This article will help you understand:
- What a Price Drop Favorites Trigger is
- Why you should use a Price Drop Favorites Trigger
- How the Price Drop Favorites Trigger works
- How to use/customize all the different settings and filters, so it fits your solution
- How to combine the Price Drop Favorites Trigger with product recommendations
🔍 Note: before you get started, it's essential to understand that Raptor isn't an e-mail marketing system, meaning it doesn't send e-mails directly. Instead, Raptor integrates with your chosen e-mail marketing provider, allowing you to utilize all of Raptor's functionalities alongside with the features in your e-mail marketing system.
See all e-mail marketing systems Raptor works with here: Raptor integrations
What is a Price Drop Favorites Trigger?
When it comes to selling products online, every click on the website counts, and the Raptor engine uses all meaningful engagement on your website, to optimize the customer journey. The favorite list allows customers to save their favorite products for later purchase, share their desires with loved ones, and track price changes.
Many favorite lists are left without conversion as people are busy and may forget their favorites on your site. With the Raptor Price Drop Favorites Trigger, you have the opportunity to reunite your customers with their favorite products, along with the message that they are now discounted.
The Raptor Price Drop Favorite Trigger is monitoring items added to shoppers’ favorite list and waiting for those products to drop in price. It automatically sends out an e-mail notification informing them of the reduced cost. This isn’t just about re-engaging customers; it’s about striking while the iron is hot and converting those who have already expressed a high level of interest by taking action.
A Price Drop Favorites scenario could look like this:
Redirect to products or the favorite list?
There are two methods for creating an Abandoned Favorite e-mail with Raptor.
1. Redirect to favorite page:
The ideal solution for the Abandoned favorites Trigger is to redirect the user directly to the favorite list on the website. This requires storing all favorite list ID's in your database, each with a unique ID. This ID, referred to as FavoriteListID's in Raptor, should be sent with all favorite events. This enables Raptor to combine the FavoriteListID's with the list of products in the users favorite list, which is necessary for restoring the link to the favorite list. Your webshop also needs a generic URL such as: https://www.mywebshop.com/favoritelistid . The combination of the generic URL combined with the FavoriteListID's, will redirect the client to the basket.
2. Redirect to products: If you're unable to recreate the favorite list using the FavoriteListID's and a generic URL, you can also set up an Abandoned Favorites Trigger where users are redirected directly to the product page.
Trigger settings
The Price Drop Favorites Trigger can be configured in the following manner:
1. Runtime
The Trigger setup exists of two different runtime settings:
- Automated: the Trigger runs every hour.
- Scheduled: the Trigger will run at a specific time. The schedule is custom, and can be customized to whenever you want the Trigger to fire.
It is common for e-commerce companies to reduce prices at night, which is why using a scheduled runtime for price drop Triggers can be beneficial. Most users open their email between 9 am and 4 pm, making this the optimal time to activate your price drop Trigger.
💡 Example: At 5 am, a price reduction is applied to all products, generating a “pricechanged” event that activates your Price Drop Trigger. Setting the scheduled runtime to 9 am allows the Trigger to wait 4 hours before firing, optimizing your chances for a conversion with perfect timing. Before sending, a check is performed to see if the user has purchased the product or if the product is out of stock.
2. Look back period
The look back period defines how far back the Trigger should look to retrieve customer data. During this period, the Trigger analyzes user actions to identify satisfying behavior, particularly for users who should receive a Price Drop Favorites Trigger. The longer the look back period, the more Triggers will fire. Raptor recommends a look back period between 30 - 60 to fetch as many users as possible, while still being relevant for the user.
💡 Example: The Trigger utilizes the user's behavior within the last 30 days.
3. Waiting time
Define the delay time that should pass before the user receives the Trigger. Note that latency is only relevant when your runtime setting is set to automated. Raptor recommends that the Price Drop Trigger fires relatively quickly after the price drop. This ensures that the items which have been discounted remain at their reduced price at the time of sending. Users are then able to make a purchase before the item is set back to its original price or becomes sold out.
💡 Example: The Trigger should fire 2 hours after the prices drops.
4. Limit
The limit determines how many Triggers a user can receive within a specific period (e.g., 24 hours). For instance, a user may receive a maximum of 1 Raptor Trigger within 24 hours. Setting a limit helps prevent spamming users with excessive notifications. The limit can also be combined with other Triggers, such as Category Interest, Abandoned Basket, and Price Drop Product Interest.
💡 Example: The user may receive a max. one e-mail within 24 hours.
5. Minimum discount
This function determines the minimum amount by which a product must be discounted before the Trigger activates.
- Percentage: here, you specify what the minimum discount in percentage should be to ensure relevant products to your customers. Raptor recommends setting the minimum discount percentage between 10-20 % to ensure enough Trigger volume simultaneously with providing attractive offers.
- Absolute discount: here, you specify the minimum absolute discount, i.e., the actual amount saved, to ensure relevant products for your customers. Raptor recommends setting the minimum percentage discount along with the minimum absolute discount. We recommend setting this setting to a decent value like €10 or 50 Danish kroner and simultaneously apply the minimum discount percentage. This will filter irrelevant offers out.
💡 Example: if an apple that normally costs 3 kr. is reduced with 50 % then the new price is 1,50 kr. and thereby you only save 1,50 kr. which is not a significantly offer.
