Recommendation blocks
In the Type field of the Create a new block card, you can choose one of four types of personalized recommendations:
- Trending Products Block: trending products over a period.
- Recently Viewed Block: products the user viewed recently.
- Repeat Purchase Block: products the user buys repeatedly.
- Personal Recommendations Block: personal recommendations based on history.
1. Trending
This block shows trending products, meaning the ones bought or viewed most often over the selected period. It doesn't depend on a specific user.
When to use: on the home page, in the footer, or as a fallback for other blocks.
2. Recently viewed
This block shows products that a specific user opened recently. It depends on the user's session history and behavior.
When to use: at the bottom of a product page, in the cart, or on the "Account" page.
3. Repeat purchase
This block suggests products the user has bought before and that make sense to buy again (consumables, pet food, household chemicals, and so on).
The Settings for 'Repeat Purchases' block card has these fields:
- Maximum number of products: the maximum number of products the block returns.
- Minimum number of times a product has been purchased: how many times the user must have bought a product for it to appear in the block.
- Sorting: the order of products in the results, either By date of last purchase or By frequency of purchases.
For this block type, make sure to fill in the Simulate user (ID) field. Without it, the preview can't build a relevant selection.
4. Personal recommendations
The personal recommendations block uses a combined algorithm that takes into account viewing history, purchases, favorites, and behavioral signals.
When to use: on the home page for a signed-in user, or in email newsletters.
General settings
All four block types use the same settings screen template, so they have the same sections:
- Audience filter: who sees the block. See Audience Filter (opens in a new tab).
- Block preview: a preview window with Basic, Explanation, and Investigate tabs (Open in modal button). See Block preview (opens in a new tab).
- Simulate user (ID): preview the block as a specific user.
- Help button: a hint next to key settings.
The field that sets how many products to show has a different label depending on the block type: Maximum Items for Trending, and Maximum number of products for Recently viewed, Repeat purchase, and Personal recommendations. The field means the same thing in all of them.