Getting Started with Campaigns

Introduction to campaigns

Overview

Key information about this feature

Scopes

• Scopes are a mapping of your organisational structure into Fredhopper's Merchandising Studio
• Allows you to form “areas of effect” for business rules
• Scopes can be as vast (e.g. site-wide) or as granular (e.g. Dresses page of the mobile Spanish site) as required
• Multiple scopes can be selected to view all related campaigns
• Reordering the priorities of campaigns is not possible when more than one scope is selected
• A campaign cannot be created for multiple scopes but can be copied over to other scopes once it is created
• A campaign in a specific child scope has priority over a campaign created in a parent scope.
• Users can be allowed or denied read/write access to any scope
• Scopes can be modified from the Management tab under System in the Merchandising Studio

Triggers

When setting up campaigns you may want to add an additional trigger. You can use the triggers inherited from the parent scope or add one or more new trigger/s. Common triggers used for campaigns are:

• Current item
• User Location
• Keywords
• Gender
• Query type - Navigation or Search
• Device type
• Value Distribution
• Page template
• Any of the above plus a specific Date and Time period
• A combination of the above

A number of custom triggers are set up at the implementation stage - speak to your technical consultant to learn more.

What is a trigger?

Triggers define, where, when or under what circumstances an action occurs in your Fredhopper implementation. This could be a search on your site or navigation to a product listing/detail page.

• When more than one trigger has been set, these are always considered as “conjunctive”, i.e. User Location is x AND Value Distribution is y, rather than User Location is x OR Value Distribution is y
• All trigger conditions must be satisfied to result in the action

Triggers are selected from the dropdown (the list below is taken from a demo site and may differ to the options in your Merchandising Studio):

As previously mentioned, triggers are inherited from the parent scope and are applied automatically based on how they have been configured in the System > Management section of your Merchandising Studio. You may want to use these triggers or add additional triggers to specify a keyword or user location for example:

Multiple triggers can be created within one campaign. For example, you want to set up a campaign in advance to advertise a 70% sale which launches the following Saturday from today (today being the 15th October 2019) and lasts for a period of 1 week. 

Here's how the trigger settings may be configured for this campaign:

Note that inherited triggers can only be changed in the System > Management section of your Merchandising Studio.

If your trigger includes a Fredhopper location-based condition, it is important to check the specific location type that is selected in the dropdown for the Campaign. The options that appear may differ depending on which trigger you have selected. For example, when using a User/Catalogue location you will need to choose from one of the following:

Understanding your product hierarchy will allow you to make the right selection in this field based on when you want the campaign to appear: 

Trigger	Example	Will be triggered when...	Won't be triggered if	Graphical representation
Contains*	User location contains  Fragrance	A customer has reached a location that contains “Fragrance”. However, it is will also continue to show/be triggered after the customer selects additional facets in the location. To illustrate: if one customer navigates Beauty > DKNY > Fragrance and another customer navigates Beauty > Fragrance > DKNY, the campaign or ranking will be triggered in both cases because both paths contain the location Fragrance	If the location does not contain the location specified in the trigger
Ends with*	User location ends with Fragrance	A customer reaches the location “Fragrance”. To illustrate: if one customer navigates Beauty > DKNY > Fragrance and another customer navigates DKNY > Beauty > Fragrance, the campaign or ranking will be triggered in both cases because both paths end in the location Fragrance	Until a customer gets to the location Fragrance and it will also not be shown/triggered if the customer selects additional facets in the location
Equals	User location equals Women > Shoes > Ugg	The path a customer followed to get to the Ugg facet is exactly equal to specified user location, in this case, Women > Shoes > Ugg	If a customer gets to the Ugg facet by navigating Shoes > Women > Ugg or Ugg > Women > Shoes or any way that is not exactly equal to the path defined in the trigger
Starts with	User location starts with Women > Shoes > Ugg	A customer has followed the exact path defined in the trigger. It will also continue to be shown/triggered after the customer selects additional facets in that location. To illustrate: the campaign or ranking triggered for “User location starts with Women > Shoes > Ugg” will also be triggered for “User location starts with Women > Shoes > Ugg > Size EU 41/UK 7” and “User location starts with Women > Shoes > Ugg > Size EU 41/UK 7 > £50 or more”	If a customer gets to the Ugg facet by navigating in any way that is not equal to that defined in the trigger

*CAUTION
It is important to note that the “contains” and “ends with” types refer to the specific Fredhopper location and not the term/word that has been expressed in the trigger. If a trigger is not behaving as you would expect, it is most likely the case that your store category hierarchy includes two or more locations with the same name. Or that you are not taking the behaviour of the type of facets in use into account. Other triggers, such as the Dominant Category, Dominant Brand, Dominant <attribute> and Current Item, can also trigger campaigns or rankings in specific locations (that may not be expected).

