Display product recommendations

Commerce includes a Product Recommendations widget you can use to provide automated, personalized product recommendations to each shopper.

Using your catalog, click-stream data, and historical shopping information, the widget offers a unique, predictive approach to providing individualized product recommendations to each shopper during every session.

The widget can be placed in any layout, and the same widget instance can be shared over as many pages as necessary to provide recommendations to your shoppers.

Note: For information on including recommendations in emails your store sends, see Customize Email Templates.

To implement product recommendations:

1. Click the Design icon.
2. From the Layout menu, select the layout in which you want to provide product recommendations.
3. Clone the layout to preserve the original layout for future use as a template. For more information, see Design Your Store Layout.
4. Open the layout in grid view. Create any new rows as needed to accommodate the widget.
5. From Components, drag and drop the Product Recommendations widget into the layout in the location you want the recommendations to appear. You can create a new widget instance or use an existing instance.
6. Making changes to widget settings is optional. Either accept the widget default settings or click the Settings icon located on the widget instance to edit the widget settings.
   • Setting changes to Recommendations Title affects font styles and display text for the widget. For information on changing the font, see Customize Your Store’s Design Theme.
   • The Recommendations carousel is where the recommendations are displayed, affected by the number of recommendations to show, the strategy, and the restriction. Additional conditions may affect the appearance of the carousel. For example, a smart phone screen may display fewer recommended products by virtue of its available screen size.
7. On the widget settings dialog, click Settings to make changes to maximum number of product recommendations, strategies, restrictions, and collection(s). Changes to widget settings are optional.
   • Enter the maximum number of recommendations to appear in the widget instance. The default is 12.

   While the default is 12, the number of recommendations displayed to your shoppers is based on strategies and restrictions as well as your catalog configuration. Screen width also influences the number of recommendations displayed in the widget instance at one time.

   As a best practice, choose a number of recommendations so that all recommendations can be viewed in the carousel with one or two clicks of the Next button.

   • Select the strategy, restriction, or collection(s) associated with the displayed recommendations.

   Refer to the following tables for information on the available options.

   • Click Save.

The following table describes the strategies you can apply to displayed recommendations.

Strategy	Description
No Selection	This is a required field. To use the widget, you must make a selection from the menu.
Blended	This is the default setting. No limitations, restrictions, or constraints are placed on the recommended products the algorithm returns, except when joined with the In Brand or In Collection restriction. Otherwise, the recommendation algorithm returns products based on the individual shopper’s behavior.
Top Sellers	This strategy restricts recommendations to global top sellers except when combined with the In Brand or In Collection restriction. The algorithm for the Top Sellers strategy is based on products purchased. It generally considers the top ten percent of recently-purchased products from the product catalog to offer as recommendations. The strategy does not offer products in a sequential order of most purchased items and has no time restrictions as to when items were purchased. Top Sellers is designed to personalize items recommended to each unique shopper. While a particular product might sell more frequently than other products, that product may not be recommended based on a shopper’s navigation of the site.
Purchased Together	This strategy uses the context of the product the shopper is currently viewing. Recommended products are displayed based on the most frequently purchased products by other shoppers associated with the product the shopper is currently viewing.
Browsed Together	This strategy uses the context of the product the shopper is currently viewing. Recommended products are displayed based on the most frequently browsed products by other shoppers associated with the product the shopper is currently viewing.
Most Recently Viewed	This strategy returns products the shopper has viewed. Recommended products are displayed starting from the most recently viewed. First-time shoppers on the site are offered no product recommendations.

The following table describes the restrictions you can apply to displayed recommendations:

Restriction	Description
No Selection	This is a required field. To use the widget, you must make a selection from the menu.
Unrestricted	This is the default setting. No additional limitations, restrictions, or constraints are placed on the recommended products the algorithm returns.
In Brand	Restricts recommendations to products in the same brand in the context of the current product or products being viewed. If there are multiple products–such as the products in a cart–products in any of the brands in the cart can be recommended. If there are no brands in context, no restrictions are placed on the recommendations.
In Collection	Restricts recommendations to products in the same collection or collections in the context of current product or products being viewed. If multiple collections are represented, products in any of the collections can be recommended. If there are no collections in context, no restrictions are placed on the recommendations. Can be used in conjunction with the Collections field. A product can be in one or more collections. For more information, see Organize products in collections.
Collections	Use this field in conjunction with the In Collection restriction. Only products from the selected collection(s) are recommended. If no collections are selected in this field, a product or collection in context is used for the restriction.

In addition to strategies and restrictions, you can use the Collections field to further restrict the products recommended to your shoppers. Used in conjunction with the In Collection restriction, only products from the collection or collections you specify are recommended. If no collections are specified in this field, a product or collection in context is used for the restriction.

Understand product context

Some strategies and restrictions require product context in order to display product recommendations. Confirmation pages also provide context based on products found in the order.

The following explains how strategies and restrictions are used to provide context:

1. If the current page has a brand or collection, it is used for the context of inBrand/inCollection.
2. Otherwise, if the current page has a product, its brand/collections/cobrowses/cobuys are used as the context for inBrand/inCollections/topCobrowses/topCobuys.
3. Otherwise, if there are current wish lists, the products in the wish lists are used to define the context as in 2.
4. Otherwise, if an order has been made in the current session, the products in the order are used to define the context as in 2.
5. Otherwise, if the shopper has added products to his or her cart but not purchased them (either in this session or their most recent previous session), the products in the cart are used to define the context as in 2.
6. Otherwise, no context is found, so the current rules do not apply.

An order is defined as an item that has been put in the cart and purchased... and it would only apply within the same session. The most-recent cart could be from a past session.

Manage personal data in product recommendations

The Product Recommendations widget collects personal data as defined by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, if you have configured your site to request cookie consent, and the shopper has declined to provide that consent, the widget does not capture or use personal data for the visit. Specifically, the Product Recommendations widget checks for the existence of the GDPRCookieP13nConsentGranted cookie. If the cookie is not present on the shopper’s browser, personal data is not collected. Cross-session recommendations are not available for the shopper, and the Most Recently Viewed strategy is not maintained for him or her. The shopper is thus treated as a new, unknown shopper for each session.

For detailed information on how to configure your site to request consent, refer to Manage the Use of Personal Data.