Interests for Recommendations

What are ‘Interests’?

Interests apply to all types of websites, ranging from e-commerce and content curation platforms to news sites and educational portals.

We define ‘Interests’ as the broad categories that visitors find stimulating and desirable. And we use multiple ‘interests’ to match them with the most accurate recommendations possible. One advantage of ‘Interests’ is that it is not as narrow and restricting as products.

For example: if an audience member looks for a tuxedo, we do not set the ‘interest’ to Tuxedos. We set it to ‘Events’ so that we can pitch multiple accessories, cross-sells, and upsells like ties, wallets, shoes for all events, and even car supplies like waxes – everything needed to make an impression at posh events.

If an audience member looks for a tuxedo, in this example, we do not set the ‘interest’ to Tuxedos. We set it to ‘Events’ so that we can pitch multiple accessories, cross-sells, and upsells like ties, wallets, shoes for all events, and even car supplies like waxes – everything needed to make an impression at posh events.

A couple of other examples are:

  • E-commerce: If a visitor searches for an iPhone, we can set the interest to Smart Devices and start pitching touch pods and iPads.
  • Content & News: If a visitor searches for mostly sports updates from Manchester United, we set the interest to British Sports and suggest relevant stories even from gossip and economic sections if they have to do with Man U and UK sports.
  • Targeting: Personyze interests can be used for all types of content, not just recommendations. For instance, you can choose to show different targeted banners on the home page to users with various interests, not according to a recommendation algorithm, but rather according to targeting rules.

As discussed, interests can also be used to take the recommendations off-site. If a visitor to a bank is particularly interested in credit cards, he can be emailed credit-related blogs and then asked to enroll in a premium credit program.

How Does Personyze Use Interests?

Interests are used to update the ‘Interests’ field on Personyze user-profiles and then are accounted for by the recommendation algorithm to suggest products, content, and more.

How Can Interests be Set for Products?

Interests are set in a number of different ways:

  • Manually: When you upload product catalogs and article lists, you can associate each entry with interests from your understanding of your visitor, or you can go to manage interests, and click add products to interest.

  • Automatically: using our contextual engine, which crawls the site content and derives interests directly from the content.

Set up auto interest

You can also send JS code containing the interest name, or set a campaign audience that will send the interest event, as alternative methods,  use visitor CRM data; really, just about any kind of visitor behavior can be used to determine ‘Interests’.

How many Interests can a Visitor be Tagged with and Can the Interests be Prioritized?

One Personyze visitor profile can be associated with up to 15 ‘Interests’ and you can:

  • Set Priority for These Interests

  • Indicate Which Interest is the Most Recent

Use the following Javascript code to send data:

 

<script>
(self.personyze=self.personyze||[]).push([“Interests”, “Books”, “Sports inventory”]);
</script>

 

where “Books” and “Sports inventory” are 2 interests. You can generate in your script and send up to 15 (then old records will be overridden).

So, if a visitor is tagged with the interests “iPhone accessories” and “iPad accessories,” and the latter is the more recent ‘Interest’ as detected by the Personyze system when he lands on the Apple products page, the recommendations lean heavily towards iPad accessories.

Set up a Link Between Your Site & Personyze, to Auto-Update Interests

With this link, your website sends ‘Interest Events’ such as liking a particular product, adding items to cart, downloading PDF of an article, and More. Click Here for details about setting up Personyze to monitor product/content interactions.

Why Does Personyze Need This Data?

When Personyze has an up-to-date report of the products viewed by visitors, articles read, items added to cart and wishlist, and so on, it can recommend items that resonate with the LATEST (and thus most relevant) interest of a visitor. This eliminates obsolete suggestions.

For example, if a visitor has shown interest in an iPhone then upon his very next visit, one recommendation widget can display other iPhone models in terms of memory space and color, and another widget can display most-bought iPhone accessories like screen protector, liquid damage insurance, and more. This also applies to content and news sites, and other platforms.

What Kind of Information Can I Pass on From my Site to Personyze?

  • Products – viewed/added to favorite/added to cart/bought

  • Articles – read/shared/commented/saved for later reading/read in full

  • Interests  – main interest / sub interest 1 / sub interest 2

As already discussed, you can either pass on Interests that you have decided upon, or keep passing on product and article data to help Personyze learn and evolve in real time.

How Do I Set up the Link Between My Site & Personyze?

Whenever a visitor interacts with the elements on a page of your website, Personyze needs to receive a comprehensive report with the ID number and type of interaction in real-time. This updates both existing interest data on Personyze profiles and helps initiate new recommendations in the same session itself.

This report can be generated in two ways:

a. By setting a Javascript code that runs whenever an interaction takes place. There are different types of code snippets for different types of interactions.

b. If all the data needed for the report is contained on your site’s pages, You can use the Simulator to set containers that identify the sections/places from which Personyze can extract data and use it to update ‘Interests’. Everything from site search data to URL parameters can be extracted by the Personyze system.

What happens when my site reports to Personyze?

With the reports on user interactions from the site, Personyze updates the user profiles within the system with the latest interest information. This helps the system keep track of latest and most dominant preferences, and if needed, modifies recommendations in real-time, as the session progresses.

**Customize Recommendation Widget Look, Feel and Design and Choose the Algorithms for Accurate Suggestions.