Fresh Relevance supports product variants or SKUs to represent multiple variations of a base product, such as colors, sizes, and more. Each variant inherits common properties from the base product but can have different titles, images, prices, stock, and tags. All variants share the same Product ID but have a unique SKU.
Before you start
Things you need to know:
Variants may not apply to you, either because they can’t be exposed on your website and so cannot be captured by the script, or because your products don’t have a concept of variants.
You must expose the Variant ID (SKU) alongside the base Product ID on both the browse and cart pages, or similar.
You can have up to 1000 variants for each base product. When importing product variants into Fresh Relevance any variants above this limit are ignored.
Terminology
Product / Base product
A product, also called a Base or Parent product, may have several variants, such as different colors or sizes.
Product variants
Product variants represent multiple variations of a base product. Each variant inherits common properties from the base product but can have different titles, images, prices, stock, and tags. To identify a variant, both a Product ID and a Variant ID are required.
SKUs
The SKU for a product or variant is usually the code used in other systems to identify the specific physical item. All items with the same SKU will be identical in all attributes, such as size, color, or more.
Tag groups and tag values
Tag Groups and Tag Values are the primary way to categorize and filter items within Fresh Relevance in a way that can be indexed and used to learn a user's intent. A Tag Group is a named category that can contain a Tag Value for each product. Tag Values often differ between different variants/SKUs of a base product, such as colors and sizes, while some may remain constant, such as brand.
View product variants
When you look at a product under Data > Products, you can select the Expand Products with Variants switch to display variants in the table.
These variants share the same Product ID but have a unique SKU.
Triggered messages, price drop, and back-in-stock
Product Variant/SKU support expands the abilities of Triggered Messages, showing the relevant details, such as title, image, and price of the browsed, abandoned, or purchased variants.
Price drop and back-in-stock messages trigger based on the price or stock status of individual variants.
Recommendations
Display product variants
Recommendation data sources display base products by default. To show variants of these products, go to the Advanced tab of the SmartBlock and enable SKU-level Product Variants.
Use data sources for variants
Some data sources are more granular than others when considering variants.
Recommendations that use personalized data sources, such as Frequently Browsed, can show the relevant variant the customer has been browsing.
AI data sources, like Purchased with Last Purchase and People Like You Buy, are also variant aware, helping to more effectively identify the perfect product combination for customers.
Crowd-sourced data sources, such as the trending Frequently Purchased, recommend variants (adhering to any filters applied) of the most purchased base product, preventing recommendation fatigue.
Show multiple variants
To show multiple variants for each base product, increase the Number of Variants Per Base Product value. When Fresh Relevance fetches recommendations, the process is as follows:
Base products are selected according to the data source, non-variant filters, and any other configuration options.
Within each base product:
Selected filters are applied, removing any variants that don't match.
Any variants above the specified Number of Variants Per Base Product limit are removed.
The list of variants across base products is then recombined into a list of products to show in a SmartBlock, and the data source's product limit is applied, removing excess products. If Include Products With No Variants is selected, base products are kept when recombining, preserving the original order of base product selection.
Target variants with filters and tag blends
Some Recommendation filters, like the Best Tag Value filter, allow targeting variant product data.
To target variant product data, go to the filtering tab of the SmartBlock, then select the Apply Filter To SKU-level Variants check box. The Best Tag Value filter can filter product recommendations based on customer behavioral data.
To target product variants when creating a Tag Blend in a Recommendation, go to the Merchandising tab of the SmartBlock, then select the Apply Tag Blend to SKU-Level Variants check box.
Analytics / Advanced customer tagging
Advanced Customer Tagging within Analytics supports product variants in a similar way to the Best Tag Value filter. You can choose Tag Groups to calculate the best Tag Value for each known person and sync this value to your ESP to use within segmentations or campaigns.
Configuration and import
Learn how to get SKU-level product data from your site script in Import Product Data.
Learn how to import transactions with product variants in Import Transactions.