Email recommendations

💡 Prerequisite Knowledge

The knowledge of the following topics is recommended:

• Recommendations and Pathways: Read through this guide to get a better understanding of the Recommendations feature. Email Recommendations work in a similar way.
• Widget Configurator This guide walks you through the process of creating a widget. Email Recommendations use the same widget configuration process.
• Merchandising Capabilities: In this guide, you'll learn how to set up merchandising rules for a widget. The same process is used for merchandising Email Recommendations widgets.
• Familiarity with basic HTML elements and API components to understand the integration of the Email Recommendations widget with email campaigns.

What are Email Recommendations

Bloomreach Email Recommendations feature delivers dynamically rendered product recommendations when your customer opens their email. These recommendations are not predetermined when the email is sent, but rather they are generated in real-time when the email is opened and read.

For instance, suppose you sent an email on Friday that includes Best Sellers Recommendations. The recipient didn’t open the mail and some of the best-sellers went out of stock over the weekend. When the receiver opens the email on Monday, recommendations will exclude the products that went out of stock. Only Best Sellers Recommendations for Monday will be shown.

Email Recommendations integrates your email campaigns with the latest product data to provide a consistent shopper journey from email to digital store.

With Bloomreach Email Recommendations, customers get rich and relevant product suggestions that are tailored to their onsite search or purchase behavior. This enables you to leverage customer data for building engaging personalized email campaigns at scale.

How is this feature useful for you

• More conversions, more revenue: Email Recommendations allow you to retain, re-engage and convert customers by recommending products they are most likely to buy. Using these recommendations, you can also cross-sell and upsell products across multiple channels for greater revenue.

• Improved customer experience: With Email Recommendations, you can leverage our intelligent algorithms to suggest products that are personalized to your visitor’s browsing behavior. Such relevant recommendations make the product discovery experience easy and intuitive, which leads to an enhanced customer experience.

• Unified and consistent digital experience: This feature integrates your customer and product data with your email campaigns and creates a seamless digital experience across web and email channels.

How does this feature work

The following steps must be followed to implement this feature:

1. Create Email Recommendations Widgets
2. Integration with Email Campaigns / Email Service Providers

Create Email Recommendations widget

Similar to Web Recommendations, the Email Recommendations can be configured from the Widget Configurator Dashboard.

The steps for creating an Email Recommendations widget are:

1. Navigation

• Log in to the Bloomreach Dashboard - https://tools.bloomreach.com/. For EMEA customers, use https://tools.bloomreach.co.uk
  
• Go to Recommendations & Pathways > Widget Configurator. Then, click "+ New Widget".
  

2. Add the Widget Basic Info like Widget Name and Widget Description.

Then, select the Primary Algorithm and Secondary Algorithm for the widget.

Primary Algorithm: The Primary Algorithm available for Email Recommendations can be identified with the prefix “Email |”. You can select from the following options:

🚧

Unsupported recommendations algorithms

Experience-driven recommendations, Recently Viewed and Past Purchases are not supported for Email Recommendations widgets.

Secondary Algorithm: Select the alternate algorithm you want the widget to use in case there isn't sufficient data for the primary algorithm.

You can also set the Result size and FL list for the widget. When you finish adding the widget's basic information, click Next Step to proceed.

3. You can now apply the merchandising rules for the widget as described on the Recommendations and Pathways Merchandising page.

Depending upon the use case, you can select the desired recommendation strategy and merchandise recommendations for the emails.

4. Click Save to finish creating the widget.

After creating the widget, copy the widget_id as it will be required in the API call. The widget ID is an alphanumeric value available on the Widget Configurator page. In this example, the widget ID is q9x8ozl0.

📘

Unsupported capabilites

• Audience-based merchandising is not supported for Email Recommendations.
• Email Recommendations widgets are not supported to be created or tested against the Bloomreach Staging environment.

