Editing a Recommendations Profile

Once you've created a recommendations profile, you will configure its template, filters, and precision.

Note: Each profile will show "Live" or "Paused" by the page title to show its current status. Click the toggle to disable (pause) the profile if it is live; once the profile is paused, click the toggle again to enable the profile (make it live).

Details tab

The Details tab is where you will set the template and manage the number of products required for this profile to display.

At the top left, you will see the clickable profile details (in the above example, Product Detail Page, Cart Cross-sell).

Profile Name

Type the name of the profile.

Template

Select a template from the drop-down menu. Athos Commerce templates will always be available to everyone. If any custom templates have been set up for your site, they will appear separately here. Template options could include something similar to the following:

• Default template
• Carousel
• Grid 

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.

Other Template Settings

Any other settings in this section are entirely custom, set by the creator of the template itself, and should have a description you can see by hovering over the information button (i) or question mark (?) next to its name. If there is no information about this setting, contact the template creator for clarification. 

For API Integrations

If your site is integrated with Athos via an API implementation, you will not see the Template section and do not need to select a template. Once the profile is created, take note of the profile tag (you can find this for each profile on the main Recommendations page of the Athos Search & Product Discovery console, which is linked here). In your API calls, you will use that profile tag to retrieve results specific to the created profile.

Precision tab

The Precision tab is available only on Similar, Cross-sell, Cart Cross-sell, and Search cross-sell profiles. Precision settings allow the service to present alternative types of recommendations to the shopper. A broader precision will allow other recommendation types to fill in where needed, depending on the seed product provided on the page. For example, a brand new item may not have enough data yet to provide good cross-sell results, so similar or trending results may be used instead.

A narrower precision will restrict the profile so that recommendations only show if they meet the most restrictive criteria for the selected type. In some cases, this may result in the profile returning less than the minimum threshold of products so that the profile will be hidden. A detailed description is available on the Precision page.

• Curated = Curated recommendations will be limited to the products set in Product Rules. If the seed product does not have one or more products associated with it in a rule, no recommendations will be returned. For example, if merchandisers want to create a "Complete the Look" experience, they would set the precision filter to "Curated" so the recommendations carousel would only show the pinned products.
• Cross-sell = Cross-sell recommendations are used on a page to recommend products that go well with the product that the shopper is viewing. 
• Similar = Similar recommendations are products that a shopper should consider buying as an alternative to the product they’re currently viewing.
• Trending = Trending recommendations are popular product bundles across a rolling window of time. This recommendation type supports either site-wide trending or trending within a category or brand.

Filters tab

Filters can be used to limit which products can possibly show up in a profile. This selection varies for different types of profiles. Note that recently viewed profiles cannot be filtered.

For custom profiles, the filters are applied in advance to help determine the set of products to recommend. A common use would be to only display products that have a certain tag. For example, if you only want to recommend products from a specific season, you could set up a filter requiring products to match a seasonal tag like ss_season is Winter. Any field that is available in the search index can be used for custom profile filters.

For other types of profiles (including similar, cross-sell, and trending), filters are applied at the time that the recommendations are requested by the website. That means the filters will reduce the number of results returned and may cause the profile to be hidden if no appropriate results are available. It is best to apply these filters only in cases where it is better to show nothing instead of the wrong thing.

Tip: See Personalization Settings for more details on how you can use business rules to influence recommendations instead of using filters.

Presets tab

The Presets tab allows you to control the default behavior for the selected profile. Note that the preset options will differ for each type of recommendation. Merchants can specify default brands, categories, or search terms for a recommendation profile, rather than having their front-end team or the Athos support team code these values on the front-end page.

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, based on the category sent from the front end.

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 preset configurations in place on the front end, these will need to be removed either by your team or by Athos via a support ticket request.

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.

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. If you change your mind after 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 associated with the overall profile, not the seed product/category/brand entered in the search bar (at the top right side of the page). If you prefer to pin only for a specific seed product, category, or brand, modify the personalization setting's similar or cross-sell rules instead.

Note: 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 after 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 from any tab; and you can drag-and-drop an item to pin it in a different position.

