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Merchandising Zones Placement - Best Practice Guide

Updated:

This article gives you guidance on the best place to show Behavioral Merchandising Zones (BMZs) on your site.  This will help you plan your implementation of PureClarity.  

The topics covered are:

  • Explanation of BMZs
  • Page Types where BMZs can be placed
  • Placement best practice for optimal conversion rates

Behavioral Merchandising Zones (BMZs)

‘Personalized Merchandising’ refers to how products, brands and categories are presented, displayed and promoted during the user journey based on the visitor’s interactions and previous visitors’ engagement onsite and offsite (via email and social media).

PureClarity uses zones across your website to show banners and recommendations. These zones are referred to as Behavioral Merchandising Zone (BMZ). They can also appear in automated emails too.

The example below shows a BMZ on the home page showing a product recommender with personalized results based on crowd-based, segment information and individual behavior.

You can define multiple BMZs per page type, although we suggest a maximum of 8 BMZs per page type in the interest of speed performance. For more information on Page Types, scroll down to the Page Type section on this article. 

 

Type of BMZs

PureClarity provides four different types of content for the BMZs which can be configured manually or allowed to run hands-off using the systems AI algorithms. These are:
  • Static Banner– a graphic that will be displayed to matching Campaigns.
  • Rotating Carousel– a series of rotating images – the content of which will be personalized to the individual.
  • Recommender– either a default AI recommender or a manually defined recommender showing personalized results for the individual either product, brand or category related.
  • HTML– for advance use, showing HTML content to the matching Segment.

 

Implementation of a BMZ

A BMZ is implemented on your site as a <div> and the HTML is rendered by PureClarity using your defined template (HTML & CSS). 

In the default AI mode PureClarity will decide which type of recommendation strategy or image to show an individual so it is important that you define the style for all the types of BMZs, e.g. for recommenders Product, Category and Brand.  

For more details see Personalized Merchandising.

 

Page Types

BMZs can appear on many types of pages within your site. PureClarity defines over 19 types of Page Types, such as Homepage, Basket Page, Product Page, Checkout Page and MyRecommendations Page. However, you're not restricted to these page types as a BMZ can appear on any page type you define provided you present any contextual information to PureClarity.

The contextual information, where appropriate, includes product id, brand id and category id, that the recommenders uses.

 

BMZ References

Each BMZ will need to be labelled up with a reference (e.g. Homepage banner will be HP-01 and on mobile HPM-01). These references will show in your PureClarity dashboard where you can simply click on each one to set what you would like to appear for each segment.

As you design your site with the BMZs, please assign references for each one in accordance with the below rules:

The format consists of two letters that refer to which page template the BMZ resides and sequential numbers that show us how many you have on the page (i.e. 01, 02, 03 and so on) and are separated by a hyphen.

For example:

Homepage = HP-01, HP-02, HP-03

Product Listing = PL-01

If you are implementing PureClarity with multiple breakpoints/ sites (i.e. mobile/ tablet) and want the content to be the same, please simply use the same references as the desktop.

If you are implementing PureClarity with multiple breakpoints/ sites (i.e. mobile/ tablet) and want the content to be different, please create separate references so that we can differentiate. You can do this by simply adding an ‘M’ or other, to create a unique code for the implementation.

For example:

Homepage = HP-01, HP-02, HP-03, HPM-01, HPM-02, HPM-03

Product Listing = PL-01, PLT-01, PLM-01

 

Behavioral Merchandising Zones can easily be added in the PureClarity dashboard under 'configurations'. 

 

BMZ Placement Best Practice

Although there are no rules defined for BMZ placements, the following guide outlines best practice for placement based on our experience in the industry and the results achieved by PureClarity’s clients.

Here are the page types discussed below:

 

Global BMZ

You can also define a Global BMZ that appears on all pages.  This is useful for giving promotional information to an individual depending on their segment, e.g. 50% off for first time visitors or Free Delivery within the US for US visitors.

