2019

October 1, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Platform

Rates on the Real-Time Counts Page

  • Metrics on the Real-Time Counts analytics page are now presented as rates. This allows you to get a sense of the percent of the total without having to calculate it yourself.

Cumulative/Internal Toggle on the Majority Fit Experiences Analytics Page

  • Replaced the "Settings" gear on the Majority Fit Experience analytics page with a toggle to switch between "Cumulative" or "Interval" metric display

Secondary Metrics Broken Down by Variant for Majority Fit Experiences

  • Added the ability to compare secondary metric performance across variants for Majority Fit Experiences

Chart Lines For Each Variant

  • Added lines for each variant in a Majority Fit Experience on the "Time-Series" chart

Contentsquare

Display Experiences Only Relevant to Your Domains Tracked in Contentsquare

  • Limited the visible Monetate experiences in Contentsquare to those that ran on the domain(s) that are tracked in your CSQ account

Search Experience Names in Contentsquare

  • Added the ability to search by experience name in Contentsquare. The API response that enables the Contentsquare integration returns lists of results and the user experience is paging through the list. Many Monetate customers have thousands of experiences.

Bug Fixes

"Count Value" for Target Builder Increases With Random Characters

  • Removed the "Count" value for the "Targeting Value" field because it provided little customer value

Updated Documentation

  • Audience Explorer: Overview
  • Use Audience Explorer To Create And Understand Audience Segments
  • Audience Explorer: FAQs

September 4, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Platform

Batch Image Upload

  • Added the ability to upload multiple image assets at the same time to Content Manager. Previously, you had to upload a single file at a time.

Recommendations

Consider All Products On Page

  • Added an additional option to the "Base Recommendations On" drop-down on the "Recommendation Strategy" creation screen that allows you to consider all of the products on a page. This works on "Cart," "Product Detail," "Index," "Purchase," and "Search" pages. Recommendations that use this option will show products based on all of the products on a particular page.

Naming Updates

  • Updated the name of "Endcap" actions to "Recommendations"
    • "Endcap" is not an industry term
    • "Recommendations" is a more widespread term

Bug Fixes

Platform

Reports Downloading With Incorrect File Extension

  • Fixed a bug that caused reports to download as .txt files instead of .csv files

Updated Documentation

  • Individual Fit Experiences: FAQs

August 20, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Platform

Experience Duplication Enhancements

  • Added a feature that allows you to duplicate an experience into multiple domains at the same time. This allows you to more easily manage experiences across brands in your enterprise account

Target By Experiences Viewed Across Devices

  • Added a feature that allows you to target customers who have been exposed to an experience across devices. This update is to the "Experience seen by user" target which previously only worked for experiences viewed on a web-based browser.

Experience List Page Enhancements

  • Added the following feature enhancements for the Experience List page:
    • The ability to move, pause, or activate experiences is now available under the experience name
    • "Experience QuickView" is now available under the experience name
    • Experience "Notes" are now visible and editable from the Experience List page

Recommendations

Account-Level Filters for Recommendation Strategies

  • Added the ability to create and set account-level filters that apply to all newly created "Recommendation Strategies." These filters are now available in the general settings for your Monetate account.
  • Please note, this does not apply to the legacy Recommendations product.

Shorter Lookback Option for Recommendations

  • Added the ability to use a "2-day" lookback option for recommendations. This gives newer products a better chance of showing up in results.

Bug Fixes

Platform

The only good bug is a dead bug—or no bug at all.

Updated Documentation

  • Recommendations Datasets
  • Activate an Experience for Preview and Testing
  • The Events List Page
  • Configure Your Open-Time Email Settings
  • Create A Recommendation Strategy
  • setPageType (API)
  • Monetate Platform Best Practices

August 6, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Audience Explorer (Alpha Feature)

Compare Audiences Drop-Down Menu

  • Added a drop-down menu to "Audience Explorer" that allows you to compare the audience you are currently viewing against another audience to better understand the differences in segment engagement

KPI Summary Table For Audiences

  • Added a "KPI Summary" table to audiences that allows you to better understand the behavioral characteristics of that audience in one location

Compare Audiences In The KPI Summary Table

  • Added the ability to view both audiences that you have selected for your comparison from the "Compare Audiences" drop-down in the "KPI Summary" table