Integration with Email Campaigns / Email Service Provider

The Email Recommendations are delivered as Image and link pairs delivered by Email Recommendations APIs. For each product recommendation, the APIs can be embedded within the email template as a pair of:

1. Proxy API that opens up the Product Display Page when the customer clicks the product’s image in the mail
2. Image API that displays the product’s image in the recommendation

You can embed the pair of Proxy API and Image API in the email template with the Widget ID (nj3rvrjr in this case) of the Email Recommendations widget as follows:

<!-- Proxy API -->

<a href="http://pathways-email.dxpapi.com/api/v2/widgets/proxy/global/nj3rvrjr?account_id=123&do main_key=pacific&_br_uid_2=noBRCookie&url=pathways.dxpapi.com&ref_url=pathways.dxpapi.com&rows=3&start=2">
  
<!-- Image API -->
  
  <img src="http://pathways-email.dxpapi.com/api/v2/widgets/image/global/nj3rvrjr?account_id=123&do main_key=pacific&_br_uid_2=noBRCookie&url=pathways.dxpapi.com&ref_url=pathways.dxpapi.com&rows=3&start=2"> 
  
</a>

Below is an example of an HTML block that would go in the email template with two Bloomreach Recommendations :

First Recommendation

Proxy API 
<a href="http://pathways-email.dxpapi.com/api/v2/widgets/proxy/global/nj3rvrjr?account_id=123&domain_key=pacific&_br_uid_2=noBRCookie&url=pathways.dxpapi.com&ref_url=pathways.dxpapi.com&rows=3&start=0">

Image API
<img src="http://pathways-email.dxpapi.com/api/v2/widgets/image/global/nj3rvrjr?account_id=123&domain_key=pacific&_br_uid_2=noBRCookie&url=pathways.dxpapi.com&ref_url=pathways.dxpapi.com&rows=3&start=0">
</a>

Second Recommendation

Proxy API: 
<a href="http://pathways-email.dxpapi.com/api/v2/widgets/proxy/global/nj3rvrjr?account_id=123&domain_key=pacific&_br_uid_2=noBRCookie&url=pathways.dxpapi.com&ref_url=pathways.dxpapi.com&rows=3&start=1">

Image API
<img src="http://pathways-email.dxpapi.com/api/v2/widgets/image/global/nj3rvrjr?account_id=123&domain_key=pacific&_br_uid_2=noBRCookie&url=pathways.dxpapi.com&ref_url=pathways.dxpapi.com&rows=3&start=1">
</a>

These APIs can be embedded within Email Templates as Image Components.

⚙️

API Reference

For details on the usage and filtering capabilities of the Proxy and Image APIs, refer to the Email Recommendations Widget API Reference.

👍

Please allow our crawler IPs (23.23.175.210) so that we can crawl through the images from your website.

How can I control the look and feel of the Email Recommendations

The Email Recommendations are delivered as Enriched Images in the emails when the email is opened by the recipient. Enriched images are product images enhanced with attributes such as the Product Name, Description, Price, and Brand, and then rendered as a new image in the recommendations. The attributes displayed in the image will be pulled from your product feed.

You can decide the layout of the Email Recommendations by setting up an HTML template for these Enriched Images.

The Email Recommendations pre-generate and store the Enriched Images based on the defined HTML template. This ensures that the images are delivered instantly as and when the customer opens the email.

Here is a Sample HTML Template:

<html>
<body>

<h2> Summer sale is live! </h2>

<a href="http://pathways-email.dxpapi.com/api/v2/widgets/proxy/category/kjy4y2jv?_br_uid_2=uid%3D1251839531436%3Av%3D15.0%3Ats%3D1606749087372%3Ahc%3D13&account_id=6370&domain_key=pacific_supply&user_id=6453546d-5b17-41f4-8fad-43f379d3657f&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacific.com%2Fso3005719.html&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacific.com%2Fl%2F%3Fsearchinfo%3Dps5%2520console%26mode%3Dedu%26sel%3DItem-Condition_New-Items&fields=pid&cat_id=na_280200000000&query=box&start=0&rows=5"/>
<img src="http://pathways-email.dxpapi.com/api/v2/widgets/image/category/kjy4y2jv?_br_uid_2=uid%3D1251839531436%3Av%3D15.0%3Ats%3D1606749087372%3Ahc%3D13&account_id=6370&domain_key=pacific_supply&user_id=6453546d-5b17-41f4-8fad-43f379d3657f&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacific.com%2Fso3005719.html&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacific.com%2Fl%2F%3Fsearchinfo%3Dps5%2520console%26mode%3Dedu%26sel%3DItem-Condition_New-Items&fields=pid&cat_id=na_280200000000&query=box&start=0&rows=5" width="200" height="300"/>

