Static vs. Dynamic Custom Profiles

Personalized recommendations now offer the option to create a dynamic custom profile, providing another option besides the existing static custom profile. Dynamic custom profiles offer greater flexibility for merchants, allowing their sites to adjust customer recommendations on the fly based on the search term or filter applied to the dynamic custom profile.

With a static profile, merchants configure filters and sorts and associate this profile with any page on their site — shopping cart, product detail page (PDP), home page, 404 page, etc. With a dynamic profile, instead of being set up in advance by merchants, the system will choose products when they are requested (such as showing all colors available for a product on its individual product detail page), thus passing the variables from the front end.

Static custom profiles produce a fixed set of results that are updated each time the catalog data changes. Items are selected by:

• boost rules
• filters
• custom sorts

Examples:

• newly published items 
• low-priced accessories 

Dynamic custom profiles allow the result set to be determined on each page view based on site variables. This dynamic custom profile resides under the Custom profile type, similar to the way Category and Brand trending profiles reside under the Trending/type. Items are selected by:

• search terms
• filters
• custom sorts

Examples:

• items matching a pattern or design from a seed item on the product detail page (PDP)
• other books by the same author
• other artwork by the same artist

The profile page for Dynamic Custom Profiles is very similar to the Static Custom Profiles. The differences are:

1. Dynamic profiles do not allow boost rules. Instead, there is a tab for Sorts, which displays only the sort options.
2. The preview area presents a Search Term text box that can be populated to adjust the preview items shown.

Creating a dynamic custom profile

To create a custom profile, navigate to Personalization menu, then click "Personalized Recommendations". Click the "Add New Profile" button to create a new profile.

On the Personalized Recommendations page, click the "+ Add New Profile" button.

Page Placement

Choose where you intend to place this profile on your store, then click the "Next" button. This will determine the types of recommendations that will be available to you. In this example, we'll choose "Product Detail Page".

Recommendations Type

Choose the type of recommendation you wish to use for this profile. The selected type will determine the logic used when generating recommendations for your site. In this case, we need to choose a custom profile.

Select between a Static or Dynamic custom profile. For this example, we will choose "Dynamic".

The system will display a blank form for the new custom profile.

Give your profile a name and click the "Save Profile" button in the lower right corner of the page. The system will save the profile and close the window. Click the new profile to configure it.

The profile will re-open and focus on the Sorts tab. This is where you can add tie-breaker rules (also known as "sub-sorts") to help the system determine which products to give priority in recommendations if they match in all other aspects, such as filters and boost rules.

Product Card Template Settings

Template tab

Click the "Template" tab and select a template from the drop-down menu.

Template

Use these templates to configure the appearance of this recommendations profile on your site. The template you select will determine which custom options are available for that template, with which you can control things like the layout, look, behavior, and content of the profile. Note that the options in this drop-down list will differ based on your account setup. In the example shown here, the options include:

• Carousel
• Default Template
• Grid

Once a template is selected, the rest of the form will populate based on that template's options. In the example shown here, we have the following fields available:

Minimum Threshold

The minimum threshold is the minimum number of products needed for this profile to display at all. For example, if this value is set to four (4) and a product only has two (2) recommended products to show, the profile will not show on that page of your site.

Layout

This setting determines the look of your custom profile. It is useful for compact designs such as cart slide-out menus. If you prefer a smaller carousel, choose "mini". Leave this blank for the default.

Show Integration Instructions

The "Show Integration Instructions" button will appear at the bottom left of every tab within the Profile Editor. You can click this button at any time to see the instructions for integrating this profile into your store. Read more about integration instructions here.

Sorts tab

Use the Sorts tab to configure any tie-breaker (sub-sort) rules, which will apply to products that otherwise are identical per any defined filters or boost rules.

When you click the "Add Tie-breaker Rule" button on the left side of the window, the following window will appear:

Scroll down the list to find a field, or use the search function at the top of the window to find a field. In this example, we will use days_old as the tie-breaker.

Note: These options will differ based on the fields you have configured with Athos Commerce.

Then you may choose how to sort items that fit the rule, such as "Low to High" or "High to Low".

Once you save your changes by clicking the "Save Profile" button in the bottom right, the form will display the selected sort rule(s).

Filters tab

Use this tab to configure filters, which limit the products that are allowed to appear in the recommendations profile. Keep in mind that if you add filters to a profile, that may lead to fewer results, which means the profile may not appear on all pages.

Note: The fields used here must be enabled in the Recs Filter column on the Field Settings page.

Click the "Add Filter +" button. The following window will appear:

Click the drop-down menu to select a field and value.

Modify the filter as needed. Select the equation: is, is not, is less than, etc., then choose the value (such as 0 for false and 1 for true). In the example below, we have chosen the field "available", the equation "is", and the value "1", to show only products that are available.

Click the "Save Profile" button in the bottom right. Note that you can add multiple filters to the selected recommendations profile. In the example below, we have filtered by gender and color:

Recommendations Preview

On the right half of the Profile Editor, type any search term (which can be one word or many words) to have the system display a preview of what a user would see on the merchant site.

After you type in your search term, the system will show which products match the search per the settings above.

Examples

See below for a comparison of static vs. dynamic profiles.