We are excited to announce the Matched Terms feature that will further enhance the transparency of our machine learning algorithms and provide insights to merchandisers.

Merchandisers have provided feedback that it can be challenging to locate the matched word when products are returned in search results, as it requires manually scanning lengthy lists of synonyms or adjusting other settings. Now, with our new feature, you will be able to see the matched terms for each search query, giving you greater insight into why a particular item was returned within the result set. You can find this information in the tooltip when hovering over an item’s Attractiveness Score, as well as on the ranking tab in the card in the sidebar.

The matched terms will appear in the following possible types: exact match if the term is an exact match to the query entered by the user; original terms if the term is included in the original query or term, but not an exact match; synonyms if the term is a synonym to the original query or term; corrected from original terms if the term has been corrected from the original query or term; acronyms if the term is an acronym to the original query or term.

We understand that for a single term, there could be more than one matched term type, which can confuse. To address this, we have implemented a priority system for matched term types. When multiple matched term types are found for a single term, only the type with the highest priority will be displayed. The priority order for matched term types is as follows:

1. Exact match to query
2. Included in original query/term
3. Synonym to original query/term
4. Corrected from original query/term
5. Acronym to original query/term

This priority system ensures that you are shown the most relevant matched term type for each term, based on its priority level.

Our new matched term explainability helps merchandisers make better informed Searchandising decisions and provides transparency to better comprehend our results system.

For more information about this capability please connect with your Customer Success Manager or contact us through support@constructor.io.

Recommendations Searchandising has a revamped navigation that makes rules easier to manage and navigate. The condensed rules list makes it easier for merchandisers to search or scan for seed items or attributes that are affected by rules. Additionally, helpful information like the number of rules attached to each item or attribute, and when the rule was last modified are included in the rule summary. Last modified is a sortable field that helps merchandisers find the rules most recently modified or sort in reverse to find the oldest rules. In the image below, you can see the new rules list view in a representative complementary strategy:

Recommendations Searchandising rules can also be edited from this view. To edit a rule, click the small edit icon to see the familiar Recommendations rule interface to add, edit, or remove rule effects.

For more information about this capability please connect with your Customer Success Manager or contact us through support@constructor.io.

Being able to analyse the performance of your product discovery experience is important, and to that end, we’re excited to announce that we have released Facet Page Analytics.

A facet page is an efficient way to present a filtered page of products to your customers that you can searchandise. Now, you’ll be able to see statistics on the performance of your facet pages in the same way you can already with Category Analytics and Collection Analytics. You will only see data populated here if you’re using this page type, commonly used for brand page experiences or as an alternative to more traditional group hierarchy.

The new Facets Analytics tab is available from within the Analytics section of the dashboard, beneath the Browse tab. Scroll down to see the table of all of your facet pages.

Clicking into a facet page will show a detailed analysis, including pageviews and clickthrough rates, using the same layout you’re already used to with Category and Collection Analytics.

And while we’re on the topic of facet analytics, if you’re curious to see metrics on how your customer facing filters (facets) are performing, you can see that in the Facets section of the dashboard by category or collection. 

For more information about this capability please connect with your Customer Success Manager or contact us through support@constructor.io.

Merchandisers can now include the main product on a page in bundle/complete-the-look recommendations results, returned in the first position of results. This option makes it easier for shoppers to see the whole bundle/complete-the-look recommendations set and quickly make decisions on adding the entire set to cart. The image below shows bundle recommendations for a men’s blue jacket. With the primary product included in the results, shoppers can press “add all to cart” with one click and purchase the entire bundle. This approach reduces friction on shoppers and helps improve Average Order Value (AOV).

For more information about this capability please connect with your Customer Success Manager or contact us through support@constructor.io.

Keeping your catalog up to date with Constructor is a critical part of your product discovery experience, and it’s just got even more flexible. We’ve introduced two new actions to help you maintain the items and variations, allowing you to update just the data you want.

All of the existing methods to send us delta updates (REST endpoints and FTPS) now also have the ability to either ignore or create items if they do not already exist.

The first, Patch Delta Ignore, works the same way as a regular patch delta but ignores the items and variations which are in the files or request but not in the system.

The second, Patch Delta Create, also works the same way as the regular patch delta but adds items and variations which are in the files or request but not in the system.

If you are using FTP to send deltas, the file names should be in the following format:

key_7AeGOdJ9BxmKF942_Products_patchdeltaignore_2023-05-10-16-18-00.tar.gz
key_7AeGOdJ9BxmKF942_Products_patchdeltacreate_2023-05-10-16-18-00.tar.gz

For the catalog and items & variations endpoints, add on_missing=IGNORE or on_missing=CREATE to the URL parameters.