<a href="http://pathways-email.dxpapi.com/api/v2/widgets/proxy/category/kjy4y2jv?_br_uid_2=uid%3D1251839531436%3Av%3D15.0%3Ats%3D1606749087372%3Ahc%3D13&account_id=6370&domain_key=pacific_supply&user_id=6453546d-5b17-41f4-8fad-43f379d3657f&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacific.com%2Fso3005719.html&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacific.com%2Fl%2F%3Fsearchinfo%3Dps5%2520console%26mode%3Dedu%26sel%3DItem-Condition_New-Items&fields=pid&cat_id=na_280200000000&query=box&start=1&rows=5"/>
<img src="http://pathways-email.dxpapi.com/api/v2/widgets/image/category/kjy4y2jv?_br_uid_2=uid%3D1251839531436%3Av%3D15.0%3Ats%3D1606749087372%3Ahc%3D13&account_id=6370&domain_key=pacific_supply&user_id=6453546d-5b17-41f4-8fad-43f379d3657f&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacific.com%2Fso3005719.html&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacific.com%2Fl%2F%3Fsearchinfo%3Dps5%2520console%26mode%3Dedu%26sel%3DItem-Condition_New-Items&fields=pid&cat_id=na_280200000000&query=box&start=1&rows=5"width="200" height="300"/>


<a href="http://pathways-email.dxpapi.com/api/v2/widgets/proxy/category/kjy4y2jv?_br_uid_2=uid%3D1251839531436%3Av%3D15.0%3Ats%3D1606749087372%3Ahc%3D13&account_id=6370&domain_key=pacific_supply&user_id=6453546d-5b17-41f4-8fad-43f379d3657f&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacific.com%2Fso3005719.html&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacific.com%2Fl%2F%3Fsearchinfo%3Dps5%2520console%26mode%3Dedu%26sel%3DItem-Condition_New-Items&fields=pid&cat_id=na_280200000000&query=box&start=2&rows=5"/>
<img src="http://pathways-email.dxpapi.com/api/v2/widgets/image/category/kjy4y2jv?_br_uid_2=uid%3D1251839531436%3Av%3D15.0%3Ats%3D1606749087372%3Ahc%3D13&account_id=6370&domain_key=pacific_supply&user_id=6453546d-5b17-41f4-8fad-43f379d3657f&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacific.com%2Fso3005719.html&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacific.com%2Fl%2F%3Fsearchinfo%3Dps5%2520console%26mode%3Dedu%26sel%3DItem-Condition_New-Items&fields=pid&cat_id=na_280200000000&query=box&start=2&rows=5"width="200" height="300"/>

</body>
</html>

This is the Enriched Image Output

Please reach out to your Bloomreach Integration Engineer to specify the product image, attributes, and the desired layout for the recommendations.

How can I enable this feature

This feature can be enabled both for the present and new Recommendations and Pathways customers.

• Live customers: Please get in touch with the Bloomreach Support team if you’d like to enable this feature.

• Integrating customers: Please reach out to your Technical Services representative who is helping with your integration.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Is the Email Recommendations feature available for all Search customers?
No, Email Recommendations will be available only for the already existing and new Recommendations and Pathways customers.

2. What types of Widget APIs are supported for Email Recommendations?
All the widget types and APIs supported for Web Recommendations are supported for Email Recommendations, except for widgets such as Experience-driven recommendations, Recently Viewed, and Past Purchases.

3. Can I merchandise Email Recommendations widgets?
Yes, similar to Web Recommendations, all merchandising operations are supported by Email Recommendations widgets. Note that audience-based merchandising is not supported.

4. Is it possible to use fallbacks for Email Recommendations widgets?
Yes, the fallback algorithms can be configured for Email Recommendations widgets

Where can I use this feature

You can use this feature to enrich your customer emails with product recommendations for many use cases. Some examples are listed below:

• Abandoned Cart
  You may encounter visitors abandoning their shopping carts before purchasing on your site. Abandoned carts can potentially lead to lost conversion opportunities. It’s essential to re-engage and convert these visitors with high purchase intent.
  If you have Bloomreach Engagement or another CDP integrated, you can re-engage such customers by recommending products that are similar to those left in their abandoned cart.

• Marketing Emails and Newsletters
  You can use Email Recommendations to recommend products regularly based on Weekly Trending Products, Monthly Bestsellers, New Arrivals from Favorite Categories, and more.

• Order Confirmation and Tracking
  You can use our Co-Bought algorithm and deliver email recommendations to cross-sell products similar to the most recent purchase of your customer.

• Account Creation
  In retail, you often already have rich browsing information that can be used to personalize the experience for a new customer.
  When sending an account confirmation email, you can add personalized recommendations for New Arrivals, On-Sale products, or other categories the customer browsed.