Apply Smart Collections to Your Shopify Store
Plans: All plans Platforms: Shopify
AfterShip Personalization’s Smart Collections feature automatically reorder products on your collection pages based on specific criteria or rules set by you. This helps streamline product organization and enhances the customer experience.
Automatic product sorting: Merchants can enhance click-through rates (CTR) by using store performance data to automatically reorder products. Pre-made recommendations rules include Trending, Best Sellers, and New Arrivals for optimizing sorting on collection pages.
Personalized sorting for segments: Tailor product display on the collection page by promoting specific items to different customer segments, such as showcasing rose gold items to existing customers who prefer them and highlighting trending products for new visitors.
Navigate to Smart collection in your AfterShip Personalization admin. This is where you can manage all your smart collections.
Scroll down to locate the Sequences section. This area lets you define how products are displayed based on specific customer segments or store performance data.
Create a new sequence or modify the existing one. If you want to set up a new personalization sequence, click on Create Sequence.
Use the dropdown menu to select the specific collection or search the collection you want to create a sequence for. Click Create to start setting it up.
Set the status to Enabled if you want the personalized sequence to take effect on your store.
If you want to hide the personalization sequence from your collection page, set it to Disabled. This prevents the sequence from being shown to customers.
There are two ways in which you can reorder the order sequence on your collection page or personalize it based on specific customer segments with additional rules.
If you want all customers to see products in the same order, choose general sorting.
Click Edit rule to define rules for general sorting of your collection page.
You can create a rule based on a pre-made recommendation strategy: This means that all the customers landing on this collection page will see products based on the selected recommendation strategy. Select the strategy based on your end goals from the dropdown.
Trending: Highlight popular items.
New arrivals: Showcase newly added products.
Best sellers: Feature products that sell well.
Pin products: You can pin specific products to ensure they always appear first on the collection page, regardless of other settings.
Click + Add pin and select the criteria for selecting products for pinning. You can choose from the following options.
For Products with tags and Products from collections, you can decide the number of products you want to limit to be displayed. Just drag the radio button along the bar to adjust the number based on your requirement.
Demote products: Automatically demote products that are out of stock. This can help keep your collection relevant and focused on available items.
This allows you to create variations of collections for different customer segments.
Input the name of the variation of the selected collection.
Condition: You can specify customer conditions using tags or UTM parameters and apply recommendation rules within the collections. For example, you can segment customers based on:
a. Customer tags: Customer tags in Shopify are labels you can assign to your customers to categorize them based on specific characteristics or behaviors.
Add new tags or select auto-synced tags associated with your Shopify customers. For example, you might tag customers as loyal, new, or frequent buyers.
Choose the logic that can trigger different product displays.
Customer tags displayed in the dropdown will be synced from your eCommerce platform.
b. UTM parameters: These can be used to tailor collections based on marketing campaigns.
Choose one of the following parameters to use:
Enter the specific value for the selected parameter that you want to track. For example, if you chose utm_source, you might enter Klaviyo if that's where the traffic originates.
Decide how to apply the parameter.
You can select between AND and OR conditions.
The AND condition requires all the conditions to be met to apply the rules of the variation.
The OR conditions requires any one of the defined conditions to be met to apply the rules of the variation.
Pre-made recommendation strategy: Select the Pre-made recommendation strategy based on the criteria defined above. This means that only the customers who meet the defined criteria and land on this collection page will see products based on the selected recommendation strategy. Select the strategy based on your end goals from the dropdown.
Trending: Highlight popular items.
New arrivals: Showcase newly added products.
Best sellers: Feature products that sell well.
Pin products: You can pin specific products to ensure they always appear first on the collection page, regardless of other settings. (See General sorting section, point 3)
Demote products: Automatically demote products that are out of stock. This can help keep your collection relevant and focused on available items.
Save the changes.
This is how you can set up different sequences and rules for different product collections of your Shopify store to create personalized and targeted experiences for different customer segments.
