Personalization studio

Introduction to 1:1 Personalization

Enabling 1:1 Personalization on your site dynamically ranks products differently for each shopper, in an order that is most relevant to their preferences. This personalized product ranking makes finding products easier and can nudge the shopper toward making a purchase.

The shopper's affinities for products with certain attributes are determined by the shopper's interactions. These interactions can include product or category views, query searches, add-to-carts, purchases, and more.

For example, Bloomreach observes how a site visitor (new or returning) interacts with different products. If they tend to view and buy shirts from certain brands over others, then our algorithm will boost the products of the preferred brands in the search results of similar queries like “formal wear” for this particular shopper.

How personalized ranking works

User profile creation

1:1 Personalization uses user data from Bloomreach Pixels to create an anonymous user profile of the site visitor. User journeys are created by monitoring the user’s interactions with different products and pages.

• If it is a returning visitor and has an existing user_id, their long-term profile will be remembered for up to three months.
• If it is a new visitor, the br_uid_2 (cookie2) parameter from the Pixel is used to create their short-term profile for up to one month.

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Note

More information on the data collected by the user cookie and its sensitivity can be found in Pixel data protection.

Affinity-based ranking

For each user profile, 1:1 Personalization operates by monitoring the user’s interactions and remembering affinities for different product attributes like brand, color, size, etc. It automatically learns which attributes are relevant for creating and matching affinities.

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Important

Numeric attributes are not used for personalization right now.

The feature uses a multi-attribute personalization approach. Here are the key objectives it achieves:

• It can track the user’s preferences on different pages based on context.
  For example, a ‘Dresses’ page might identify a preference for color or size, while a ‘Perfumes’ page might focus on brand preferences.
• It can transfer relevant affinities from one query or category to another related one.
  For example, if a shopper shows a preference for “size: S” on a ‘Dresses’ page, this preference can also influence related categories like ‘Gowns’ but not unrelated categories like ‘Sandals’.

Personalized ranking precedence rules

1. Bloomreach Merchandising rules will always take precedence over personalized ranking.
2. The latest query intent always takes precedence (for example, a search query “Red shirt” will always override any previous shirt color preferences).
3. In-session affinities take precedence over long-term user profile data.

Understanding session-based personalization

Personalization works over multiple user sessions for both new users (non logged-in) and repeat users (logged-in).

Personalization for non logged-in users

For a new site user with no past interaction data, products are initially ranked using the Bloomreach default algorithm. After the user makes at least 3 interactions on the site, affinities start building up, and personalization starts applying to their subsequent relevant searches.

At this point, the user profile for this visitor would have been generated, and they would get personalized results on later visits for up to a month (unless they log in).

Personalization for logged-in users

For a returning site user with at least 6 past interactions, personalization is applied from the start of a new session (based on their previous affinities). After the user makes at least 3 new interactions on the site, affinities start updating, and real-time personalization starts applying to subsequent relevant searches.

All the interaction data collected over the session is added to the user’s past interaction data, which is stored for up to three months.

Personalization across devices

• 1:1 Personalization will continue to apply to logged-in users with valid user_id, and personalization data will be collected even if they log in from a different device.
• 1:1 Personalization will not apply over multiple devices for non logged-in users (without a user_id).

Set up 1:1 Personalization

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Note

The 1:1 Personalization feature can be accessed if a user has the “Personalization studio editor” role assigned to them.

1. To set up 1:1 Personalization for your site, go to AI Studio > Personalization studio.

2. Under the Setup tab, click the Set up personalization button to run the setup.

   

3. In the pop-up panel that appears, select the catalog for which you want to enable personalization and click Start setup.

These steps will trigger the pipelines required to capture the user profiles of your site visitors for personalization. It takes 24 - 48 hours for the initial setup to complete, until which the catalog’s status will be indicated as setup in progress.

Once the setup is complete, you can configure the personalization experience for your shoppers across different levels of your site.