Campaign types

There are different types of content that can be shown in a campaign. A campaign showing products can provide an initial set of products (coming from the current user selection, a pre-defined catalogue selection, a pre-defined set of products, or a dynamic source).

The set of products can be further filtered by attributes and values, and can then be ranked according to an attribute.

Type	What is it?	Additional options	Common scenario for use	Example
Items	This option allows you to display products to a shopper. This can include up or cross-selling of products.	User location. Allows you to display products based on the user's location within your catalogue.	Here you can choose to show a number of products based on any of the data attributes you have. For example: Show products that are from the same category and/or the same brand as the product being viewed i.e. 'You may also like' Show products that have a higher (or lower) price of the item being viewed Show products with a high margin from a specified brand
		Static location. Allows you to display products from the static location. This means the products from this location will always be displayed.	Here you can choose to show a number of products from a fixed location. For example: Always show 4 high priced products from X category Show red shoes with red dresses Show earrings of the same brand when a shopper views a necklace product description page
		Handpicked items. Allows you to display specific products (by Product ID's) to be shown on a page.	You can choose to show specific products to return on a page, these are manually chosen during the campaign configuration. For example: Show 4 Levi's products to be displayed, ranked by price high to low Show a carousel of high-price gifts Show specific items to 'complete the look'' 1 pair of shoes, 1 pair of earrings, a lip balm and 1 jumper Products shown will not change unless the campaign is deleted or re-configured. Campaigns based on manual selection should be avoided unless automation is not possible.
		Dynamic source. This option uses an attribute from your dataset and specifies which products are to be shown. This campaign will only show on a product detail page.	In order for this option to return products, you need to have provided pre-calculated product ID's within your attribute data. This data set will link products with other products.  For example: A range of products will be shown on a product detail page On the product detail page return visually similar products Show appropriate accessories related to the product i.e. this camera has these 3 accessories
Images	Typically known as a banner campaign. Here you can configure this campaign with multiple images, but only one URL link per image. You do not have to add a URL to the image, as you may be advertising a discount code for example.	N/A	A visual way to navigate shoppers or promote products. For example: Used to promote a sale or link to one category page Visual link to one category page Set up multiple images, one for each of your categories, including a link to the relevant pages. This provides a visual navigation option for your shopper
Image with multiple links	Similar to an Images campaign but this option allows you to set up multiple hotspots on the image that can redirect a shopper as required. This is also an option that can be used to create a manual version of 'Shop the look'.	N/A	A popular campaign type which can be used for an array of reasons. For example: To promote different category options To guide shoppers to a preferred brand To guide shoppers to a popular category
Text	The most simple but at the same time most versatile campaign type. Can be used to supply additional text content to the front-end. This text can be for rendering or any additional content to supplement the page like (HTML, Metadata, etc.) SEO.	N/A	Examples: Provide a description associated with the category page You may want to provide a link to a Size guide or Buying guide using a text campaign To drive SEO	Simple text campaign with no URL: BED LINEN COLLECTIONS Our exceptional bed linen comes in an extensive variety for every style and spend, giving you plenty of options for each bed you want to dress. _______________________________________ OR a Text campaign with a URL: Click here for our size guide _______________________________________

Items campaigns

Items campaigns can provide a means to inspire shoppers to purchase your products. This could include: recommending products from the same category or brand, offering discounts or maybe showing products that shoppers are looking for at a certain time of the year e.g. Black Friday, Summer sale or Champagne on Valentine's Day etc. Other uses could be to show products that 'complete the look' or have similar attributes, i.e. colour, size, fabric/material or price for example.

This is a great way to recommend other items to a shopper. Items displayed can be from the user's current location, from a static location (a different location to where they have landed on), handpicked items (exact items you have selected) or from a dynamic source (based on a Behavioural attribute that has been configured in the System > System > Merchandising Studio defaults section of the Merchandising Studio).

Items campaigns are used to:

• Supply additional items to the front-end
• You can specify how many items you would like to serve and where these items should come from:
  • A certain location in the catalogue with optional additional filters
  • Can be read from the input data (i.e. show only these items with these items)
• If there are more suitable items than you want to show, you can specify a certain sorting and chose the top candidates
  • (i.e. show the top 4 best selling yellow dresses)
• Filters can be dynamic for product detail pages (PDP)
  • “Show items from the same category and colour of the viewed item”

Here's an example of an item campaign in the Merchandising Studio preview page:

When setting up a campaign there are some key areas to explain:

