Use Bluecore’s highest category preference tool to input product, brand, or category affinities in a ranked order. Bluecore will seamlessly segment your entire list based on each individual customer’s highest predicted affinity for those inputs. Leverage the highest category preference to use this audience in a Communicate, Site, or Advertise campaign.
Check out the below chart on when to use category preference, highest category preference, or Smart Campaign™.
| Category Preference | Highest Category Preference | Smart Campaign™ |
Best Used For | Sending 1 personalized batch campaign | Sending multiple personalized batch campaigns simultaneously | Low-effort, personalized, full-list batch sends |
Strategy Type | Audience-first | Audience-first | Content-first |
Recommended Send Schedule | One-time or recurring | One-time | One-time or recurring |
Follow the below steps to begin creating a highest category preference group.
1. Navigate to the people icon on the left-hand navigation.
2. Go to All Audiences.
3. Click the Highest Category Preference tab.
View all previously configured highest category preference groups here.
TIP: If a highest category preference group is being used in a recurring or automated campaign, please use the refresh button on this page to manually refresh the group. The breakdown will not automatically update otherwise.
4. Click Create New Highest Preference Group.
5. Enter a Name for the group. Create a name containing only letters, digits, or underscores, beginning with a letter. Spaces may not be used within a name.
6. Click Add Affinity Segment.
7. Enter a Name for the affinity segment.
8. Click Add Attribute to add an attribute to the segment.
Repeat the above steps to add additional affinity segments to this group.
NOTE: Please be sure to have at least two affinity segments in a group for the group to work in a campaign.
PREVIEW
After you’ve built out a group, click Preview on the right-hand side of the builder. The preview may take 60 seconds or more to return results. The preview returns how many customers qualify for each affinity segment.
SAVE
After you’ve configured a group and previewed it, click Save Preference Group in the lower right-hand corner. It may take 30 seconds or more to complete the save.
ADD AN AUDIENCE
The next step is to add the highest category preference group an a audience within audience builder.
1. Navigate back to the Audiences tab.
2. Click Create New Audience in the upper right-hand corner.
3. Navigate to Product Preferences in the audience builder.
4. Select the Highest Category Preference section.
5. Select the Highest Category Preference Group that was previously created above. You can select one or more groups.
6. Click Preview to view the audience with the applied filters.
7. Click Save Audience.
SUGGESTED STRATEGIES
Multiple Category Affinity Campaigns: Leverage highest category preference segmentation when there are multiple category affinity campaigns launching in the same day and only want each customer to qualify for one campaign. Highest category preference is a mutually exclusive segmentation tool, meaning each customer will only be assigned to one affinity segment.
Add Additional Criteria: When selecting the highest category preference group in the audience builder, you can also add other customer behaviors, customer attributes, or other predictive models. For example, adding an email frequency cap.
Configure the Logic: Input the product preferences based on order of importance. Customers with the highest affinity score for the first input will be assigned into that segment. Customers with the highest affinity score for the second input will be assigned into that segment, and so forth.
Integrated Campaign: After the audience is set with the highest category preference group, build out the email campaigns with the content, product, and offers that match each category affinity segment to create a Bluecore Smart Campaign™.
Syncing Mutually Exclusive Audiences: Highest category preference can also be used when syncing audiences across paid media channels with Bluecore Advertise™. Use this group to ensure there is no overlap between audience segments in your paid media campaigns.
Experience Designer: Use the highest category preference groups within our Experience Designer to split by category affinities.
