Product Recommendations Overview

Learn more about Bluecore's dynamic product recommendations and how to add them to your email campaigns.

Updated over a week ago

Use Bluecore’s dynamic product recommendations to display relevant products to customers that align with your brand’s overall merchandising strategy. Bluecore makes it easy to tailor product recommendation strategies to different audiences, such as cross-selling items after a purchase or recommending the next best product based on previous browsing and purchasing history. Across the board, marketers drive an average 87% lift in purchases with Bluecore’s product recommendations engine.

Dynamic product blocks serve up personalized recommendations for your customers in a specified layout with specific rules applied to best cater the content to your customers. Bluecore offers the following recommendations types:

SELECTING A LAYOUT

The first step to adding product recommendations to an email is to select a layout. Learn more about the different widget types available below.

  • Feature Left/Right: Feature a dynamic product recommendation on either the left or right side of the layout.

  • Grid: Display up to four rows with four products in each row of dynamic product recommendations.

  • List: Show dynamic product recommendations in a list layout with up to 12 items.

  • Hero Product: Highlight a single dynamic product recommendation with a hero image and product description. The image can be left or right.

  • Single Row: Display a single row of dynamic product recommendations with up to four products in the row.

  • Banner Product: Highlight a dynamic product recommendation with the banner layout that can be placed at the top of an email, like an email banner.

  • Single Column: Highlight a single dynamic product recommendation with a hero image and following text.

  • Hero Product with Content: Show a hero image or text next to a dynamic product recommendation.

ADDING A RECOMMENDATION RULE TYPE

After you’ve added a layout to the canvas, be sure to configure the applicable styling and layout settings (or select a previously saved setting) for each block that’s added to the canvas. After the styling has been applied, click Save and Finish and Close.

Once you’re back on the message configuration tab, the next step is to apply a recommendation rule to the dynamic product block. Click Add a Rule to the right of the template section to get started.

Learn more about each of the recommendation rule types below:

  • Next Best Purchase: Displays products predicting a customers next purchase.

  • Interaction History Products: Displays products that are associated with the given audience. This rule can dynamically change based on additional criteria outlined here.

  • Co-Recommendations: Displays products using Bluecore’s recommendation engine, which applies collaborative filtering to make recommendations based on customers’ actions.

  • Best Sellers: Displays highest-selling products based on purchase count from the last 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days.

  • New Arrivals: Displays new products from the last 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days.

  • Product Selected from Catalog: Displays products based on the applied product filters.

Please be sure to check your email proofs to ensure that there are enough products to satisfy your applied criteria. Discuss best practices with your Customer Success Manager around recommendation rule design to ensure that your blocks are not too restrictive, which may result in a higher likelihood of halting.

When configuring rules for product recommendations, you have the option to configure a fallback and a secondary fallback (if applicable) for each recommendation type. Bluecore recommends adding a fallback to each rule to ensure that product recommendations will be served to each customer.

CONFIGURING GLOBAL EXCLUSIONS

Adjust template-specific or global settings for any dynamic product blocks using Bluecore’s Product Settings. By configuring global product exclusions on the settings page, you exclude products from all campaigns, unless customers previously interacted with them.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

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