We often hear the question: “Can I use my own product variables?”
– Yes, you can.
Product data collected by Nosto could be divided to two categories: Required and optional data, as addressed in the tagging guidelines.
As the name suggests, required values are necessary for Nosto to function properly, yet including optional values in the implementation can enormously enhance informativeness and also performance of recommendations.
Each mapped attribute can be displayed in a recommendation enhancing the overall visual appearance by returning it as a variable in recommendation templates, but it doesn’t end there.
Values mapped into “Brand” and meta-data “Tag” -fields can also be used as filters narrowing down recommended products,whereas mapping “Suggested Retail Price” or “Original selling price” in “list_price” data-field allows displaying slashed out prices, product discount percentage and overall discount. Read recommendation slot entry for more details.
Especially leveraging meta-data by mapping a product specific attribute(s) into any of the “Tag”-fields can be extremely effective.
Our customers have come up with quite a few innovative implementations, so here’s a few examples to give you a better picture how you could leverage optional data on your site.
Display product’s manufacturer logo (or generally any visual detail): Map logo’s image url into a tag field
Display a price range of a product with multiple SKU’s: Map the range into a tag field
Display special pricing such as price excluding VAT
Recommend only products from the same brand / add brand top lists: Map brand-detail to “Brand” and enable filter settings respectively
Display a product specific detail such as size, firmness or type: Map the detail into a tag field and additionally use the detail as a filter to narrow down recommended products.
Display customer review grades of a product: Map grades (stars, points) into a tag field as a numeric value
The list is endless as no business or shop is similar to other and as any kind of a product attribute can be mapped to Nosto.
Nosto debug mode reveals attributes mapped to data fields
You can review product attributes that are currently mapped in the implementation by either navigating to Campaigns > Product settings > Browse products > Select a product in the Nosto admin. Alternatively enable the Nosto debug mode > Show debug info and browse through product pages on your site. Read how to enable the debug mode here.
Consult your web-development team or partner and extend the Nosto implementation if needed.