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Using Custom URL Variables with Product Recommendations
Using Custom URL Variables with Product Recommendations

Learn more about how to append profile field information and other custom data to Recommender links to use data not natively available.

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Written by Support
Updated over 7 months ago

Display Customized Products using Profile Field Data

There may be an instance in which specific products need to be displayed in a Merchandise Block based on data that is stored in a profile field that can't be referenced natively in recommendations. This can be done by appending profile field data to the products in a Merchandise Block.

Some examples would be - using a contact's car model preference, referencing their favorite football team, or simply using their favorite category. Follow these steps to get started:

Step 1: Create the variable within a Recipe

  1. Define the variable name
    Example: Variable Name - FavCat

  2. Confirm the Profile Field Group and Profile Field that will be used
    Example: Customer Info\Favorite Category

  3. Navigate from the home menu to Solutions > Recommender Recipe Builder.

  4. Within a New or Existing Recipe > click Add to select an Additional Ingredient that accepts a text input
    Types include: Specific Brand, Specific Category, Specific Product Attribute, Specific Subcategory or Custom Ingredient
    Example: Specific Category

  5. Enter the Variable Name preceded by a question mark
    Example: - ?FavCat

  6. Move the Slider to 100%

  7. Complete the Recipe and click Save

  8. Apply the Recipe to a Merchandise Block

Step 2: Append to Merchandise Block in an email

  1. Navigate to New Broadcast Email to create a new message or View Existing Saved Message to select an existing message that will be displaying the Merchandise Block created above

  2. Within the Merchandise block, append the following tag to the END of the product image URL and link URL for all products in the block

Example: /FavCat/<<Customer Info\Favorite Category Default=->>/
KEY: /Variable Name/Info you want to pass/

Display Relevant Products for Solutions that do not reference the most recent customer activity

This is useful where the message is referring to a product that may not be the most recent activity of any type, allowing you to provide the most relevant product recommendations to your users. This can be done by appending the system variable /sku/ to the products in a Merchandise Block.

Applicable Solutions are Alert Suite, Browse Abandonment, and Transactional Messages. There are different steps to follow based on where you are building your messages: in Listrak Conductor or in Journey Hub.


Listrak Conductor Step 1: Confirm the Profile Field Group and Profile Field that will be used

  1. Within the correct list, navigate to Contacts > Email Contacts Profile Fields

  2. Look for the Profile Field regarding the Product SKU. Note, this will be different for each solution

Solution Examples:
Browse Abandonment Profile Field Group Name\LastBrowsedSKU
Alert Suite Profile Field Group Name\Product Sku
Transactional Messages Profile Field Group Name\ProductSku1

Listrak Conductor Step 2: Append to Merchandise Block in an email

  1. Navigate to Authoring to select (either a New or Saved) message that will be displaying the Merchandise Block created above

  2. Within the Merchandise block, append the following tag to the END of the product image URL and link URL for all products in the block

Solution Examples:

Browse Abandonment
- /sku/<<Profile Field Group Name\LastBrowsedSKU Default=->>/
Alert Suite
- /sku/<<Profile Field Group Name\Product Sku Default=->>/
Transactional Messages
- /sku/<<Profile Field Group Name\ProductSku1 Default=->>/

Journey Hub Step 1: Identify the Correct Journey Tags

  1. Find the tag glossary for the specific journey type you are creating.

  2. Copy the specific tag to meet your goal.

Journey Hub Step 2: Append to Merchandise Blocks in an email

  1. Navigate to the journey you are looking to updated and edit the message that will be displaying the Merchandise Block created above.

  2. Within the Merchandise block, append the following tag to the END of the product image URL and link URL for all products in the block

Browse Abandonment 
/sku/[[Journey:Browse.Product.Sku Default='']]
Alert Suite
/sku/[[Journey:Alert.Item.Sku Default='']]


Ensure images are displayed by adding an encoding parameter

Since a raw space is not allowed in a URL most often times it is converted into a %20, however, Gmail handles spaces a little differently by converting them into a + sign. In the case when the value being passed contains a space, the + sign conversion leads to displaying broken images. Adding an encoding parameter will ensure images opened in a Gmail inbox will display properly.

Simply add UrlEncode=true after the profile field name in the appended tag.

For Example:

/sku/<<Profile Field Group Name\ProductSku1 UrlEncode=true Default=->>/
OR
/FavCat/<<Customer Info\Favorite Category UrlEncode=true Default=->>/

A few things to note:

  1. The dash after the equals sign in the Profile Field section of the appendage is REQUIRED.

  2. Append the same strings to both the Link and Image URL of a product or else it will link incorrectly, generally to a 404 page.

  3. Use the personalization control panel in a message to verify the syntax/formatting for your profile field is correct.
    Example: If the Profile Field is written as Product_SKU, write it that way in the URL appendage

  4. When a SKU is being used as a reference product (see the second example), there's no need to define any activity in the recipe builder, as the reference product is being passed in through the custom URL variable.

  5. Multiple SKUs can be passed by appending the above multiple times with different profile field names. This is the case usually with Transnational Messages. Be sure to set the Last # of Recent activity to the maximum number of appended SKUs, the maximum limit is 25.

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