You can test the sequence you are creating for the collection to see how it is performing either in comparison to the original Shopify collection page or a different version of the sequence of the same collection.
Click Create A/B test.
Select the testing criteria from the supported options.
Personalization sequence and original Shopify collection: This will allow you to test the effectiveness of the smart collection in comparison to the original Shopify collection.
Different Personalization sequences: This will allow you to create a different version of the same sequence or a completely new sequence for the same collection and test the effectiveness of both the versions.
Once the testing criteria is selected, adjust the display percentage by dragging the bar left or right. This will give you an overview of how many customers will see either of the versions.
Click Create to finish setting up A/B campaign.
To modify A/B campaign, click Manage A/B test.
Save the changes for the system to build the link for the Version B of the sequence, if you have opted for Different Personalization sequences as the criteria of testing.
From the Smart collections dashboard, under Collection sequences, you can see both the versions with their percentage share defined. Click Edit to enter the sequence editor.
On the top right corner, you will see the version you are currently on. Click on the version to access both the versions and make changes accordingly.
Step 1: Enable our app on Shopify theme
Go to App embeds in your current Shopify theme and enable AfterShip Personalization. You only need to install once for each theme.
Step 2: Save your Shopify theme
Overview
AfterShip Personalization’s Smart Collections feature automatically reorder products on your collection pages based on specific criteria or rules set by you. This helps streamline product organization and enhances the customer experience.
Automatic product sorting: Merchants can enhance click-through rates (CTR) by using store performance data to automatically reorder products. Pre-made recommendations rules include Trending, Best Sellers, and New Arrivals for optimizing sorting on collection pages.
Personalized sorting for segments: Tailor product display on the collection page by promoting specific items to different customer segments, such as showcasing rose gold items to existing customers who prefer them and highlighting trending products for new visitors.
Set up smart collections
Navigate to Smart collection in your AfterShip Personalization admin. This is where you can manage all your smart collections.
Scroll down to locate the Sequences section. This area lets you define how products are displayed based on specific customer segments or store performance data.
Create a new sequence or modify the existing one. If you want to set up a new personalization sequence, click on Create Sequence.
Use the dropdown menu to select the specific collection or search the collection you want to create a sequence for. Click Create to start setting it up.
Set the status to Enabled if you want the personalized sequence to take effect on your store.
If you want to hide the personalization sequence from your collection page, set it to Disabled. This prevents the sequence from being shown to customers.
There are two ways in which you can reorder the order sequence on your collection page or personalize it based on specific customer segments with additional rules.
1. General sorting
If you want all customers to see products in the same order, choose general sorting.
Click Edit rule to define rules for general sorting of your collection page.
You can create a rule based on a pre-made recommendation strategy: This means that all the customers landing on this collection page will see products based on the selected recommendation strategy. Select the strategy based on your end goals from the dropdown.
Trending: Highlight popular items.
New arrivals: Showcase newly added products.
Best sellers: Feature products that sell well.
Pin products: You can pin specific products to ensure they always appear first on the collection page, regardless of other settings.
Click + Add pin and select the criteria for selecting products for pinning. You can choose from the following options.
| Criteria | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Specific product | Choose a specific product from the collection to pin. |
| Products with tags | Product tags in Shopify are labels you can assign to your products to categorize them based on specific attributes. All your predefined product tags from Shopify will be synced and displayed in the dropdown from where you can choose the tag. The products with the selected tag will be pinned at the top. |
| Products from collections | You can choose other collections on your store to pin products from that collection at the top. The products from the collection for which you are setting up this sequence will display after them. |
For Products with tags and Products from collections, you can decide the number of products you want to limit to be displayed. Just drag the radio button along the bar to adjust the number based on your requirement.
Demote products: Automatically demote products that are out of stock. This can help keep your collection relevant and focused on available items.