1. Enter the name of your campaign
2. Add an additional trigger to those inherited from the parent scope if required like Current item, User Location, or Device type
3. Enter text for the display title (optional)
4. Enter text for the display slogan (optional)
5. Choose Items from the drop-down
6. Type the number of items you would like to appear in your campaign. These items can come from one of the following four options
   1. The user location
   2. A static location
   3. Handpicked items
   4. A dynamic source. More details on these four options below.
7. Add filter/s - these are based on the attributes already set up, for example, you can filter the products displayed by Brand of the viewed item, the higher price of the viewed item or a combination of filters
8. Choose to rank the items naturally or by an attribute, this can include any of the ranking cocktails you may have already set up

User location

This option will display items based on the shopper's location, so if you have set up a campaign to trigger on "womens tops", then items from that category will be shown:

This is a really versatile setting when used with 'Page Template' & selecting the 'Detail' option as the trigger. This means that whenever a shopper lands on any detail page they will see other products associated with the product they are viewing. It will cover all categories and will be triggered on every product detail page.

When using the options below please consider which trigger to apply.

Static location

This option allows you to mix categories to display product recommends, for example when a shopper lands on a red dress, the products recommended are red shoes or perhaps other similar red dresses:

Please be aware that it is important you use the appropriate trigger in conjunction with Static location. For example, it would be best not to use the trigger; 'Page Template' and selected the 'Detail' option with Static location, as this will trigger on all product detail pages and will show items from the static location you have chosen.

Handpicked items

This is a great way to pick specific products to show on a page, these could be products that compliment each other. Perhaps a camera has a number of associated accessories that you want to show to your shopper to encourage purchase or a specific dress could be paired with a specific hairband, a pair of red shoes, and a red bag. Again it is important that you have considered how this will trigger across your site.

Dynamic source

This option allows the automation to group products based on your attribute data and product ID's that have been provided. Very similar to the options above, dynamic source pulls products that have an association with other products, for example:

• this camera also has these accessories (product ID's), or
• this necklace has these matching earrings and bracelet which can be bought separately, but can be visually merchandised together as 'you may also like' or
• it can also be used as 'complete the look' where this top is associated with this skirt and these shoes

In order for the desired products to be grouped, we must receive attribute information for each product with a list of ID's of products that are associated.

Another option is to use our visually similar recommendations, the image service would pre-calculate a list of similar products (ID's) of products that are visually similar.

Dynamic sources hold lists of ID's that have been pre-calculated or added by the business that is in some way related to the product you are viewing. That relationship can be different depending on the use case.

 This example below shows a product page and below are 5+ items which are visually similar:

Images campaigns

Images campaigns can provide a means to inspire shoppers to purchase products. This could include an image for sales items located on your womens category, an image link to seasonal products, or a simple visually appealing way to navigate shoppers to a category in your site.

The configuration possibilities are vast, and you can include an optional URL redirect if desired:

Image with multiple links campaign

These are very similar to the Image campaigns and allow the following:

• Additionally allows Merchandisers to create “hotspots” on singular images
• Information on these hotboxes are sent to the front-end
• When clicked on, these hotspots can redirect a customer to different URLs
• Reduces maintenance and implementation effort for complex banners

It is best practice when creating an image with multiple links campaign to set one campaign up for each 'user type' trigger that you have i.e. desktop, mobile, tablet etc. this ensures that the image and hotspot links will render appropriately.

Text campaigns

The most simple but at the same time most versatile campaign type. Can be used to supply additional text content to the front-end. This text can be for rendering or any additional content to supplement the page like (HTML, Metadata, etc.) SEO.

1. Enter the name of your campaign
2. Enter text for the display title (optional)
3. Enter text for the display slogan (optional)
4. Choose Text from the drop-down
5. Enter text for the title (optional). Note, if you add a URL see point 8 below, then the URL will be applied to this text only
6. Enter text for subtitle 1 (optional)
7. Enter text for subtitle 2 (optional)
   1. Note that you must enter either a title or a subtitle
8. Enter the URL address (optional). This will be applied to the Title text as per point 5 above
9. Click the checkbox if you want the URL to open in a new window (optional)

Campaign management

To the left-hand side of the campaign's homepage, there are a number of options which will help you manage your campaigns.

Shortcuts

Labels

Further filter options

Best practice

• Use a Date and Time trigger (if configured) to set up campaigns in advance
• Deactivate campaigns that are not currently in use, which you may want to reactivate at a later date e.g. annual sale or event like Black Friday, Valentines Day, Christmas, Mothers day etc.. rather than delete them entirely
• Add appropriate labels so you can easily find campaigns
• Use text campaigns to render or supply the page with additional SEO content
• When creating an 'Image with multiple links' campaign you should set one campaign up for each 'user type/device type' trigger that you may have i.e. desktop, mobile, tablet etc. this ensures that the image and hotspot links will render appropriately

Are you ready to create a campaign?

Click here to open a step by step guide for an items campaign

Click here to open a step by step guide for an images campaign

Click here to open a step by step guide for an image with multiple links campaign

Click here to open a step by step guide for a text campaign

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