Listrak Predictive Content enables you to dynamically insert content from your website into your email campaigns. Predictive Content nurtures your relationship with email subscribers by including content relevant to them based on recent site activities such as purchase or site browse. Capitalize on the content you have already put effort into creating with this easy-to-set-up integration.
Additional Resource: Learn how Reporting for Predictive Content works!
Features
The Listrak Predictive Content Crawler automatically finds and indexes content on your website.
The Listrak Recommendation Engine systematically infers subscriber interests based on product browse, product purchase, and content browse activities.
Content is assembled when emails are opened to serve each subscriber content relevant to their unique interests.
Predictive Content can enhance marketing emails or triggered automated campaigns to increase personalization across all touchpoints.
Integration
Requirements
In order to use Listrak Predictive Content, the Listrak Framework needs to be implemented on your content pages. The Listrak Framework enables the content crawler to identify the content that can be dynamically inserted into emails.
Replace [Merchant ID] with your unique ID then copy and paste this block of code directly above the </body> tag on your content pages.
<!-- Listrak Analytics – Javascript Framework -->
<script type="text/javascript">
var biJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://" : "http://"); (function (d, s, id, tid, vid) {
var js, ljs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s);
js.id = id; js.src = biJsHost + "cdn.listrakbi.com/scripts/script.js?m=" + tid + "&v=" + vid; ljs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, ljs); })(document, 'script', 'ltkSDK', '[Merchant ID]', '1');
</script>
💡 Contact Listrak Support or your Account Manager for your merchant ID.
Activating the Predictive Content Crawler
The Predictive Content Crawler is responsible for finding and indexing your website content. Once activated, the Listrak Predictive Content Crawler will run on autopilot. Listrak will detect new content as it is published on your website. There is no feed or upload necessary for the crawler to discover new content. If a newly added page has not been indexed, you can visit the page on your site to kickstart the crawl process on that new content item.
💡 Visit the page in an incognito window or send the link to a colleague to ensure any cookies sent when previewing a blog post do not interfere with indexing.
The Predictive Content Crawler has the ability to index any page that contains the Listrak Framework. You can narrow the locations Listrak will scrape for content using URL Rules or meta tags that specify if content should be scanned (included) or not scanned (excluded).
You can mix and match the URL rules and Listrak-content meta tags in your configuration. The Listrak-content tag will override any URL rules you have set in the URL rules manager.
Content Assets
The following assets are stored for each content item. The Listrak Content crawler will auto populate results based on the data provided by your blogging platform (e.g. URL) or use machine learning to guess the most relevant information. If you are looking for more granular control over what is captured for a particular content item, you can use a Listrak meta tag to make any modifications.
Image
Title
Description
Tags
Publish Date
Expiration Date
Page Views
URL
⚠️ Content must contain an image, title, and description to be eligible to display in an email.
Using the Content Manager
Navigate to Solutions > Recommender Predictive Content.
Click Content Manager to view your eligible content.
Navigate to your desired tab. Learn more about each below.
Content Tab
The content tab displays all of the content that has been indexed by the Predictive Content crawler. The table will display the high level information about the blog posts including: title, image, description, publish date, and page views over the last 7 days Click on the blog post title to open up the full details on a specific post. You can also use the search function to locate a specific blog post by searching for terms within a title, description, or tags.
By default, the content tab automatically hides content that is not eligible to be included in an email. Content may be in-eligible for one of two reasons 1) the content is missing one of the three required pieces of data (image, title or description) or 2) a piece of content with all 3 elements was manually disabled by sliding the enabled toggle from on to off.
💡 If you uncheck the hide content checkbox manually disabled content will still be listed as eligible in eligibility column. In-eligible content will be displayed at the end of the list of possible content and highlighted in red.
Why manually disable content?
You may choose to disable eligible content for a number of reasons based on your specific business needs. Two of the most common reasons to disable content are:
Temporarily disabling content because you are featuring it in an email and do not want it to appear in both a feature and the predictive section.
Outdated content, such as gift guides from previous holiday seasons, that have the necessary information but are no longer relevant. This is the recommended method if you are disabling a small number of articles, rather than creating a URL rule for each article.
URL Rules Tab
URL Rules use URL patterns to specify what content to exclude or include in the recommendations. If a URL Rule is set to exclude, content that fits the rule will not be indexed by the crawler or updated if changes are made to the page. Rules are written in regular expression where * equals a wildcard and are read top-to-bottom. Add the excluded URLs first, then if needed, enter the URLs that should be included below to avoid recommending content items you are trying to exclude.
Create New URL Rule
Enter the full or partial URL in the New URL Rule field.
💡 The rule can end in a wildcard to target all URLs that contain anything after the wildcard.
Select Include or Exclude from recommendations.
Click Add Rule.
Click Save Rules at the bottom of the page.
Example Ruleset:
Exclude: http://mysite.com/blog/author-pages/*
Exclude: http://mysite.com/admin/*
Include: http://blog.mysite.com/*
Include: http://mysite.com/videos/*
💡 Consider creating rules that exclude the following types of pages:
Paging:
Identify what a URL looks like when you are on the second page of an article or the second page of a category listing.For example, if your URLs look like this: http://mysite.com/blog/article-name/page-2/
You could write this rule to exclude anything beyond the first page. Exclude: */page-*/
Category Pages:
Category pages can be used to classify types of content on your blog, such as the different meals for a recipe blog.
