A site’s content generates clicks from users. For example, if someone visits a sporting goods store’s site and clicks on several hunting promotional ads, you can deduce an interest in hunting products and can promote this type of content when this user visits the site again.
Accomplishing this with Segment-based personalization is possible, but that method is really targeted for vertical specific messaging or content with a preconceived audience. You may have to create hundreds of Segments to target all combinations of customer use cases. Instead, you need an infrastructure that tracks user views and displays the appropriate content based on behavior. You can accomplish this with Content Recommendation.
This is done by adding tags to content/Pages and monitoring the users who visit them. When a user views a specific content type or Page, its tags are attached to that user as interests. When the user visits other pages, content that matches their interests is displayed to them. The monitoring process is facilitated by Analytics Cloud, so you must have your DXP instance synced with it. If you haven’t done this yet, start by adding your DXP instance as a data source.
Once your DXP instance is synced with Analytics Cloud and you’re leveraging Content Recommendation, a user’s interests are viewable by navigating to the left menu → Individuals → Interests.
Figure 1: A user's interests are stored and accessible from Analytics Cloud.
You can learn more about Analytics Cloud’s individual analytics here.
To begin recommending content to users, you must
- Add tags to content and/or Pages.
- Display content based on user behavior.
You’ll step through these processes next.
Adding Tags to Track User Behavior
To track user behavior and accumulate their interests, you must add tags to the content and Pages they visit. First, you’ll add tags to web content and configure it to be viewable using a Display Page Template.
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Go to Site Administration → Site Builder → Pages → Display Page Templates. Select the Add button (
), give it a name, and click Save.
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In the right menu, select Mapping (
), choose the Web Content Article content type and choose Basic Web Content for the subtype. Then click Save.
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Add a Fragment to the Display Page and map its field to Basic Web Content. For example, click Section Builder → Basic Components and drag the Paragraph Fragment to the page. Then click the Map button and select Basic Web Content for its Source and Field.
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Publish the Display Page Template.
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Begin creating Basic Web Content. Before publishing the content, navigate to the Display Page Template section and select Specific Display Page Template from the selector. Then select the Display Page Template your created previously.
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Go to the Metadata section in the right menu. Assign tags that characterize the content. These are the tags that are referenced as interests when a user views the content. Then click Publish.
Now your web content is mapped to a Display Page, which allows the assigned tags to be tracked as interests when the web content is clicked. You can alter this process based on the asset types you want to recommend.
You can also assign tags to a Page’s SEO configuration, which would then be assigned to users as interests when they visit the Page. Here’s how to do this:
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Navigate to Site Administration → Site Builder → Pages.
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Click the Actions button (
) → Configure for a Page you want to add tags to.
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Select SEO → Categorization and add relevant tags to the page. Then click Save.
Awesome! Now your content and Pages have tags that are assigned to users as interests when they visit them. These interests are assessed when recommending content, which you’ll learn how to leverage next.
Displaying Content Based on User Behavior
Now that your Site’s users’ have their interests tracked using tags, you’ll want to set up an Asset Publisher to display the content based on their behavior.
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Navigate to the Site Administration → Content & Data → Content Sets.
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Select the Add button (
) and click Dynamic Selection. Assign a name and click Save.
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Under the Content Recommendation tab, enable Content Recommendation. Then save the Content Set.
Figure 2: Enable Content Recommendation for your Content Set.
For more information on Content Sets, see Creating Content Sets.
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Add an Asset Publisher widget to a Page. Navigate to its Options (
) → Configuration menu and select the Content Set asset selection.
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Select the Content Set you want to display. Then click Save.
In a realistic scenario, Content Sets have many assets with differing tags. That way, content similar to a user’s interests is displayed over other content.
Great! Now when users have accumulated interests based on views, the Asset Publisher only shows content based on their interests.