Configurations Best Practices

Overview

Adding only recommendations to a site does not automatically create value; we must take a strategic approach to ensure that recommendations support the key objectives at each point in the shopping funnel. This does not mean inundating the site with placements at the top of every page; rather, we are thoughtful and opportunistic in our approach so as not to introduce distractions that will harm conversion or cannibalize revenue.

The best practices are designed to help Algonomy employees and/or retailers to implement Recommend on the retailer's site in the most advantageous way to guarantee success. Following the guidelines on the pages that follow helps safeguard performance of Recommend on a retailer's site.

All sites are different, and what works best for one is not guaranteed to translate into gains for another. As such, treat this guidance as general best practices, a foundation for optimization from which site-specific tuning should occur. Understand the logic behind our optimization methodology and the questions to ask, so that you can adapt and apply as appropriate.

Configuration Best Practices

The reference pages linked below will provide guidance on the desired number and location of placements for each page type as well as the strategies best used on those page types. Again, as all sites are different, consider this a baseline to inform your approach. Considering your vertical, page layout, and other user experience considerations, adapt these practices as needed.

Before diving into those pages, here are some helpful details on the strategy guidance:

• Many strategies accept “strategy hints” which allow you to reference the product, category, retailer name, or applicable search terms in the customer-facing message. Except for product name, we typically expose these hints in strategy messaging. This is due to many catalogs having elongated product names which could wrap the strategy message and make for awkward reading, for example, People who viewed Samsung 55'' Class 1080p 240Hz 3D LED HDTV - UN55F7100 ENERGY STAR® also viewed. If the retailer has a concise naming convention, consider exposing the HOME ME 9 product names if it makes sense (for example, high-value merchandise or products with considerable name recognition). For vertical placements, due to width constraints, you will always want to use more concise messaging.
• Frankly, the exact verbiage of strategy messaging is a subjective decision. Some retailers prefer to use “people” over “customers” and “items” over “products”; some prefer People Who Viewed This Also Viewed while others embrace Similar Items or Consider These Alternatives (a little less transparent, but still sufficiently-indicative of why the products are recommended). If we avoid opacity, we are indifferent to these details and typically lean on the retailer’s marketing team to confirm the messaging approach.
• A different strategy called “families” exists, each containing recommendation types of a similar ilk. You will oftentimes hear colleagues referring to “similar items” and “cross-sell” strategies. “Similar items” is a more conventional reference to the ProductViewedViewed and ProductViewedBought families, while “cross-sell” refers to ProductBoughtBought. Note that Algonomy does not offer behavioral “upsell” strategies; these would need to be configured using Advanced Merchandising.
• On each strategy table, the strategies below the bold blue line are deemed “fallbacks”. As these strategies have limited contextual relevance and revenue impact, we only enable them for use when the primary strategies do not qualify so that we can ensure we always have something to display. Because these strategies typically drive lower engagement, the recommendation engine will attempt to use them last organically. It’s best practice to set up strategy rules to “prefer” the primary strategies over the fallbacks.
• Omitted from this guidance is mention of our offline and omnichannel strategies. If online data is available, the rule of thumb is to use these strategies in the same scenarios that you would use their online counterparts.

Page Types

Home Page - Refer Home Page Best Practices.

Category Page - Refer Category Page Best Practices.

Search Page - Refer Search Page Best Practices.

Item Page - Refer Item Page Best Practices.

Add-To-Cart Page - Refer Add-To-Cart Page Best Practices.

Cart Page - Refer Cart Page Best Practices.

Purchase Complete Page - Refer Purchase Complete Page Best Practices.