 

 

Suggested BMZ reference name and type:

  • GL-01 - HTML or Static Image

 

Homepage

We recommend that you have at least a hero image or carousel BMZ on your home.  We have seen clients enjoy click-to-conversion rates of circa 11% using this personalization strategy.

We'd also suggest that you have at least 2 recommenders set to the AI setting on the homepage. In this way the software will provide personal recommendations to individuals as they visit your site.

 

Suggested BMZ reference names and types:

  • HP-01 – Main image banner which can be a carousel or static image

  • HP-02 - Recommender (AI default)

  • HP-03 – Recommender (AI default)

 

Category Page(s)

You can setup BMZs for specific category pages or all pages.

Suggested BMZ reference names and types:

  • CP-01 - Static image banner above the content

  • CP-02 - Static image content block under left navigation pane/ filters (if applicable)

  • CP-03 – Recommender (AI default)

 

Product List Page

The product list page shows the products within a specific category.  You can configure PureClarity to show BMZs specifically for a product list page by category or all product listing page.

 

 

 

Suggested BMZ reference names and types:

  • PL-01 - Static image banner above product listings

  • PL-02 - Static image content block under left navigation pane/ filters (if applicable)

  • PL-03 - Recommender beneath product listing area

 

Product Page

We suggest that you put at least 2 BMZs for recommenders on the product page.  In this way, PureClarity will be able to give personal recommendations based on the product viewed.

You may also wish to put a BMZ to hold an image under the product title.  The admin user can set up the default campaign and segment campaigns to show different images for different segments for individual products.  This is a useful technique if you want to give a highly personalized experience around a key product or category.

 

Suggested BMZ reference names and types:

  • PP-01 – Static image banner

  • PP-02 – Recommender (AI default)

  • PP-03 – Recommender (AI default)

 

Added to Basket Page or Pop-up

You could add a BMZ on an 'added to basket' confirmation.  In this way, PureClarity can suggest up-sell and cross-sell options based on individuals behavior and current shopping habits.

 

Suggested BMZ reference name and type:

  • AB-01 - A static image or, a recommender

 

Basket

At the bottom of the basket it is worth putting at least 2 recommenders to show suggestions; PureClarity will be able to provide up-selling and cross-selling suggestions using basket content and previous behavior.

 

Suggested BMZ reference names and types:

  • BP-01 - Static image above the basket

  • BP-02 - Recommender under the basket content (AI default) 

  • BP-03 - Recommender under the basket content (AI default)

 

Order Confirmation

Order Confirmation is an ideal place to put at least 2 recommenders and a promotional image to the customer.

 

Suggested BMZ reference names and types:

  • OC-01 – Static image

  • OC-02 - Recommender under the order confirmation content

  • OC-03 - Recommender under the order confirmation content

 

My Recommendations

It is worth building a new page that includes up to 5 BMZs for recommenders that includes 'My Recommendations'.  PureClarity will show a variety of recommendations.

 

 

Suggested BMZ reference names and types:

  • MR-01 – Static Image

  • MR-02 – Recommender (AI default)

  • MR-03 – Recommender (AI default)

  • MR-04 – Recommender (AI default)

  • MR-05 – Recommender (AI default)

 

Content Page

You can place BMZs on a Content Page. 

Suggested BMZ reference names and types:

  • CT-01 - Static image banner above the content

  • CT-02 - Static image content block under left navigation pane/ content (if applicable)

 

Search Results

You may want to consider putting an image BMZ on the search results page and one under the filtered navigation to target customer segments.

 

Suggested BMZ reference names and types:

  • SR-01 - Static image above the search results

  • SR-02 - Static image content block under left navigation pane/ filters (if applicable)

 

Landing Page

You can place BMZs on a Landing Page.

Suggested BMZ reference names and types:

  • LP-01 – Static image

  • LP-02 – Recommender

  • LP-03 – Recommender

Summary

The principles above have been shown to increase conversions.  You may want to further optimize the solution by using the A/B testing built into PureClarity. You may also gain further advice from your Success Manager. 

 

 

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