2. Personalized sorting
This allows you to create variations of collections for different customer segments.
Input the name of the variation of the selected collection.
Condition: You can specify customer conditions using tags or UTM parameters and apply recommendation rules within the collections. For example, you can segment customers based on:
a. Customer tags: Customer tags in Shopify are labels you can assign to your customers to categorize them based on specific characteristics or behaviors.
Add new tags or select auto-synced tags associated with your Shopify customers. For example, you might tag customers as loyal, new, or frequent buyers.
Choose the logic that can trigger different product displays.
| Logic | Implementation |
|---|---|
| Contain any of | This logic displays specified products to customers if they have any one of the specified tags. |
| Contain all of | This logic requires customers to have all the specified tags to view the products. |
Customer tags displayed in the dropdown will be synced from your eCommerce platform.
b. UTM parameters: These can be used to tailor collections based on marketing campaigns.
Choose one of the following parameters to use:
| Parameter | Meaning |
|---|---|
| utm_source | Identifies the source of traffic (e.g., Klaviyo, Attentive). |
| utm_medium | Describes the marketing medium (e.g., email, SMS) |
| utm_campaign | Names the specific campaign (e.g., summer_sale, welcome_email). |
| utm_term | Identifies paid search keywords (usually used for PPC campaigns). |
| utm_content | Differentiates similar content or links within the same ad (e.g., banner vs. text link) |
Enter the specific value for the selected parameter that you want to track. For example, if you chose utm_source, you might enter Klaviyo if that's where the traffic originates.
Decide how to apply the parameter.
| Logic | Implementation |
|---|---|
| Is any of | This option will include traffic from any of the specified values. |
| Is none of | This option will exclude traffic from any of the specified values. |
You can select between AND and OR conditions.
The AND condition requires all the conditions to be met to apply the rules of the variation.
The OR conditions requires any one of the defined conditions to be met to apply the rules of the variation.
Pre-made recommendation strategy: Select the Pre-made recommendation strategy based on the criteria defined above. This means that only the customers who meet the defined criteria and land on this collection page will see products based on the selected recommendation strategy. Select the strategy based on your end goals from the dropdown.
Trending: Highlight popular items.
New arrivals: Showcase newly added products.
Best sellers: Feature products that sell well.
Pin products: You can pin specific products to ensure they always appear first on the collection page, regardless of other settings. (See General sorting section, point 3)
Demote products: Automatically demote products that are out of stock. This can help keep your collection relevant and focused on available items.
Save the changes.
This is how you can set up different sequences and rules for different product collections of your Shopify store to create personalized and targeted experiences for different customer segments.
A/B test sequences
You can test the sequence you are creating for the collection to see how it is performing either in comparison to the original Shopify collection page or a different version of the sequence of the same collection.
Click Create A/B test.
Select the testing criteria from the supported options.
Personalization sequence and original Shopify collection: This will allow you to test the effectiveness of the smart collection in comparison to the original Shopify collection.
Different Personalization sequences: This will allow you to create a different version of the same sequence or a completely new sequence for the same collection and test the effectiveness of both the versions.
Once the testing criteria is selected, adjust the display percentage by dragging the bar left or right. This will give you an overview of how many customers will see either of the versions.
Click Create to finish setting up A/B campaign.
To modify A/B campaign, click Manage A/B test.
Save the changes for the system to build the link for the Version B of the sequence, if you have opted for Different Personalization sequences as the criteria of testing.
From the Smart collections dashboard, under Collection sequences, you can see both the versions with their percentage share defined. Click Edit to enter the sequence editor.
On the top right corner, you will see the version you are currently on. Click on the version to access both the versions and make changes accordingly.
How to implement smart collections
Step 1: Enable our app on Shopify theme
Go to App embeds in your current Shopify theme and enable AfterShip Personalization. You only need to install once for each theme.
Step 2: Save your Shopify theme
Updated on: 30/10/2024
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