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Price Drop + Product Recommendations

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  • Updated

Price Drop campaigns help re-engage customers by automatically notifying them when a product they’ve viewed becomes available at a lower price. This type of campaign drives repeat purchases, boosts conversions, and increases customer satisfaction through timely, personalized offers.

What You’ll Learn

In this guide, you’ll learn how to:

  • Set up real-time price drop alerts that notify customers when product prices decrease.

  • Combine alerts with personalized product recommendations to boost engagement and conversions.

Before You Begin

Prerequisites:

  • Access to Email by Optimove

  • Access to Optimove Personalize for product recommendations

Required Data:

  • PRODUCT VIEW events (Mandatory)

    • Track which products users are interested in.

    • Key fields: userid, url, product_id

  • Online Order events (Mandatory):

    • Exclude users who have already purchased the product.

    • Key fields: userid, product_id

  • Inventory (Mandatory):

    • Includes metadata, price history, and stock levels.

    • Required fields: price, stock, product_id, sku_id, variant_id, isavailable, release_date, product_image, product_description, product_url, previous_price, current_price, price_change_percentage, popularity_score, rating

Step 1: Configure the Price Drop Event Generator

  1. Go to Smart Campaigns → Event Generators → Add New Event Generator.

  2. Complete the following fields:

    1. Info: Enter a name/description.

    2. Channel & Provider: Select Email & Optimove.

    3. Use Case: Choose Price Drop.

  3. Parameters:

    • Activity Window sets how many days of user activity history to analyze.

    • Minimum Price Change defines the minimum percentage drop required to trigger the alert.

    • Minimum Stock Level prevents promoting items that may sell out quickly by setting a stock threshold.

    • Number of Recommendations controls how many products appear in the message. It’s recommended to keep this at one for best accuracy.

  4. Frequency Capping: Controls how often customers receive alerts (e.g., minimum hours between alerts or daily maximum).

  5. Messages:

    1. Choose External.

    2. Enter an External Template ID (e.g., daily_price_drop). This name must contain only alphanumeric characters and underscores (no spaces).

    3. Note the Available Fields — you’ll use these later.

  6. Schedule: Set to Always On (recommended) for real-time delivery, or restrict to specific days/hours.

  7. Save: Use Test Mode to validate the setup before switching to Enabled.

Smart Campaigns Overview

Step 2: Set Up a Matching Event in Optimove Settings

  1. In your Optimove instance, go to Settings → Events.

  2. To create a new event:

    • Click “Add Event.”

    • Event Display Name: Use the same name as the External Template ID from Step 1.

  3. Add Event Parameters:

    • Add all the parameters listed in the “Available Fields” section of your Event Generator.

    • Ensure all parameters are present before saving.

ℹ️ Common Mistakes

  • If the event display name and event generator name do not match, your campaign will not trigger correctly.

Step 3: Set Up Real-Time Trigger

  • Create a trigger based on the configured event.

  • Refer to this guide for full setup: Managing Triggers.

Step 4: Build the Price Drop Email Template

  1. Open your Optimove instance and navigate to Email, then create a new Triggered Email template.

  2. Build your email as usual by pulling in text and graphics onto the template builder.

  3. Leave spaces for where you would like to include your price drop item and product recommendations.

  4. When you are ready to add your activity data, open the Personalization menu and select the parameters to show.

    • Note: The available parameters are dictated by the “Available Fields” in the Event Generator.

  5. If you are not including additional product recommendations, save the template and skip to the “Create Real-Time Price Drop Smart Campaign” step. Otherwise, continue to add recommendations.

Step 5: Include Product Recommendations in your Template (Optional Step)

Optionally, in addition to the Price Drop item you can include Optimove Personalize recommendations to further personalize your email campaign.

This requires two additional steps, if you only want to include the price drop item, skip this section.

  1. Create a placement

    1. In Optimove Personalize, create a new Placement by going to Recommend → Placement Manger → New Placement.

      1. Placements are used to deliver product recommendations, you can configure recommendation models to recommend items that match your campaign strategy (e.g., recommend personalized popular items).

      2. For more details on creating placements see here.

  2. Create a Smart Banner

    1. In Optimove Personalize, create a new Smart Banner by going to Smart Content → Widget Library → Visual Banner Editor.

      1. Banners are how you can design and embed recommendations into your email campaigns.

      2. Configure:

        1. Banner Name (unique)

        2. Select the placement created in previous step

        3. CTA URL (fixed, templatized, or dynamic)

        4. Define the number of items and grid layout

        5. Dimensions (match them to your email container to ensure fit).

      3. Design the banner, similar to Email, use a drag and drop editor to design your banner including merge tags to include recommendation content from your connected placement.

      4. Preview and QA your banner (sample profiles and edge cases before launching your campaign).

      5. Save the banner.

      6. To place the banner within your Email+ template, simply open the template, drag a “Opti-X Banner” content block into the template and select the banner you want to place.

    2. For more details on creating Smart Banners with the Visual Editor see this article:

      Full article on how to build a Smart Banner with the Visual Banner Editor

      Now, simply choose from your existing Opti-X Smart Banners.

Step 6: Create the Real-Time Price Drop Smart Campaign

  1. Go to Campaigns → Smart Campaigns → New, and choose Triggered.

  2. Select the Price Drop event (from Step 1) as your trigger.

  3. Define eligibility (e.g., opted-in users who haven’t purchased).

  4. Set Always On and choose Email as your delivery channel.

  5. Set campaign goals and save.

Testing and Previewing

Before deploying your campaign, use the built-in tools in Optimail to preview your Price Drop email as different customers. Use the instant preview option to confirm layout and personalization, or send yourself a test email to see the campaign in action.

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