Pin Products atop Search Results

While the Product Level Score (PLS) and Rule Based Merchandising Score (RMS) rules that you can create impact the ordering of products in Personalized Site Search search results, the rules that you configure on the Keyword Level Visual Merchandising tab on the Personalized Site Search Promotions page allow you to pin specific products at the very top of search results for specific search terms. You can configure a keyword-level merchandising rule with a single search term or with a comma-separated string of search words and phrases.

When creating a keyword-level merchandising rule, you cannot select a specific SKU to include. If a product has multiple SKUs, Personalized Site Search only includes one, which it determines based on the customer's search query and the relevancy score calculated by the search algorithm. For example, if the customer searches for "white strappy sandals" and you've configured a promotion configured for the search term sandals and selected as one of the promoted products a pair of strappy women's sandals that come in five different colors, Personalized Site Search only includes the white pair in the promoted products.

These rules work in a way that is somewhat similar to the way you can pin specific products to the beginning of recommendations results when configuring Product Recommendations actions. However, while Product Recommendations pinned products always appear at the beginning of the results regardless of any other context, the products you identify when configuring a keyword-level visual merchandising promotion are pinned at the top of the search results only if the customer searches for the exact search term you configured for the promotion.

Configuring a Keyword-Level Merchandising Rule

Follow these steps to configure a rule to pin specific products at the top of search results when a customer searches for one or more specified search terms.

If a product is configured in both a keyword-level merchandising rule and a keyword-based product exclusion rule for the same search term, then Personalized Site Search gives the exclusion rule higher priority.

  1. Click COMPONENTS in the top navigation bar, select Personalized Search, and then click the appropriate product catalog on the Personalized Search list page.

    Animated demonstration of a user clicking the COMPONENTS menu in the Monetate platform top navigation bar, clicking the name of a product catalog on the Personlized Search list page, and then waiting for the Personalized Search interface to load

  2. Click the Smart Search icon in the left-hand vertical toolbar, and then select Promotions.

    Animated demonstration of a user clicking the Smart Search icon in the left-hand vertical toolbar of Monetate's Personalized Search interface, and then selecting the Promotions option

  3. Click the Keyword Level Visual Merchandising tab.

    Callout of the Keyword Level Visual Merchandising tab on the Promotions page of Monetate's Personalized Site Search

  4. Click ADD NEW.

    Callout of the ADD NEW button on the Keyword Level Visual Merchandising tab on the Promotions page of Monetate's Personalized Site Search

  5. Input one or more search words or phrases that you want tied to the rule into Keyword(s). If you're using multiple words or phrases, ensure each term or phrase is separated by a comma.

    If you insert a space after each comma in a comma-separated string, those spaces are automatically removed after you save the rule.

    Callout of the 'Keyword(s)' field on the Keyword Level Visual Merchandising tab on the Promotions page of Personalized Site Search

  6. Search for the products that you want pinned to the top of the search results.

    Only the title attribute values are searched for products matching your query.

    Callout of the Search Product field on the Keyword Level Visual Merchandising tab on the Promotions page of Monetate's Personalized Site Search

  7. Drag and drop each product from the search results listed on the left into the right-hand field.

    Animated demonstration of a user using a mouse pointer to drag and drop three different beanie caps from the left-hand product search results to the right-hand Top Products field on the Keyword Level Visual Merchandising tab on the Promotions page of Monetate's Personalized Site Search

  8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you've added to Top Products all the products that you want to pin to the top of the search results.

    You can have no more than 100 products in Top Products.

  9. If necessary, drag and drop the products in Top Products to rearrange the order in which they'll appear.

    If a product has multiple variants, then the specific variant that you've selected appears at the top. Furthermore, if any product that you've added to Top Products is out of stock, then it's automatically displayed at the bottom of the search results.

  10. Click SAVE AND BOOST.

    Callout of the SAVE AND BOOST button on the Keyword Level Visual Merchandising tab on the Promotions page of Monetate's Personalized Site Search

You must wait up to 15 minutes before you can see the impact of the new keyword-level visual merchandising rule on search results in the store.

Click VIEW ALL PRODUCTS in the Top Products column for a rule in the table to view its promoted products. In the modal that appears, you can view a thumbnail image of each product and its name as it appears in the product catalog.

Animated demonstration of a user scrolling through the list of 10 products promoted by a The modal that appears after clicking the icon to preview the products promoted by a Keyword Level Visual Merchandising rule. At the top of the modal appears 'Top products for the keywords: beanies,snow hats,knit caps,knit hats,stocking caps,winter hats.' In each row of the scrolling list appears a thumbnail image of a product along with the name of the product as it appears in the product catalog.

In the Actions column of the table on the Keyword Level Visual Merchandising tab are icons that you can click to edit or to delete a rule.

Callout of the edit icon and the delete icon in the Actions column of the table on the Keyword Level Visual Merchandising tab on the Promotions page of Monetate's Personalized Site Search

If you edit a rule and then save the changes, you must wait up to 15 minutes for the changes to appear in search results on your site.

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