For more information about this capability please connect with your Customer Success Manager or contact us through support@constructor.io.

Being able to analyse the performance of your product discovery experience is important, and to that end we’re excited to announce that we have released Collections Analytics.

Collections are a great way to present a curated selection of products to your customers and are useful in a multitude of situations. Now you’ll be able to see statistics on the performance of your collections in the same way you can already with Category Analytics.

The new Collections Analytics tab is available from within the Analytics section of the dashboard, beneath the Browse tab. Scroll down to see the table of all of your collections.

Clicking into a collection will show a detailed analysis, including pageviews and clickthrough rates, as well as facet usage for the collection using the same layout you’re already used to with Category Analytics.

In addition, we’re changing the way we show analytical data in graphs, by switching from the smoothed-out method to a more representative “jagged” line graph method. Your underlying data remains the same and is unaffected, but the new method will do an even better job of showing an accurate representation of the performance of your product discovery experience.

Here’s what the graphs used to look like:

And here’s how they look now:

For more information about this capability please connect with your Customer Success Manager or contact us through support@constructor.io.

Merchandisers and business users can now reference a collection (just like a category or other attribute) in a quiz within the results. 

This will be great in scenarios where you might be looking for ways to build quizzes that don’t align well with current attributes you have in your product data - whether it be due to a lack of data or you’re looking to build a quiz not based on your traditional attribute data. With Constructor’s newly released functionality, you’ll be able to put a list of items into a collection and then reference it in as a quiz option. You can also then build other logic within the quiz on top of it just as you might with a category and generally use collections as building blocks to increase their usefulness and give yourself more flexibility in quiz design. 

Maybe you want to build a quiz to help someone find their perfect wine, but you only currently categorize them into red or white wines. Now, using collections you could create groupings based on their varietal and then use those collections to better match your customer preferences to the right products. 

Collections to power result logic within the Quiz builder experience.

This all builds on our philosophy that all product discovery is connected, and that every part of it should make the other parts more helpful and easier to use, both for your shoppers and for merchandisers and business users.

For more information about this new functionality please connect with your Customer Success Manager or contact us through support@constructor.io.

The Abandoned in Cart strategy is now available for merchandisers and marketers to leverage in campaigns to help shoppers complete their purchase. The strategy recommends items that shoppers have added to their cart but have not purchased yet. This strategy reengages shoppers back into their previous shopping trips in key places like the homepage or a shopper account page. Additionally, email campaigns are one of the most powerful ways to leverage this strategy. If shoppers have left items in their cart, send them reminders to come back and complete their purchase. Good retailers don't let a conversion opportunity slip and now its easier than ever using Constructor Recommendations to introduce these abandoned products back to shoppers when they return to site!

Merchandisers can preview strategy results (see image below) in the preview module by selecting a shopper profile to impersonate: 

The strategy is available in the recommendations strategies list. It can be added to any new pod or replace any strategy in an existing pod. Please note that this strategy stores items added to cart but not purchased over the last thirty days and up to twenty items.

For more information, please review our recommendations strategies zendesk article, connect with your Customer Success Manager, or contact us through support@constructor.io.

The Recommendations preview now shows merchandisers what strategy is powering each product result, the primary strategy or a backfill strategy. This helps merchandisers understand why a product is returned and identify opportunities to merchandise results if the bestsellers are not preferred. The image below shows an example of how the first product is from the complementary product recommendations results and the last products are backfilled bestsellers. 

Merchandisers can decide to leave the results above as they are or slot specific products into later positions if bestsellers are not preferred. Check out the new strategy labels by clicking on the preview button directly on the pod listing page in the dashboard. 

For more information, please connect with your Customer Success Manager, contact us through support@constructor.io, 

Our goal at Constructor is to continuously improve the business KPIs that you care about, which means we’re constantly looking for ways to enhance results and one of those ways is through our auto-generated synonyms. 

We’ve always shown auto-generated synonyms in the dashboard, but it hasn’t always been easy to understand which ones are new - until today!

Now dashboard users will be able to see which auto-generated synonyms were recently added with a “new” badge next to each newly added synonym. This badge will remain visible for up to 2 weeks, or until another set of auto-generated synonyms are added, whichever comes first. 

Dashboard users will also see a notification on the home screen when new synonyms have been added so you never have to worry about missing them in the synonyms section of the dashboard.

For more information about this capability please connect with your Customer Success Manager or contact us through support@constructor.io.