Creating Next best offers

When you create a Next best offer, you set up an export of a segment and corresponding offers to a marketing orchestration platform such as Oracle Responsys.

Before you begin

Before creating a Next best offer, make sure you have Set up data for Next best recommendations.

Create a new Next best offer

To create a Next best offer:

  1. Click the Oracle icon Image of the application navigation button. Use it to access the different parts of Oracle Unity. in the bottom-right corner to open the navigation menu.
  2. Select Next best recommendations.
  3. In the top-right corner, click Create and select Next best offer.

The Create next best offer page is displayed.

Step 1: Define next best offer details

The details section allows you to define how the Next best offer will display in Oracle Unity.

To define the details:

  1. Enter the details for the Next best offer.

    2. An image of the Next best offer details section

    • Name: This is the name used to identify the Next best offer throughout the application. The name must be unique and have 1 or more characters, up to a maximum of 30. Use only letters (a–z and A–Z), numbers (0–9), underscores (_), hyphens (-), and spaces. The first character cannot be a space.
    • Description: This field is optional, but it is highly recommended to add descriptions for any entity created. This helps all other users get additional context when using and navigating Oracle Unity. The description can have a maximum of 512 characters with no restrictions on characters used.
  2. Click Continue.

Step 2: Select evaluation criteria

The Evaluation criteria section allows you to select the segment that will define which customers should receive the offers.

To select evaluation criteria:

  1. In the Evaluation criteria field, search for segments that have been created by entering the segment name and clicking An image of the Find button. Use it to search for segments.. You can also click the input field and scroll through the list of segments.

    2. An image of the Evaluation criteria section

  2. The list of personalization attributes for the segment will display. To edit the list of personalization attributes, you will need to update the personalization attributes selected for the segment before creating the Next best offer. Learn more about Managing segments.

    3. An image showing the personalization attributes for the selected segment

  3. Review the details for the segment and click Continue.

Step 3: Select offers

The Offer section allows you to configure the offers that will be assigned to customers after being activated.

To select offers: 

  1. Configure how the offers should be selected:
    • Leverage machine learning: The machine learning model will automatically select the most relevant offers from the selected catalog.
    • Manual selection: Enables you to manually select the most relevant offers to include.

      • An image showing selections for how the offer should be selected

  2. Based on your selection, configure the following:

    Leverage machine learning

    1. Use the drop-down list for Catalog to select the set of offers from which the machine learning model will select from.

      2. Note: Only catalogs that have been added and trained at least once will be available for selection.

      An image of the Catalog drop-down list

    2. Click the up and down arrows for Number of offers to specify the number of offers to include from the selected catalog.

      3. An image of the arrows to select the number of offers

    3. To select an additional catalog, click Add An image of the Add icon and repeat the previous steps.

      4. An image of the Add icon

    4. To remove a selected catalog, hover your mouse over the catalog name and click Delete An image of the delete icon.

      5. An image of the Delete icon

    Manual selection 

    1. Click the input field and scroll through the available offers. You can also search by the offer name. To view the definition of an offer, hover your mouse over the offer name.

      2. An image of the list of available offers

    2. Click the offer names to select them. When your next best recommendation is activated, every customer identified will receive these offers.

      3. An image of selected offers

    3. To remove an offer, click X.

      4. An image of the Delete icon

  3. Review the selections and click Continue.

Step 4: Destinations

The Destinations section allows you to select where the data will be exported. The following destination types are supported for Next best recommendations:

  • Secure FTP

  • Responsys

  • CX Sales

To select the destination:

  1. Select the destination you want to use.

  2. Enter a custom file name for the exported file.

    • We recommend using a file name that includes the Next best offer name for easy identification.

    • The file name you provide will override the file name defined in the destination.

    • A timestamp will be added to the custom file name you provide in the following format: yyyy-MM-dd-HH-mm-ss-SSS. For example, entering the file name recent_purchaser_offers will generate the following file name in the destination when it runs: recent_purchaser_offers_2020-05-13-08-04-13-354_0.csv.

  3. Confirm the selection and click Continue.

Step 4: Schedule and notify

You will need to configure the schedule and notification settings for the job associated with the Next best offer.

An image of the Schedule and notify section

To configure the schedule and notification settings:

  1. Configure the schedule settings:
    • Click Recurring to automatically run the job associated with the Next best offer on a regular schedule. If a job is still running while the next one is scheduled to run, the next scheduled run will not start until the current one completes. Two scheduled instances of the same job can't run simultaneously.
    • Click On demand to run the job as needed from the Next best recommendations page.
  2. If the job is recurring, select the Frequency, Start time, and Days it will run.
  3. In the field for Notify, enter the email addresses of people to be notified when the job runs. Separate multiple emails with a comma.
  4. If you only want a notification if the job fails, click the checkbox Only notify on failure.

Step 5: Save and publish the next best offer

After saving the Next best offer, you will need to publish the changes before it can run.

To save and publish the Next best offer:

  1. Scroll to the top of the page and click Save or Save and close.
  2. Follow the steps for Publishing changes.

When the publishing task successfully completes, the job associated with the Next best offer can run.

Learn more

Managing next best recommendations

Creating Next best actions

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