Sorts tab

The sorting rule forms the lowest-level order for the items displayed in the profile. It is applied as a subordinate to any boost rules that may have been applied. For example, you could sort by the most sales to elevate popular items, or sort by the lowest days-since-published to elevate new items.

These sub-sorts are called "tie-breaker rules" and help the system determine which products to give priority in recommendations if they match in all other aspects, such as filters and boost rules.

Performance Tie-breaking Rule

You may add tie-breaker rules that are related to a product's performance. In the example below, we have added a sort that will show items with the most clicks over the past 30 days.

Tie-Breaker Rule

You may add a standard tie-breaker rule based on product characteristics. In the example below, we have added a rule prioritizing the newest items. Those with the fewest days since their creation will be shown first.

Boost Rules, Sorts, and Filters (for Custom Recommendations)

If you've selected the Custom recommendations type, you can select the products to be recommended by applying boost rules, sorts, and filters.

Boost Rules

Just as with Boosting Rules in Visual Merchandising, boosting allows you to create rules that will dynamically boost products with certain attributes to the top of your recommended products. These rules will continue to stay in effect and re-group your products in real time as their information changes.

Although we show only the first 20 items in a recommendations profile, you can use Product Boosting Rules to elevate specific products to the top of the list. Each Boost rule separates products into an elevated group that meets the rule and a deprecated group that does not. Additional rules create sub-groups within the first set.

The higher the rule is positioned in the list, the greater impact it will have on the results. Boost rules are not required.

Custom Recommendations (Static vs. Dynamic)

You can read about the options for custom recommendations profiles here.

Previewing Recommendations

On the right half of the window, you can preview the results that will be shown on your site.

• For custom profiles, the preview will show you the actual product results matching your boost and filter selections.
• Similar, Cross-sell, Cart Cross-sell, and Search Cross-sell profiles require a product seed for the preview.
• Category and Brand Trending profiles require a category or brand to be selected, and you can search for the appropriate input to see the results for that selection.
• Handpicked will show the specific items you have pinned to the profile.
• The system will display placeholders for up to 20 products. Before a seed item is entered or a category/brand is selected (for all but custom profiles), the preview will show an empty space with a generic product icon.

To view a preview, simply search for the item at the top (using the search bar) and instantly see results that show which products would be recommended based on that seed product. The preview will update in real-time.

Note: These are only previews. When the profile is placed on your site, the seed product, category or brand will be captured from variables on that page and sent in the request.

Why a product is displayed in the preview

When a product is displayed in the recommendation preview, the system will show a light blue bar under the product image, which includes a brief explanation about why the item is shown in recommendations. This can include reasons like "Bought with products like this", "Category Rule", etc. You can also see additional details for each recommended product by clicking the View Details button described below.

Placeholders in the preview

Before items are pinned, or before you search for a seed item/category/brand, the system will show a generic image for each position in the preview. These represent slots where you can pin recommendations as needed. Once products are populated in the preview, you will see those results instead of the placeholders.

Product Details

Click the "View Details" button under any product shown in the recommendation preview. This will open a sidebar with information about the product's brand, category, and tags. It will also provide information about the product's position within the recommendations.

Note: Previews and placeholders are not shown for Recently Viewed recommendations, since pinning is not supported. The preview for Personal and Session profiles will only show trending items, since the actual results are entirely dependent on an individual shopper’s behavior.

When you click on a recommended product, it will show the details of that product and provide context on why that product has been recommended. For example, on a similar or cross-sell profile you will see:

• Total Sales and Total Views for the recommended product
• Common Sales or Common Views between the recommended product and the seed product
  • Common Sales will be shown for Cross-sell recommendations while Common Views are used for Similar recommendations.
  • Common Views are calculated over 26 weeks (by default). 
  • Common Sales are calculated over 18 months (by default) and measure how often a product is repurchased by the same shopper. The repurchase does not necessarily need to be on the same order to qualify as a common sale. 
  • The timeframes for these windows can be adjusted by our Customer Success team at your request
• The Brand and the Categories associated with the recommended product
  • The preview will highlight the categories that the recommended product shares with the seed product

This preview will not exactly match what shoppers will see once the profile is implemented on your site. Depending on the individual shopper’s behavior, the order of recommended products will change to provide a personalized experience.

Ready to Install?

Check out Installing a Profile to continue.