To exclude something like this: mysite.com/blog/category/example-category-name/
Exclude: */category/*/
Search Pages:
Search pages are specific URLs that may populate if your blog has a search function. Some blogging platforms will populate content on these pages which can be indexed and you may choose to exclude from results.
To exclude something like this: mysite.com/blog/search/an-example-search-here
Exclude: */search/*
Comment Pages:
Comment pages or comment URLs may form if your blog has a comment section or a hotlink directly to the comments for a specific blog post, rather than accessing them by scrolling to the bottom of the page.
For example, if your URLs look like this: mysite.com/blog/article-name/comments
Exclude: */comments
💡 How Listrak handles canonical URLs
Canonical URLs are the URLs that you want your visitors to see. To avoid creating duplicate content items, Listrak honors canonical URLs. When a canonical URL is detected, we will index and store content assets and activity under the canonical URL. You should craft your URL rules based on the canonical URL.
Test URL Rules
This area can be used to confirm a sampling of content items will be included or excluded. Paste a canonical URL from your website into this box to test if it would be included or excluded from the crawler. This test function will honor any URL rues created.
Content Discovery Tab
The content discovery tab allows you to see what information the Predictive Content crawler will discover, even if a page has not been indexed yet.
💡 This can be a helpful tool as you are getting started with Predictive Content to identify any updates you may want to make, such as adding meta tagging.
Simply paste a URL into the Content Discovery box and click Preview. All content that would be gathered by the crawler will display.
Adding Predictive Content to an Email
Once you have eligible content items in your content manager, you are ready to begin adding content to emails. Follow the steps in the following articles:
Predictive Content Built-In to Composer
Recommendations are compiled at the time of open for each person on your list. Each person will receive a unique set of recommendations based on their past behavior. Once an email is opened, the content will not change (so a visitor can go back to read an article they have saved to their inbox).
If the predictive content is sent in a recurring campaign (for example, a weekly email), the subscriber will get a new set of content each time the message is sent. You can create a recurring message and set it on autopilot with confidence that the subscriber will get relevant content every week.
Reporting
The Predictive Content Dashboard gives you insight into how your email subscribers are engaging with content items, tags, and content blocks. For each area, you are able to see the number of times the item, tag or block was recommended, the number of times they were clicked and their click-through rate.
Learn more about available Reporting.
FAQ/Troubleshooting
SCENARIO 1: Content from my website is not showing up in the content manager.
Possible Cause 1: A required content asset is missing
Content must contain an image, title, and short description to be eligible.
In the content manager, uncheck Hide content that won't be recommended. Is your content item showing but showing as ineligible? If so, add Listrak meta tags to add the missing image, title or description.
Possible Cause 2: Content does not match a URL rule
Content page must match a content rule or contain a Listrak-Content=true meta tag.
Copy the URL of your content item into a Notepad. Navigate to the content manager and visit the URL Rules tab. Paste the URL into the TEST URL area to confirm the content item matches a URL rule.
See Also: Create New URL Rules
Possible Cause 3: Meta content tag is missing
If you are using the meta content method, visit the content item and view the source code to confirm the meta tag is appropriately placed on the page.
Possible Cause 4: A Canonical URL is present and the Canonical URL does not match a rule
View the source of your content page to see if there is a canonical URL meta tag present on the page. If a canonical URL is present, copy and paste the canonical URL into a Notepad. Navigate to the content manager and visit the URL Rules tab. Paste the canonical URL in the TEST URL area to confirm the canonical URL matches a URL rule. Revise your rules accordingly. Content is indexed and stored by canonical URL. Content items that redirect to another URL are ignored in favor of the canonical URL. This prevents duplicate content items from entering your content manager.
SCENARIO 2: Duplicate content is showing in an email or in the content manager.
Possible Cause: You have duplicate content on your website
Typically, seeing the same article twice in an email or in the content manager, means you have the same information saved in two different URLs. Navigate to the content manager and search for the title of the article to confirm this is the case.
When content is saved more than one place, select a single reference URL and add a canonical URL meta tag to all duplicates of that page. Content is indexed and stored by canonical URL.
SCENARIO 3: Publish date is not set or the new content recipe isn't pulling in the most recently published content.
Possible Cause: Crawler cannot detect a good date from your content
Navigate to the content manager to confirm a publish date is being captured for your content. If the publish date is not being captured, add a Listrak meta tag to set the publish date.
See Also: Listrak Content Meta Tags
SCENARIO 4: Disabled content is being recommended in test messages.
Possible Cause: Content is cached from a prior test
Once a content item is disabled in the content manager, it will no longer be recommended to new openers. Anyone who has previously opened the email will continue to see the same content they viewed when they opened the message. Because test emails do not have a unique ID, using the SEND TEST option is not an accurate method to see what recommendation you would receive as a standard email recipient.