Static vs. Dynamic Custom Profiles

Personalized recommendations offer two options when creating a custom profile: Static profiles that update each time your catalog is reindexed, and Dynamic profiles that can update in real-time based on front-end page variables or customer attributes. 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 recommendation API request.

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 other items  matching a tag associated with the current product that is being viewed).

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. 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" and click the "Create Profile" button.

Details tab

The Profile Editor will open on the Details tab, where you will give your profile a name. You will also choose the template and select how many items must be available for recommendations in order for the profile to appear.

Profile Name

Give your profile a name in the Profile Name field.

For Snap or Snap Template integrations

The following two fields (Template and Minimum Threshold) appear only for Snap or Snap Template integrations.

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.

Title

For the title, enter a name that will display to shoppers when they see this recommendations profile, such as "Recommended Products", "You May Also Like", or "Other Shoppers Bought".

Note: This field will not appear until after you have selected a Template in the drop-down box above. 

Show Integration Instructions

The "Show Integration Instructions" button will appear at the bottom left of every tab within the Profile Editor. Once you have saved your profile, 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

Click the Sorts tab to add tie-breaker rules (also known as "sub-sorts") and performance-based tie-breaker rules 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.

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 ss_days_since_created 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".

Filters tab

Use this tab to configure filters, which limit the products that are allowed to appear in the recommendations profile. Unlike the filters used on other recommendation types, Custom profile filters can access any field that is enabled for use in searches, and the fields do not need to be enabled for Recommendations Filters.

Click the "Add Filter +" button.

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 "total_inventory", the equation "is more than", and the value "1", to show only products that have at least two in stock.

Note that you can add multiple filters to the selected recommendations profile.

Presets tab

The Presets tab allows you to control the default behavior for the selected profile. Note that the presets options will differ for each type of recommendation. Merchants can specify brands, categories, or search terms using a recommendation profile, rather than opening a support ticket to have Athos Commerce custom code these values to a page in your store.

Presets provide you with a great amount of leeway to "set it and forget it". For example, a preset recommendation profile for the home page could be updated once a month: swimwear in July, back-to-school in August, and autumn/Halloween for September.

In contrast, a regular (not preset) "category trending" recommendation profile for the category results page would display different products for each category page the shopper visits.

Presets give you the option to set the following:

• If results in this profile are deduped from other profiles on the same page
• Limits on the maximum number of items to show in the profile
• Items blocked from being shown in the selected profile
• Specific categories to use in a category trending profile
• Specific brands to use in a brand trending profile
• Search terms to use in a dynamic custom profile

Note: Front-end settings can override presets configured here. If you configure a limit of 10 in the presets but the front-end has a limit of five, the system will show five to a shopper. If you wish to configure presets but there are already overrides in place on the front-end, these will need to be removed either by Athos via a support ticket request or by your development team if you have implemented using our APIs or SDKs.

Dedupe Results toggle

Click (enable) this toggle to prevent the same results from displaying in other profiles on the same page.

Limit

Enter a number between 1-20 to limit how many items are included in this profile.

Search Term

Enter a search term to select the default term used to retrieve items for this profile.

Blocked Items

Click the drop-down list to select products to block. You can also use this field as a search box to find a particular item. Once an item is added, simply click the "x" at the far right to un-block the selected product.

Pins tab

Use the pins tab to assign specific products to fixed positions in the recommendation profile. Note that items pinned here are locked to the profile, and are not affected by the search terms, filters, or sorts that may be applied either in the profile or on the frontend. Pinned items will be ignored if they also match an Excluded Products rule (for example, if they go out of stock).

Items can be pinned to any position, and if a specific slot (position) is selected, you can determine if the pin should only show when the slot is available. For example, if there are only four recommendations but a product is pinned to slot #8, setting the pin to "float" would have the product display at the end of the four recommendations. If the pin is set to "fixed", then it will not display if there are less than eight recommended items.

To pin an item, search for it in the search box at the top of the panel, then click the pin icon at the top left. Once you have selected an item, you have the option to accept the pinning position suggested, or enter another number. Click the green checkmark icon to confirm the pinned position.

You can also pin an item in the Recommendation Preview on the right side of the page, regardless of the tab you have selected on the left, and you can drag-and-drop an item to pin it in a different position.

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 a search query at the top of the preview, the system will show which products match the search per the settings above.

Examples

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

Saving a profile

Once you are done with all changes, click the "Save Profile" button in the lower right corner of the page. The system will save the profile and close the window.