Platform

Preview Against Live Experiences

  • Added the ability to generate a "preview against live experiences" to "Share Via Public Preview" in Preview Mode

"Growl" Notification Style Updates

  • Updated the look of "growl" warning notifications in the platform to make them more visible against the dark navigation

Alert Notification For Experience Start Times Changed After Activation

  • Added a warning modal that displays when you try to change the "Start time" for an experience that is already active:
    • "Changing the start date for this experience will result in a change to the experience analytics. As a result, reporting will not be available until a nightly refresh of the experience data. If you continue, please note, data for this experience will not be available until tomorrow and performance data that Monetate collected prior to the new start date, is no longer available."

Bug Fixes

Audience Discovery

Content Manager Duplication Error

  • Fixed a bug that prevented you from duplicating an image in Content Manager if you use the "£" in the title

Updated Documentation

  • Product List Page (Index/Search) Example
  • Understand Data Discrepancies in Third-Party Platforms
  • Monetate Engine API Integrations (Server-Side Integration)
  • Synchronous Tag
  • Who Targets in Web Experiences
  • Out-Of-The-Box Web Targets
  • Out-Of-The-Box Web Targets
  • Manage "Flicker" On Your Site
  • Monetate Platform Foundations Certification: Practice Test
  • Monetate Platform Foundations Certification: Practical Assessment Review
  • Action Conditions

July 11, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Platform

Preview All Live Experience (Engine API Support)

  • Rolled out functionality to preview all experiences that are currently live on a page for Engine API users

Link To Duplicated Experiences In Another Account

  • Added functionality that allows you to launch an experience in a new browser tab from the modal that appears after you duplicate it across accounts

Bug Fixes

Platform

Inconsistent Timezone Display Across the Platform

  • Fixed a bug that displayed the wrong timezone or an inconsistent format on various pages across the platform

Duplication Priority Errors

  • Fixed a bug that caused experiences duplicated from Dev accounts into Production accounts to share a duplicate priority slot. Additionally, this caused a "Bad Request" error, but still resulted in in a duplicated experience in the platform.

Inaccurate Split Distribution

  • Fixed a bug that resulted in experiences displaying inaccurate split distributions and traffic percentages that did not always add up to 100%

Internal Server Error With Action Naming

  • Fixed a bug that threw a 500 Internal Server Error when you attempted to rename one action the same thing that you named another action. This will now result in a more meaningful error message

Internal Server Error on the Engine Dashboard

  • Fixed a bug that threw a 500 Internal Server Error when you changed the lookback window to "Past 12 Hours" for your data

Experience Duplication Error

  • Fixed a bug that prevented you from duplicating an experience across accounts when you used a Custom Event as your Goal Metric

Content Manager Duplication Error

  • Fixed a bug that prevented you from duplicating an image in Content Manager if you use the "£" in the title

Updated Documentation

  • Who Targets in Web Experiences
  • Out-Of-The-Box Web Targets
  • Out-Of-The-Box Web Targets
  • Manage "Flicker" On Your Site
  • Monetate Platform Foundations Certification: Practice Test
  • Monetate Platform Foundations Certification: Practical Assessment Review
  • Action Conditions

June 25, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Platform

Target Based on Experiences Seen

  • Added a feature that allows you to target site visitors who were exposed to a particular experience. This allows you to serve these a consistent experience and engage them over a longer duration with related and follow-up content.

Experience Status in Experience Results Screen

  • Added a feature that displays the current experience status (Active, Paused, Archived, etc.) on the Experience Results page

Experience Preview In A New Tab

  • Updated the "Experience Preview" functionality to open in a new tab rather loading in your current tab and navigating you away from the Monetate platform

Dataset Management

  • Added a drop-down menu to the "Data" section in the navbar that offers options for "Customer Data" and "Product Data." This provides clarity and differentiation between the dataset upload section that was previously available in the "Components" section of the navbar and the product feed upload section that lived under the "Data" section of the navbar.
    • The "Product Data" tab will allow you to upload Product Catalogs (in the v2 new format) or Recommendation Datasets.
    • "Customer Attribute" datasets will no longer appear on the same page as "Product Catalogs."
  • Please note, this update is only relevant if you have access to the "Data" section in the navbar. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to your Client Success Manager.

