Build an Automated Personalization Experience

The Automated Personalization algorithm shows the right content to each customer on your site. It's most effective when you have the time to allow the Automated Personalization experience to complete a state of learning.

Exploration and Exploitation

The Automated Personalization experience is an online learning solution that begins with no assumptions about behavior on your site. It leverages observations to learn what experiences are best for each individual based on each person's unique context.

The Automated Personalization algorithm balances two concepts: exploration and exploitation. This means Monetate serves variants early in the experience across all individuals with different context variables. The result is that the Personalization Engine collects observational data about how visitors with different context behave against each of the variants in this experience. The collection phase is called exploration. If there are observations that statistically demonstrate better performance, the algorithm begins to exploit this learning. The Automated Personalization algorithm always balances and intermixes exploration (learning) and exploitation (performing or targeting).

Building an Automated Personalization Experience

Follow these steps to create an Automated Personalization experience.

  1. Click EXPERIENCES in the top navigation bar and then click Web.

    Callout of the Web option in the EXPERIENCES menu

  2. Click CREATE EXPERIENCE.

    Callout of the CREATE EXPERIENCE button

  3. Configure the WHY settings.
    1. Click WHY, select Automated Personalization, and then click NEXT.

      Callout of the WHY settings, the Automated Personalization option, and the NEXT button

    2. Select the goal metric you want to optimize with this experience, and then click NEXT.

      Ensure you put some time and thought into selecting the most appropriate goal metric for an Automated Personalization experience. Monetate makes one-to-one decisions to maximize that goal metric.

      The Goal metric selection step, with a callout of the NEXT button

    3. Select any secondary metrics that you want to track with the Automated Personalization experience, and then click NEXT.

      The Automated Personalization algorithm personalizes based on the goal metric you select in the previous step. Since the Personalization engine isn't optimizing for secondary metrics, it's possible that they may underperform within the experience.

      The Confirm Secondary Metrics step, with a callout of the NEXT button

    4. Verify that you have configured the WHY settings properly, and then click SAVE.

      The Confirm step, with a callout of the SAVE button

  4. Configure the WHO settings as necessary if you need to narrow the target audience for the experience. See Configure Experience Targeting for the steps.

    Callout of the WHO settings and the ADD TARGET button

  5. Configure at least one action for the WHAT settings. See the Action Types documentation category to learn more about action options.

    Callout of the WHAT settings and the ADD ACTION button

  6. Configure the WHEN settings as necessary to define when and for how long the experience should run. See Configure Experience Timing for the steps.

    Callout of the WHEN settings and the START AND STOP TIME button

  7. Configure the HOW settings as necessary if you need to customize the context variables and traffic assignment percentages.
    1. Click HOW.

      Callout of the HOW settings

    2. Click EDIT for the Engine Context section.

      Callout of the EDIT button next to the Engine Context heading of the HOW settings

    3. Expand the context category that you want to edit, and then click to select or deselect the context variable(s) you want to add or remove from the experience. See Engine Context for more information about these variables.

      Callout of the checkboxes for the context variables in the Time of Arrival category and for the variables in the Location category

    4. Click SAVE.

      Callout of the SAVE button for the Engine Context section of the HOW settings

    5. Click EDIT for the Configure Holdout section.

      Callout of the EDIT button for the Configure Holdout section of the HOW settings

    6. Optionally, change the holdout type. Click Random Assignment, select Single Variant Holdout, then select which variant should be assigned the holdout traffic, and then select what percentage of the traffic you want assigned to the holdout.

      Animated demonstration of a user clicking 'Random Assignment' in the Holdout segment, selecting 'Single Variant Holdout' from the selector, viewing the options in the VARIANTS selector, and then viewing the percentage options in the TRAFFIC selector

    7. Click SAVE.

      Callout of the SAVE button for the Configure Holdout section of the HOW settings

  8. Click PREVIEW and then select the option that corresponds to the variant you want to preview and if you want to preview it alone or with all other active experiences. See Activate an Experience for Preview and Testing for more information.

    View of the expanded preview options accessible from the PREVIEW button

  9. Click ACTIVATE to deploy the experience to your site as determined by the WHEN configuration.

    Callout of the ACTIVATE button

Refer to Experience Priority and Enable Auto-Promotion for Experiences for more information about how experiences are prioritized.

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