Custobar has an add-on feature called product recommendations: We use machine learning algorithms to calculate the best matching product recommendations.
When calculating the recommendations, Custobar utilizes the purchase and browsing data so the more data, the better. It is especially relevant to upload the offline sales data to Custobar, as there is usually a lot of data to be used for the calculation and recommendations are typically more accurate compared to online data only.
You can activate the product recommendations feature in Custobar by asking it from our Customer support. Please note that there is a separate monthly fee for the use of product recommendations.
Another possibility is to utilize product recommendations calculated by specific recommendation engines like Nosto.
Custobar offers product recommendations to be used three different ways
- Requesting recommendations over API
- Using personalized product recommendations in Custobar campaigns
- Showing the best matching products for each customer in the 360° view
1. Requesting product recommendations over API
1.1 Personalized recommendations
Your e-commerce system or any other software can request personalized recommendations calculated by Custobar using the customer ID. Custobar will return the best matching products for each respective customer id.
1.2 Product based recommendations
Your e-commerce system or any other software can request similar products, “customers who bought this also bought” and customers who viewed this also viewed” recommendations calculated by Custobar using the product od. Custobar will return the best matching products for each respective product id.
1.3 Top selling products
Your e-commerce system or any other software can request top selling products with different filtering attributes like from a certain category or brand. Custobar will return the list of top selling products.
For a more detailed technical information, please read the recommendation API reference.
2. Using personalized product recommendations in Custobar campaigns
- You can use personalized product recommendations in Custobar email and banner campaigns. Simply drag-and-drop the “magic product” symbol to your product module and Custobar will replace that with best matching product for each customer.
- You can ask Custobar support to add filters for recommendations like limiting the recommendations to a certain product category or brand only.
3. Showing the best matching products for each customer in the 360° view
- Product recommendations are also visible in the 360° view of individual customer. This module can be used by your customer service or sales people when recommending products for the customer. You can place the recommendations module in the customer view layout editing feature (visible for users with admin rights).
- The product based recommendations are visible in the product view
Modifying product recommendations attributes
A point of high importance for well functioning recommendations is product attributes. Custobar uses attributes such as product categories, brand, and vendor information when calculating recommendations. The better your product data quality is, the more relevant the recommendations will be.
You can also modify some of the product attributes which are used when calculating the recommendations. You have to provide these values to Custobar over Product API reference. The attributes are:
- exclude_from_recommendations: when this value is true, the product will not be recommended.
- in_stock: when this value is false, the product will not be recommended.
- recommendation_freq_days: An integer, determining how often a product can be recommended
- recommendation_set_ids: a list of product ids that that belong to same recommendation set
As always, we are available to answer any questions you may have, and if you want to enable this feature, please let us know at Custobar support.