Company Rebrand

  • Monetate recently released new company branding and logos. Updated several locations across the Monetate platform with new brand colors and logo imagery.

Preview All Experiences On A Page

  • Added the ability to see how all of the experiences currently live on a page interact with each other using "Preview Mode." At this time, this feature is only supported if you have implemented your site using the JavaScript API. Support for the Engine API implementation is coming soon.

Bug Fixes

Platform

Time Zone Dropdown Not Function in Settings Screen

  • Fixed a bug that prevented you from updating your local timezone from the Account Settings screen

500 Error on Experience Dashboard Page

  • Fixed a bug that threw a "500 Internal Server Error" when you selected certain lookback windows for your data

500 Error on Individual Fit Experience Results Page

  • Fixed a bug that threw a "500 Internal Server Error" when you tried to view "Experience Results" for an Individual Fit Experience

Cannot Rename Actions Duplicated Across Accounts

  • Fixed a bug that prevented you from renaming an action that you duplicated from one account to another

Updated Documentation

  • Learn How To Troubleshoot Your Recommendations
  • Use Action Conditions in the "What" Panel Of Your Web Experience
  • Majority Fit Experience: FAQs
  • Build A Majority Fit Experience

June 11, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Keeping it vintage—no new feature enhancements to report.

Bug Fixes

Platform

Autocomplete Case-Sensitivity

  • Fixed a bug that caused autocomplete to become case sensitive when you filter on custom attributes. Auto-complete now does not require you to match case for custom attributes.

Updated Documentation

All quiet. No new docs or doc updates to report.

May 28, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Recommendations

Recommendation Strategy Naming Updates

  • Updated the list of options available in the "Base Recommendations On" drop-down within the Recommendation Strategy creation screen:
    • "First item in the Last Abandoned Cart" —> "Last Abandoned Cart"
    • "First item in the Last Purchase" —> "Last Purchase"

Bug Fixes

Multivariate Test (MVT) Traffic Distribution

  • Fixed a bug that prevented you from changing the traffic distribution for multivariate testing experiences

Updated Documentation

  • Create A Recommendation Strategy

May 14, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Platform

Comma Separated Values for Custom Fields in Product Catalog v2

  • Added the ability to include comma separated values for custom fields in product catalogs in the v2 format. This includes support for a new product attribute data type called "comma-separated string." This allows you to send custom columns that include comma-separated values that Monetate can then parse for use in recommendation filters.

Bug Fixes

Actions & Variants in Multivariate Testing Experiences (MVT)

  • Fixed a bug that prevented you from adding actions or variants to a Multivariate Testing Experience (MVT)

Updated Documentation

  • Monetate Product Catalog Specification

April 30, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Keeping it retro—no new feature updates this release.

Bug Fixes

Appended "0" Character In API User's Names

  • Fixed a bug that appended a "0" to the end of API user names. This was a display issue only and did not impact any functionality.

Browser Context = "NULL" In Individual Fit Analytics

  • Fixed a bug that prevented the browser type from displaying on the "Engine Insights"  tab for "Most Influential Context per Variant" in Individual Fit Experience analytics

Can't Delete Product Catalog If Recommendation Strategy In-use

  • Fixed bug that caused the Recommendation Strategy List page open in one tab to break when you deleted a catalog that was open in another tab and was not refreshed after the creation of the strategy. A message now warns you that you can't delete the catalog while it is associated with a Recommendation Strategy.

Updated Documentation

  • Implement Your Product Catalog
  • Monetate Product Catalog Specification
  • Manage Flicker" On Your Site
  • Flicker Troubleshooting Checklist
  • Troubleshooting An "Unknown" Track
  • Components of the Baseline Monetate Implementation
  • List of JavaScript API Methods and What They Unlock
  • What do you want to do on your site?
  • Step 1: Implement the Monetate Tag
  • Step 4: Capture Product Details
  • addProductDetails
  • Step 5: Capture Cart Information
  • Step 6: Capture Your Site Conversions
  • Baseline API Call Matrix
  • QA Your Pages
  • Implement Your Product Catalog
  • Product Details Page Example
  • Upload A "Customer Attributes" Dataset
  • Update or Replace an Existing "Customer Attributes" Dataset

April 16, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Platform

Delete Product Catalog Modal

  • Added a feature that displays a warning modal when you attempt to delete a product catalog that is currently in use. You must click a checkbox that states that you understand that deleting a product catalog can have an adverse effect on experiences, names, segments, engine context, and recommendations. You must select a new default catalog for the domains in your account that currently use the catalog that you want to delete before you can proceed.

