The personalized recommendations on your website and in email templates can’t perform without being fed the relevant information.
At least once a day Episerver Personalization will download the product feed which is provided by each of our clients. If you need some information on where this feed is in order to check the below points, please contact our Service Desk at developersupport@episerver.com and we will direct you to the location of the feed we collect from you.
There are a few key areas to bear in mind regarding the feed to ensure that your site always reflects the best products for each individual customer.
Category structures
Ensure that the category structure of the website matches the category structure in the feed
Example of a correct feed - site structure
Product A is in the following category on the website:
Home>Dining>Table wear>Cutlery
In the feed, it is under the same category structure:
Home>Dining>Table wear>Cutlery
Example of an incorrect feed – site structure
Product A is in the following category on the website:
Home>Dining>Table wear>Cutlery
In the feed, it is under a different category structure:
Home&Leisure>Living Essentials> Knives and Forks
The latter will result in skewed recommendations with items being recommended in categories they do not belong.
Missing products
The most important thing to remember when deciding if a product should be in the feed is that all products that feature on the site should be included in the feed.
If a product is not in the feed, it will not be known to Episerver Personalization, and we will not be able to serve relevant recommendations against a product which is not recognized.
As the product stock availability is passed to Episerver Personalization, any out of stock products will not be recommended therefore these products should still be passed in the feed.
If for any reason there are products which you do not wish to appear in recommendations on the site or in emails, then please read this article.
Broken images
The feed is responsible for much of the functionality of the recommendations. Not only does Episerver Personalization use the product information from the feed in algorithms and models, but it is also used to display the products in email recommendations and can be used on the front end of your website.
If you are noticing broken images appearing in the recommendations then the first port of call is to check the image links in the feed to ensure these are accurate and point to valid images.
Wrong prices
In the same way that the image links are obtained from the feed, so are the product prices. If there is a price issue on the recommendations for regular prices or even sale prices, ensure that the prices in the feed for that product are accurate.
Finally, we love to check your feed
Any changes to the feed should be communicated to Episerver Personalization before going live, this way we can review the changes and ensure there will be no knock on effects to the recommendations.
Article is closed for comments.