Create Dotdigital Messaging Recommendations

Messaging Recommendation intelligence is created in Athos and then injected into Dotdigital.

Athos profiles are stored under the "Searchspring" section in Dotdigital EasyEditor’s Build tab. Customers can select these profiles to drag and drop them into their email campaigns, sending personalized suggestions to their customers. Depending on the type of email event, the appropriate event data is dynamically inserted into the recommendation image and page links so that personalized product results are selected and shown to each email recipient.

Note: Athos also supports Recently Viewed recommendations in Dotdigital.

Create a new messaging recommendation

Navigate to Messaging Recommendations in the Athos console by selecting "Personalization" from the main menu, then selecting "Marketing Automation".

The Marketing Automation window will open, featuring two tabs: Personalized Segments and Messaging Recommendations.

Click the Messaging Recommendations tab. The following form will appear:

Click the “+ Add New Profile” button on the top right. A new window will pop up:

Select the marketing automation provider, then click the "Next" button at the bottom right. In this example, we'll use Dotdigital.

Select the type of campaign you'd like, then click the "Next" button at the bottom right. In this example, we'll use "Abandoned Cart".

Select the recommendations type, then click the "Create Profile" button in the bottom right. In this example, we'll choose “Cross-Sell”.

Template tab

Once the recommendations type is selected, the Profile editor will appear, defaulting to the Template tab.

Configure the profile name.

Precision tab

Click the Precision tab to configure how precise recommendations are. This value dictates how many conditions the system uses to find recommended products. Broad precision expands the recommendations algorithm to ensure products can be recommended even when shopper data is sparse. Narrow precision restricts recommendations to prevent the algorithm from defaulting to related products or top sellers. This could result in recommendations not being displayed for certain products.

Drag the slider to select the precision.

• All = Include top selling products plus Crowd and Genomic
• Genomic = Include cross-sell recommendations for other products like this
• Crowd = Include similar recommendations that match this product
• No Fill = Cross-sell recommendations that match this product
• Curated = Only return products from Cross-Sell Product Rules

Email Layout tab

Click the Email Layout tab to configure how the email will appear.

Desktop/Mobile Breakpoint

Enter the number of pixels to represent the width of the shopper's screen, at which point the responsive design will adapt content and layout to that size.

Note: The maximum number of items that can be recommended is 20.

Max items = (Recommendations per Row) times the (Number of Rows)

Desktop

• Recommendations per Row = This value represents how many product recommendations the shopper will see in one row on the screen.
• Number of Rows = This value represents how many rows of products will be shown to the shopper.
• Cell Padding (in px) = This value provides spacing around each product shown in the layout preview.

Mobile

• Recommendations per Row = This value represents how many product recommendations the shopper will see in one row on the screen.
• Number of Rows = This value represents how many rows of products will be shown to the shopper.
• Cell Padding (in px) = This value provides spacing around each product shown in the layout preview.

Test Preview

Click the "Test Preview" button at the top right of the Email Layout section to see how the configured layout will appear to a shopper. You can continue to adjust the settings below and test the preview as often as you like.

Desktop	Mobile

Previewing the Layout

In any tab, you can type in the Recommendations Preview search bar at the top right to find a product, and use this to get a preview of how the recommendation email might look to a shopper.

Save the profile by clicking the blue "Save Profile" button at the bottom right.

Once the profile has been saved, the system will display any configured messaging recommendations.

Adding Product Recommendations to Dotdigital

Note: Product recommendations in Dotdigital are available to anyone on Athos’ Expert Tier. Users have access to all personalization features.

Once the Athos console has been configured with your preferences, log in to Dotdigital. A screen similar to this will appear:

You may have emails listed under Campaigns/Email (seasonal events, special sales) or under Automation/Triggered email (order confirmation, abandoned browse, abandoned cart, and welcome campaigns). Below are instructions for each option.

Campaigns

Drill down in the Campaigns section, then click “Email”. Once Email campaigns are displayed, click the appropriate campaign (DD Check in this example) to view its details.

Under building blocks for an email messaging campaign, select "Searchspring" from the bottom of the list on the left.

Click the arrow to drill down among the options. Drag and drop the desired component(s) into your email builder on the right side of the page; the system will automatically pull all the relevant event data for the message being sent.

The following will appear: “Drag and drop this block into your email template to add a personalized product recommendation. To make changes to this template, update the template in the Searchspring Management Console and press ‘Save’.”

You may update the number of products to include. Click “Apply” to apply the changes; click “Cancel” to cancel the changes.

If changes are needed to the personalized recommendations, return to the Athos console to update the desired email profile, then confirm the changes by clicking the “Update” button to sync the console with Dotdigital.

Triggered events

Drill down in the Analytics section, then click “Email”. Once Email campaigns are displayed, click the appropriate campaign to view its details. For this example, we will use "Abandoned cart".

Clicking the "Abandoned cart" email will open the screen shown below. Under building blocks for an email messaging campaign, select Searchspring from the bottom of the list on the left.

Click the arrow to drill down and see all available options. Drag and drop the desired component(s) into the email builder on the right side of the page; the system will automatically pull all the relevant event data for the message being sent.

Shown here is an example of an abandoned cart email:

Make any changes needed and click the "Save" button or the "Save & Continue" button at the top right of the page.

Click the "Preview" button at the top of the page to preview the email.

Click the "Test Send" button to send a test email and ensure that the message appears as expected. A new window will appear:

Select options (HTML, plain text, or both) and click "Select Test Address" or "New Test Address" to choose or add an email address.

If adding a new email address, key in the address, first and last name, and click the "Create" button.

If selecting an existing email address, click the radio button next to one of the options shown.

The system will return to the previous window and display the selected email address. Click the "X" to remove the selected email and choose a different one.

Once the address is chosen, click the "Test Send" button to send the test email, or click the "Cancel" button to close this window and return to message configuration.

In the example of the test email shown below, both the "text" and "HTML" versions were chosen; the text version is shown at the top, and the HTML version is shown at the bottom.

Text version:

HTML version: