What Are Einstein Recommendations
Web & Email Einstein Recommendations have multiple benefits. Let’s look at some of them:
- Einstein Recommendations Web – This feature improves your website by personalising your customer’s view by displaying products or content based on Salesforce’s Einstein algorithms which in turn looks at the wisdom of the crowd as well as relevancy based on attributes you associate with the catalogue.
- Einstein Recommendations Email – This feature improves your emails by personalising your customer’s view by displaying products or content based on Salesforce’s Einstein algorithms and calculates the next best thing upon opening (not sending) the email.
How to Leverage Einstein Recommendations for Web
The greatest benefit of Einstein Web Recommendations is that they are based on First-Party cookies which means all incoming traffic on your website is being tracked. The cookies will therefore recognise returning visitors as well as provide recommendations based on their current & previous online behaviour. Below you will find the 5 best places as to where to install Einstein Recommendations for Web.
Home Page (Banner recommendation)
It’s important to personalise not only the products for sale on your website but also to tailor the look and feel of the website to your audience. If you provide insurance services, you might wish to display images that reflect your visitor’s age or family situation whilst if you sell sports gear for different sports, you might wish to display the main images concerning the most relevant sport more prominently on the home page.
Home Page (Product recommendation)
When a visitor has not returned as a customer, the visitor might still be in the consideration phase. It is important to remove as many hurdles as possible which includes allowing the visitor to find the products he or she viewed recently more easily. By presenting the recently viewed products on the homepage, the returning visitor will need less clicks to find the product and in turn reduces bounce rates and improves our chances of converting.
Category Page (Product Recommendation)
If you look at it from a UX perspective, most ecommerce websites are based on category pages. If you from the main page, you drill down to categories from which you drill down further to find the product you are looking for. So the category page is key and that’s why it is extremely important to frontload the products in each category based on recommendations tailored to each visitor! Imagine a google search but on the category page. Very important if colour or design is important to a visitor, that the visitor sees this immediately upon clicking a category.
Cart Page (Product Recommendation)
This one is especially interesting when there are a lot of accessories to a product. Think matching clothing based on a lookbook or batteries if you are selling electronics. It’s the final upsell before a sale happens and has a place in all check-outs.
Product Page (Product Recommendation)
When we first speak about adding recommendations to a client’s online store, we generally speak about this one. Not because it is the highest performing (see category page) but because it’s the classic. People who like this product also like this product and Amazon made it mainstream.
Usually when visitors have reached the product page, they found what they are looking for so adding product recommendations on the product page is more like adding a back-up. It’s there in case the visitor is still looking for something but can’t really find it. We tend to see lower CTR and conversions with this block.
How to Leverage Einstein Recommendations in Email
The greatest benefit of Einstein Email Recommendations is that they are based on the same First-Party cookies as the Web Recommendations are which means you have a wealth of data to use in Email. The great part about it is that people build their tracking on Einstein before they sign up to your mailing list but also as soon as they start clicking in emails, they’ll be adding to their tracking data. Below you will find the 3 best ways to use Einstein Recommendations for Email.
The Welcome Email
One of the key benefits of having Einstein running on your website is that it is collecting information about your visitors based on first party cookies. Once that visitor has signed up to your mailing list, then that subscriber is considered identified and we can apply Einstein Recommendations in Emails.
Imagine if the first email you ever send to a new subscriber is completely personalised? From the header to the content of the email, all tailored based on gender, preferences and budget? You’ll leave a strong impression. Not only does this improve conversions, but the look and feel of an email drastically improves based on each new subscriber.
Product Recommendations per Category
One of the obvious differences between an email and an online store is that emails have limited real estate when it comes to displaying products. If you wish to display 4 rows of 4 products in your email which tends to be the usual amount, you are only able to display 16 products. This while your online store probably contains over 300 products. Therefore it is incredibly important to use that real estate as efficiently as possible and you do this by making sure that the products displayed are personalised based on the recipient.
Recently Searched
The search bar is such an underutilised tool in marketing. Your customer is directly inputting what he or she is looking for and we don’t use this data enough for retargeting. Einstein isn’t a search engine but it could help your visitors in finding the products they need by providing recommendations based on the search term and matching those with what others have bought