Recommendations Tips And Troubleshooting

This topic is meant to help you quickly navigate different actions in the app and to provide troubleshooting advice. For more detailed instructions, see the topic related to what you want to accomplish.

How To

This section is a quick start for things you can do in the app. For more detailed instructions, see the topic related to what you want to accomplish.


To Do This:	Do This:
Create a recommendation	Navigate to the Recommendations page by clicking the icon and click New Recommendation. Configure your recommendation and set up the criteria and priorities to use for the recommendation. Click Preview Results to see the results of your recommendation and continue to tweak the recommendation settings until you're happy with the results. If you're building a premium recommendation you need to provide a reference contact and/or a reference product to see the recommendation results. Click Publish Draft to publish the recommendation. If you want to exit the recommendation without publishing it, click the icon to return to the Recommendations page. The recommendation will be saved as a draft. For more details about each option see Create A Standard Recommendation or Create A Premium Recommendation.
Preview the results of a recommendation	If you have a recommendation open, click Preview Results. If you do not have a recommendation open: Navigate to the Recommendations page by clicking the icon. Click on a recommendation to open it. Optional: If you have both a draft and a published version of a recommendation, Click View Published Version if you want to see what the settings and results are for the available version of the recommendation. Click Edit Draft if you want to see what the results are for the draft version of the recommendation. Click Preview Results. If you're building a premium recommendation you need to provide a reference contact and/or a reference product to see the recommendation results.
Publish a recommendation	If you have the recommendation open, click Publish Draft. If you do not have the recommendation open: Navigate to the Recommendations page by clicking the icon. Click on a recommendation to open it. Optional: If you have both a draft and a published version of a recommendation click Edit Draft. Click Publish Draft. For more information see Publish A Recommendation.
View a recommendation	Navigate to the Recommendations page by clicking the icon. Click on a recommendation to open it. Optional: If you have both a draft and a published version of a recommendation, Click View Published Version if you want to see what the results are for the available version of the recommendation. You may need to provide a reference contact or reference product to see the recommendation results. Click Edit Draft if you want to see what the results are for the draft version of the recommendation. If you're building a premium recommendation, you may need to provide a reference contact or reference product to see the recommendation results. The recommendation will open in an editable view and you can see all of the current settings on its summary card.
Edit a recommendation	Navigate to the Recommendations page by clicking the icon. Click the pencil icon associated with the recommendation you want to edit. If a window is displayed, click Edit Draft. Edit the configuration, criteria, and/or priorities for the recommendation. Click Publish Draft to publish the recommendation. If you want to exit the recommendation without publishing it, click the icon to return to the Recommendations page. Your changes will be saved to the existing draft. For more details about each option see Create A Standard Recommendation or Create A Premium Recommendation.
Delete a recommendation	Navigate to the Recommendations page by clicking the icon. Click the X icon associated with the recommendation you want to delete. Click Yes to delete the recommendation.
Discard the draft of a recommendation	If you have the recommendation open, click Discard Draft. If you do not have the recommendation open: Navigate to the Recommendations page by clicking the icon. Click on the recommendation name. Click Discard Draft.
Create a copy of a recommendation	Navigate to the Recommendations page by clicking the icon. Click the clipboard icon associated with the recommendation you want to copy. Enter the name for the new recommendation in the Label box. Premium only: If desired, select a predictive model. Enter a description for the new recommendation. Click Copy Recommendation.
Activate or deactivate a recommendation	Navigate to the Recommendations page by clicking the icon. Click the Active/Inactive switch associated with the recommendation you want to change the status of. Green means active and white means inactive. If a window is displayed, click Yes. For more information see Activate Or Deactivate A Recommendation.
Quickly view the current settings for all of your recommendations	Navigate to the reports by clicking the icon. Click Published Settings report.
Receive app notifications in the platform	Navigate to the global settings by clicking the icon. Check the Receive platform notifications box to receive notifications in Bronto. Check the Receive email notifications box and enter the relevant email address in the Email Address box to receive email notifications. Click Publish Changes.
Set a default recommendation at the app level	Navigate to the global settings by clicking the icon. Select a recommendation from the Select Default Recommendation list. This list contains published, active standard recommendations you have built and a Bronto Predefined Default option. Bronto Predefined Default is the default value for Select Default Recommendation. If you choose Bronto Predefined Default, products from your product catalog will be randomly selected. You can edit the Bronto Predefined Default or delete it if you do not want to use it. Click Publish Changes. For more information see Configure Recommendations Global Settings.
Set global criteria that can be applied to multiple recommendations	Navigate to the global settings by clicking the icon. Click add located next to Global Criteria. Select a product field to use from the Field list. Select the rule you want to apply to the field from the Operator list. Enter or select the value you want the criteria to meet in the Value box. Click Save & Close to save your criteria and move on or Save & Add Another to save your criteria and add another global criteria option. Click Publish Changes. For more information see Configure Recommendations Global Settings.

Troubleshooting

This section provides quick resolutions for common issues that you may encounter.


Issue	Resolution
Product content doesn’t align across the row	This can be either due to inconsistent image sizes or product content wrapping across rows. It's a best practice to have an image product field stored in Bronto that contains images scaled at a size that's appropriate for use in emails. Product wrapping issues can be solved by using CSS to set the height of the content in a container to account for wrapping.
Preview of recommendation results is blank	Either: The reference contact or reference product you're using to generate the preview isn't producing results due to a lack of historical data. To fix this use a different reference contact and/or product. The criteria you set are too restrictive and your recommendation cannot produce results. You haven't clicked the Preview button yet.
Recommendations aren’t returning selected option for parent or variations	This can occur when Parent or Parent Product ID data is missing from your product catalog. To fix this make sure that you have parent and variation products properly imported and mapped. A parent product is the main product record for a group of products that are variations of each other. The parent product should not have a value saved in Bronto for its Parent Product ID. The Product ID for the parent product should be stored as the Parent Product ID for all of its variants. Each variant will have its own unique Product ID.
Recommendation based on reference products are blank	This can occur because a reference product was not provided. Possible ways to fix this: Add a product placeholder to your message to display product to use as reference product. Ensure API loops are using product tag with Product ID as “placeholder”. Ensure message is initiated by workflow with Cart is Abandoned or Order is Added trigger node. A second reason this can happen is because a reference product doesn't produce results due to lack of historical data. To fix this: Provide more reference products. Store description, brand and category in product catalog for best product content matching. Use a backup and/or default recommendation in order to make sure there are enough product recommendations.
Recommendation based on a contact’s history is blank	One reason this can happen is if a contact has little to no order and/or browse history. The only solution for this is to make sure you use segments or lists that contain contacts with a full set of historical data when you send a recommendation message based on contact history. A second reason this may happen is because your reference products don’t have results due to lack of historical data. To fix this: Store description, brand and category in product catalog for best product content matching. Use a backup and/or default recommendations in order to make sure there are enough product recommendations.
Browsed This model results and browse summary data are empty	This might occur because the browse product IDs don’t match the product IDs in the product catalog. To fix this: Sync up product IDs across browse capture, order line items and product catalog. Check your browse settings.
Bought This model results and order summary data are empty	This might occur because the order line item product IDs don’t match product catalog IDs. To fix this: Sync up product IDs across browse capture, order line items and product catalog. Import historical orders. Import historical products then reimport current products.