Autocomplete For Targets & Action Conditions

  • Added a feature that enables autocomplete for targets and action conditions when you enter a product ID (PID) and are using the Monetate Product Catalog v2. This feature now provides parity with the legacy Monetate Product Catalog. Autocomplete now works for the following targets:
    • Product in abandoned cart
    • Product in cart
    • Product last purchased
    • Product purchased
    • Product viewed
    • Product viewed this visit
    • Product viewed last visit
    • Products purchased in past days
  • Autocomplete now works for the following action conditions:
    • On product page where PID =
    • On product page where PID ≠
    • On index page where PID thumbnail =
    • On index page where PID thumbnail ≠
    • Thumbnail's PID =
    • Thumbnail's PID ≠

Recommendations

Custom Numeric and String Fields in Recommendation Strategy Filters

  • Added a feature that allows you to use string or numeric attributes that are not a part of Monetate's Product Catalog Specifications in your Recommendation Strategy filters. This provides you with the same dynamic filter options as the data types in the fields that are part of the Monetate Product Catalog Specification.

Bug Fixes

  • The only good bug is a dead bug or no bugs at all.

Updated Documentation

  • Create A Recommendation Strategy
  • Delete A Product Catalog From Monetate

April 2, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Recommendations

Dynamically Filter Recommendations With Historical Data

  • You now have the ability to dynamically filter recommendations with historical customer data. This means that if you base your recommendations on the last item a user purchased, viewed, or abandoned, you can dynamically filter your results based on a catalog attribute. For example, if you want to show recommendations on your homepage based on the last item a visitor viewed, you can now dynamically filter to only show other products of the same product type.

Added "Attribute of Product viewed, in cart, or purchased" Target

  • Added a new target "Attribute of Product viewed, in cart, or purchased" that allows you to leverage data from the new Monetate product catalog. You can use this target in place of the following targets that were connected to the legacy product catalog:
    • Category in cart
    • Category last purchased
    • Category purchased
    • Category viewed
    • Category viewed last visit
    • Category viewed this visit
    • Brand in cart
    • Brand last purchased
    • Brand purchased
    • Brand viewed
    • Brand viewed last visit
    • Brand viewed this visit

Monetate Product Catalog v2 as Engine Context

  • You can now leverage Monetate's new product catalog as context for Individual Fit Experiences. New context options for "Product Type" viewed are now available in the Engine Context configuration screen. You can use these in place of the "Category Viewed" context options that were tied to the legacy catalog.

Bug Fixes

Edit Target Conditions From The Target List Page

  • Fixed a bug that prevented you from editing an input for a target in an active experience from the Target List page.

Updated Documentation

  • Who Targets in Web Experiences
  • Engine Context
  • Create A Recommendation Strategy

March 19, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Platform

Use "Brand" In Your Monetate Product Catalog

  • You now have the ability to use a "Brand" field in your Monetate product catalog. This gives the new Monetate Product Catalog parity with this functionality available in the legacy product catalog. Additionally, you now have access to the following action conditions in the platform:
    • Product Page
      • Page includes product where brand =
      • Page includes product where brand ≠
    • Index Page
      • Page includes thumbnails where brand =
      • Page includes thumbnails where brand ≠
    • Thumbnail's Brand
      • Thumbnail's brand =
      • Thumbnail's brand ≠

Bug Fixes

The only good bug is a dead bug. No bugs to report.

Updated Documentation

  • Monetate Product Catalog Comparison
  • Monetate Product Catalog Specification

March 5, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Recommendations

Concurrent Schema/Dataset Upload

  • The Schema Creation wizard now simultaneously uploads a full dataset to the platform automatically after a schema file is successfully uploaded and validated.

Global Settings Tab on Recommendations List Page

  • Added a "Global Settings" tab to the Recommendations List page. This gives you the ability to create rules that apply to all of your Recommendation Strategies so you don't need to configure the same rules for every strategy that you build.

