Target recommendation activity

[Sankaran]

Hello All,

Trying to setting up my first recommendation activity in AT. Completed uploading few products to product catalog via Recommendations API. How can we set up a basic or simple recommendation activity after this catalog set up? Sample use case like if a user searches a particular product , then displaying that product based on the search term. Would be really helpful to get the inputs. Thank you.

[Sankaran]

Oh okay @kandersen I am using the Most Viewed Items across the site. And I have used an Audience in the AEP which will qualify only for the Logged in users as the enity.id was not working for me . Hence as you mentioned, it might not work I guess then.

[kandersen]

So the only way you can 'fuel' the criterias is by using the entity.id on the site - products created in the catalogue, but don't have entity.id set on the product page on the website will not generate any behaviour and will therefore not be part of any critierias. Hopefully this makes sense?

[Sankaran]

Yes @kandersen  got it. Thank you. Though I used the hardcoded method of having the same entity.id in both catalog and the request to target call, I couldn't see the recommendation working somehow with the recently viewed criteria as how you demonstrated in the video. I will see if I can find some unique element on any of the page as you did for the article id in your video.

[Michael_Soprano]

@kandersen you mean that you do not need to create Feeds  if everything is passed from Web SDK and Feeds would be created by itself?

[kandersen]

Hi @Michael_Soprano 

Feeds are not necessarily required if you pass in all the necessary data via the site itself (webSDK or at.js). 

The feed won’t be created automatically, but it isn’t a requirement to run recommendations. Its a way of enriching/adding meta data to your products. 

I’ve used feeds/api when products needed to be updated more frequently than the product page itself was visited or when the site/data layer didn’t have all the relevant product details. 

[Sankaran]

Hey @kandersen  thanks for this video. I could see that you have done the behavioral tracking of sending the data to adobe target in a product page and creating an activity in the home page. My doubt is how are you passing this data from product page to home page and able to make the recommendations appear in the home page? Also you did any config changes at the criteria level or simply used it? Because I also tried the same using the web SDK implementation, somehow it's not working. Would it be possible to share the video or steps with web SDK implementation as well. Thank you.

[kandersen]

hey @Sankaran that's because I'm selecting Recently viewed criteria. This doesn't evaluate based on the current product i'm looking at, but the previous ones. Which allows me to deploy it on any page. If i had picked a criteria like-people viewed this also viewed that, it would have to be deployed on a product page. 

I don't know when I'll be able to prioritize a recording for WebSDK. I'll try, but can't promise anyting.

[Sankaran]

Thanks @kandersen If I kind of follow the similar steps which you have mentioned in the video for a similar use case using web SDK implementation and then it will work right ?

[kandersen]

Correct. There's nothing different in Target when you use WebSDK - the WebSDK is just the technology passing data to Target. So if you do that correct, then it will work just like i showed in the recording. 

[Sankaran]

Sure let me give a try.

[Sankaran]

Hi @kandersen  Please let me know if the below steps are correct to create a successful activity using web SDK

Use case: similar to what is available in video. Instead of articles , it's resources which contains Add to Order button in the product/resource page. If the user adds a particular resource by clicking the Add to order button , then show that in the home page as recommendation. 

1. Currently our target calls are firing as part of the common page view call where we have enabled the option of personalization so that target calls will be fired for all the activities.

2. For this specific use case , we already have a web SDK rule set up to track the Add to order clicks. Should I send the entity.id (in the Data section)using the below code  as part of the Add to Order rule?                                 var data = {
__adobe: {
target: {
"entity.id": "unique data-item-number available as part of the add to order button"
}
}
};

3. Uploading entity.id in catalog matching the unique data-item-number available as part of the add to order button

4. Set up the activity in Home page with Recently viewed items criteria. 

Please let me know if the steps are correct. You can very well correct me if I am wrong. what's concerning is currently the target calls firing as part of the page view rule and how to do this with Add to order rule. I am just trying to get the exact steps to make my use case work with the web SDK implementation.

[kandersen]

@Sankaran 

1. Good. I assume these don't have entity.id set as you set those on the add to order button.

2. Yes, if you don't want the page load itself to be considered a view, then you need to pass on the click. I've not done this before, but it won't be an issue. Recommendation don't care how/when data is passed.

3. not required for the criteria to work, but required to add meta data you want to show in the design.

4. correct.

Let me know how it goes.

[Sankaran]

Thanks @kandersen  Please clarify on the below. 

In your video example, have you uploaded the entity.id values as  your data-post-id vlaues of the articles in your recommendation catalog so that when you send the entity.id as part of your rule, it matches and displays the recommendation from the catalog based on the article which the user has previously accessed?

[kandersen]

@Sankaran 
No, there's no prior steps other than what i documented in the video. I'm only implementing the entity.id - no upload was made.

[Sankaran]

@kandersen  Oh that's surprising. Not sure if my understanding is wrong then. I was thinking that you have uploaded your articles in the recommendation catalog(matching entity.id with your data-post-id value) like this in the below image as your first step. So you mean that without even setting up the catalog , the recommendations will work based on the entity.id we send with the selected design?

[kandersen]

I've done nothing else than what is documented in the video.

Yes, without setting up the catalogue it will work.

[Sankaran]

Thanks for your response @kandersen  Let me try with our existing web SDK route and let you know. 

[Sankaran]

@kandersen  One final clarification , I don't see entity.id in the design template code below . We need to have entity.id in the below design template if we send it to adobe target right?

[kandersen]

No, that's not required.

[Michael_Soprano]

@kandersen so basically what we need to pass from web sdk into Target is only entity.id and all other product attributes regarding product would be taken from Feeds?

[kandersen]

Correct!