data
  • Full production capabilities and support

Signals Sandbox​

Signals Sandbox provides a temporary Signals deployment that you can use to explore the platform without needing a Snowplow account. The Sandbox includes:

  • A dedicated Profiles API endpoint for your attributes and interventions
  • A Snowplow Collector endpoint for tracking events
  • Access credentials (Sandbox Token) for authentication
  • Limited-time access to experiment with Signals capabilities
note

The Signals Sandbox is designed for experimentation and learning. For production use cases, you'll need a Snowplow account with Signals enabled.

Prerequisites​

This tutorial requires:

  • Python 3.7 or higher
  • A Jupyter notebook environment (local or Google Colab)
  • Basic familiarity with Python
  • A modern web browser for testing the demo application
  • Either a Snowplow account with Signals enabled, or access to Signals Sandbox
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