Configure Lookback Period for Recommendation Strategies

  • Added a dropdown menu to the Recommendation Strategy creation screen that allows you to set the lookback period that your Recommendation Strategy should consider. This allows you to more quickly surface new products in your Recommendations if you have a product catalog that is updated frequently.

Bug Fixes

Unicode Characters In Datasets

  • Fixed a bug that caused the Dataset Schema Wizard to crash when you upload a dataset that contains Unicode characters in the first row.

Bad Data In Track Pixel Request

  • Fixed a bug that caused a track pixel request to send bad data that gets recorded. This issue broke the nightly load_warehouse for all clients.

Updated Documentation

  • Understand "Who" Targeting in Web Experiences
  • Create A Recommendation Strategy
  • Recommendations: Global Settings
  • Create Your Product Catalog Schema
  • The Recommendation Strategies List Page

February 19, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Recommendations

Product Pinning

  • Added a feature that gives you the ability to manually select products to display at the beginning of your Recommendations so that you can push specific products. These items augment the recommendation strategy that you've selected.

Multiple Product Catalogs

  • Added the ability to upload more than one product catalog for your Monetate account. This allows you to choose which catalog should be used for each experience. For instance, you now have the ability to have a localized catalog for each geographic marketplace complete with distinct brands, descriptions, and prices.

Platform

ContentSquare in Third-Party Analytics

  • Added a native ContentSquare integration available on the Third-Party Analytics page. This allows you to use a ContentSquare integration out of the box without having to build a custom integration.

Bug Fixes

  • Nothing to report. The only good bug is a dead (or fixed) bug.

New/Updated Documentation

  • Monetate/ContentSquare Integration
  • Monetate Product Catalog
  • Configure Your Recommendations Action
  • Built-In Third Party Analytics Integration
  • The Integration Dashboard

February 5, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Recommendations

Multi-Value Support For product_type in Your Catalog

  • Added a feature that allows Monetate to accept more than 1 value for the product_typefield in your product catalog. Previously, Monetate only accepted 1 value and recommend that you provide a hierarchical string of products categories. This allows for more filtering options and closer alignment with the Google Feed Spec.

Output All Catalog Errors At Once

  • Improved the catalog onboarding workflow with more verbose instructions on how to achieve a successful upload. You will now receive a full digest of all the errors for a catalog that you uploaded.

Bug Fixes

Merchandiser Set Overlapping Categories

  • Fixed a bug that caused categories included in a Merchandiser set to overlap with products field

January 22, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Recommendations

Recommendation Strategy Update

  • Recommendation Strategies that use the input to "Base Recommendations on...First Item on Page" will now work on any page where products are being sent to Monetate. This previously only worked on Product Detail pages and Cart pages. This enables opportunities to present more relevant recommendations on a broader range of pages, including index and search pages

Bug Fixes

Special Characters in Recommendations

  • Fixed a bug that impacted loading and filtering of catalogs when you use Recommendations with ASCII characters

Custom Traffic Distribution

  • Fixed a bug that disallowed decimals in custom traffic configuration
  • Fixed a bug that displayed the default configuration rather than an experience's current traffic configuration

On-Site IDs and Target Builder

  • Fixed a bug that prevented Target Builder from launching when you build on-site ID targets

January 8, 2019

Feature Enhancements

Platform

JavaScript & Cookie Custom Targets

  • Added the ability to create a custom target that captures all values associated with a component (cookie or JavaScript variable) for site visitors. This allows you to create a custom target that captures all values associated with a component (cookie or JavaScript variable) for site visitors. Previously, you needed to create a custom target for each value that you want to collect.

Data Upload Workflow Improvement

  • Changed the landing page after schema creation. Rather than landing on the Dataset List page, you're brought to the Update History tab. This allows you to better understand that you need to populate the schema with data via a manual, SFTP, or API upload.

Custom Traffic Distribution for Test Variants

  • Added the ability to control exactly how much traffic goes to each variant in a standard experience

Bug Fixes

Dataset Header Changes

  • Fixed a bug that prevented you from updating Datasets with the same headers as the schema. This prevented Monetate from ingesting some datasets even if the header matched the schema.

Merchandiser Sets on the Dashboard

  • Fixed a bug that prevented you from renaming Merchandiser sets

Weather Target Display Issue

  • Fixed a bug that incorrectly displayed that status of a target when you clicked the "Included/Exclude" toggle

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