How Recommendations are Created and Updated

Personalized email recommendations are generated based on the email address of the email recipient. When an email containing Barilliance personalized email recommendations is first opened the system looks at the data associated with that particular email address and generates recommendations based on the email recipient's recent activity on the website.

Once the recommendations are generated they are cached for 24 hours and will not change. If the email is opened again after more than 24 hours then the system will generate a new set of recommendations. If the visitor visited the site during the prior 24 hours then the new recommendations are likely to be different.

How Recommendations are Generated When added to Cart Abandonment, Post-Purchase and Other Triggered Emails

The recommendations are generated in the same way they do as explained above, based on the recent history of the associated email address but the logic that is used will give more consideration to the items that are currently in the cart or that were recently purchased. If there isn't enough data to display recommendations based on the cart or recently purchased items more generic recommendations will be used.

How Barilliance Captures the Visitor's Email Address and How it Affects Recommendations

The system captures the email address when visitors type it on the website, the most common places being when logging-in, checking-out or creating a new account. If the Triggered Emails Booster feature is being used emails will also be captured when visitors arrive to the site after a click on your newsletter. Once the email is captured any past or future actions done on that particular device (mainly viewing and buying products) are associated with that email address and will be used for email recommendations.

What Happens if I Send the Recommendations to Someone Who Has Not Visited My Site?

If the system doesn't have enough data to display personalized recommendations for a particular email address then the recommendations will be a mix of the site's top sellers, the products you selected for manual promotion, or items that tend to have a good click-through rate.

Which Type of Recommendation Should I Choose in the "Widget Content" Menu

Unless you are adding the recommendations to one of the other triggered emails (cart abandonment email, post-purchase emails etc...) you must select the first option Recommended items for general newsletters.

My Recommendation Looks Strange/Unrelated to the Item I have in the Cart or Recently Viewed/Purchased

When generating the recommendations the system will give priority to the most recently viewed or purchased items however if there is not enough data to generate recommendation based on those items the system will fallback to earlier items or general recommendations (top sellers, for example). Also please keep in mind that item viewing patterns of the site staff are not representative of a standard visitor. They are much more likely to view a random set of items that are not connected to each other or items that were recently added to the site which can make it seem as if the recommendations are also random. If you believe that the recommendations are not working correctly please forward an email with the recommendations you received to support@barilliance.com