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Theme Continuity

When you send a sequence of messages — like a 3-email cart abandonment series — you want each message to feel like it comes from the same voice. If email 1 uses a friendly, casual tone, email 2 shouldn’t suddenly switch to aggressive urgency.

Theme continuity solves this automatically. It remembers which theme a user was shown in an earlier message and makes sure later messages in the sequence match.

How It Works

Section titled “How It Works”

You pick a dependency template — the earlier message in your sequence — and a theme key to match on (e.g., tone). When a user reaches the current template:

  1. JustAI checks what the user was last shown for the dependency template (within a lookback window you configure).
  2. It reads the theme from that earlier message (e.g., tone: friendly).
  3. It narrows the current template’s variants to those with the same theme.

If the user hasn’t received the earlier message yet, or if no variants match, nothing is filtered — every variant stays eligible. The filter never blocks content from being delivered.

Example: Cart Abandonment Flow

Section titled “Example: Cart Abandonment Flow”

You have a 3-email cart abandonment series. Email 1 (“Gentle Reminder”) has variants tagged tone: friendly and tone: urgent. Email 2 (“Incentive Offer”) has variants with the same tone tags.

With theme continuity on Email 2, pointing at Email 1:

  • A user who got the friendly reminder gets a friendly incentive offer.
  • A user who got the urgent reminder gets an urgent incentive offer.
  • A new user who hasn’t received Email 1 yet sees any eligible variant.

No manual audience segmentation needed — the system handles it.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”

Before configuring theme continuity:

  1. Tag your variants with themes in both the earlier and later templates. See Themes Configuration for setup.
  2. Use the same theme key in both templates (e.g., both use tone or both use color).
  3. The earlier template must already be sending with user_id in the API call so that user history is tracked.

Configuration

Section titled “Configuration”

Theme continuity is configured in a template’s Advanced Settings under the Filter Configuration section.

Theme continuity settings in Advanced Settings

Settings

Section titled “Settings”
SettingDescriptionDefault
Dependency TemplateThe earlier template in your sequence. JustAI looks at what the user was last shown for this template to determine the theme to match.Required
Theme NameThe theme key to match on (e.g., tone, color). The dropdown is populated from the dependency template’s configured themes.Required
Lookback (days)How far back to look for the user’s history with the dependency template.7

Setup Steps

Section titled “Setup Steps”
  1. Navigate to your template’s Configure page.
  2. Open Advanced Settings.
  3. Toggle Theme Continuity on.
  4. Select the Dependency Template from the dropdown. You can search by name, ID, or owner.
  5. Select the Theme Name from the dropdown.
  6. Adjust the Lookback window if needed.
  7. Click Save Changes.

Filtering Behavior

Section titled “Filtering Behavior”

Theme continuity is intentionally soft — it prefers matching themes but never leaves a user with no content.

ScenarioResult
User was shown a matching theme earlierOnly variants with that theme are eligible
User hasn’t received the dependency templateAll variants remain eligible
User’s history is older than the lookback windowAll variants remain eligible
No variants in the current template match the themeAll variants remain eligible (fallback)
Variant has no themes taggedAlways eligible (never filtered out)

Interaction with Experiments

Section titled “Interaction with Experiments”

Theme continuity respects A/B experiment bucketing. If a user is in the control group, filtering applies only within control variants. If they’re in the treatment group, it applies only within treatment variants. This prevents the filter from mixing experiment groups.

Section titled “Related Resources”