Storefront changes¶
Beta feature
Retail Media features are currently in closed beta. Contact Voyado if you want to take part in the program.
Three things should be done to the storefront to support sponsored products:
- Implement sponsored list requests (if used)
- Send impression events when products are seen
- make sponsored products visually distinct
Sponsored product lists¶
Depending on your implementation, you might want to have standalone sponsored lists. These are a type of recommendation lists and work identically in most regards. They are defined per page and have an id to distinguish them, just like normal recommendation lists.
However, rather than receiving them as part of a landing page request, they are accessed through a separate sponsored page endpoint. The main difference between these endpoints is that the sponsored page request only returns the sponsored lists and, unlike the landing page request, should only be called once per page visit.
A note on Performance
Due to the real-time bidding step, sponsored lists will naturally be slightly slower to respond than normal recommendation lists. It is recommended to make the sponsored page call in parallel with the landing page request.
Empty results
Sponsored page queries can at any point return an empty response, for example if no supplier chose to bid for that slot. As such, these lists should always be considered optional.
Impression tracking¶
On top of tracking clicks and purchases, sponsored products should also be notified when they have been seen by the visitor. In Elevate this is done by firing an impression notification. For sponsored lists, the returned list will have a field impressionTicket which should be included in the notification. For sponsored slices, the fist product within each sponsored segment of the list will have a flag notifyImpression set to true. Send an impression notification with that product's ticket when its product card is being rendered.
When to send notifications
The general guideline is to send a notification when 50% of the sponsored area has been on screen for at least a second, but there are no hard rules regarding this and is up to you how you wish to implement it.
Refreshing the page or filtering on the product selection might cause sponsored segments to change. In this case you may send a new impression notification, though this is not required.
Distinguishing sponsored products¶
While not a requirement from Voyado's side, you might want to highlight sponsored products as sponsored to comply with any local regulations. To facilitate this, sponsored products will have a field sponsored set to true, allowing you to make them visually distinct.