6. Disqualify settings
Depending on various use cases, there will be examples where you do not want to send a Price Drop Trigger to a customer. The Raptor’s disqualification settings allow you to customize the setup to fit your business needs.
Disqualify if the user has seen the offer: here you decide if you want to disqualify users that already have seen the offer. If the user already has seen the offer, it can be unreasonable to send the Trigger because the user is aware of the offer. However, if the goal is to remind users of the offers, it doesn’t matter whether they have seen the offer before, as the aim is to encourage them to make a purchase. The Trigger will consider the latest seen price and compare it with the OnSalePrice (current price) and check if the minimum discount percentage and minimum discount actual are satisfied.
Disqualify settings for users buying the product before the price drop: depending on your business type (one-time purchases vs. repeated purchases), you might consider changing this parameter by setting the number of days back in time. This means the Trigger checks if the user bought the offer product within 60 days. Thus, if the user has bought the offer product within that time frame, then the person will not receive a Price Drop Trigger.
👀 Usecase:
One time buyers
If you, for example, sell sofas, your sale will be dominated by one-time purchases, i.e., you do not buy the same sofa twice. In this case, you do not want to send offer products that the user already has bought. To avoid promoting the same sofa, consider implementing a longer disqualification period, such as 60 days
Repeated purchases
If you are a grocery store where the customers repeatedly buy the same products, it will be relevant to set a short disqualifying period, like 7 days which allows to Trigger on products that the user repeatedly purchases but is still long enough not to agitate users. If the period is to short you can end in the situation where the user just has bought the product before the offer announcing, and then the user will get a triggered mail that the product is on offer which can agitate some users and resulting in refunds to get the product cheaper.
This is what the Trigger with the above mentioned settings will look like in the e-commerce funnel. Remember that all these settings are customizable (When the Trigger that runs every hour catches a Price Drop event, an e-mail will be send after one hour. After this, the limit period will not send any other Price Drop e-mails for 24 hours):
Organizing your Triggers
1. Execution order: When you've activated multiple Triggers, you can set a priority to determine the order of them. The Trigger with the lowest index set in the execution order will activate first. For this to work, the Triggers set with execution order must activate simultaneously.
💡 Example: If you've set up a Product Interest, Category Interest and an Abandoned Favorites Trigger, you need to set all Triggers with the same latency to utilize execution order functionality.
2. Trigger grouping: Using the limit, you can ensure that the user receives only a specific number of Triggers within a certain period. With "Trigger group," you can choose which Triggers should disqualify each other. In some cases, you may want a Trigger to always activate, regardless of what the user has received previously. For example, a Price-drop Trigger that only activates when there is sale on your website.
👀 Usecase: Suppose you have 4 Raptor Triggers in your setup: Product Interest, Abandoned Basket, Category Interest, and Price Drop Product Interest.
Here, two Trigger groups are set up, named "Group 1" and "Group 2."
Group 1: Contains Product Interest, Category Interest, and Abandoned Basket. These Triggers can disqualify each other. So the user only receive one Trigger from the group within a specific period.
Group 2: Contains only the Price Drop favorites. This Trigger will always activate regardless of other Triggers the user has received, since it is in it's own Trigger group. The Trigger may disqualify itself, depending on the limit settings if there are multiple price drops in with a short interval.
Trigger filters
If certain products need to be excluded from Trigger communications, filters can be set up in Raptor's Data Manager. Filters can be created based on all product information's in your Product Catalog.
Examples:
- Exclude products low on stock
- Exclude products with a low contribution margin
- Exclude products from a specific category
- Exclude products from a specific brand
👀 Usecase: Sport24’s practice of removing products from their Price Drop Triggers when the stock status is less than 5 serves a valuable purpose.
By doing so, they give users a fair chance to purchase the discounted products. After all, there’s nothing more disappointing than falling in love with a product only to find out it’s sold out after seeing the reduced price.
If you have stock status in your product catalog, it’s easy to filter out these products in Raptors Data Manager.
Data Enrichment
Raptor's Trigger events are enriched with data that can be used to provide a more personalized experience in your e-mail marketing tool.
Raptor Price Drop Favorites Triggers always include:| Data | Description |
RecommendedId |
The product the user has visited |
Productname |
The name of a product fetched from the product feed |
Categorypath |
The products category |
BrandId |
The ID of the brand |
Timestamp |
The time the Trigger was fired |
EventName |
The name of the event fired to the last-mile system |
EmailmarketingId |
Email or ID used in the email marketing system |
If additional data from your product catalog is desired to be included in the Trigger, this can easily be included, for example:
- RetailPrice
- Discount
- OriginalPrice
- OnsalePrice
- ProductCategory
- ProductDescription
- BrandName
- Stockstatus
- Producturl
- Imageurl
Also custom fields can be populated with any relevant information you wish to include to enhance the Trigger data.
- Customfield1
- Customfield2
- Customfield3
- Customfield4
- Customfield5
👀 Usecase: Send an email with a subject, like:
- Your favorite Just Got Better: [Productname] Price Drop
- Price Update: [Productname] Discounted!
Example e-mail:
Technical requirements
How does it work?
Raptor monitors prices in the product catalog in the ‘OnsalePrice’ parameter. When a price changes, a ‘pricechange’ event is generated, activating the Price Drop favorites Trigger. Combined with user tracking, Raptor can identify which users have in discounted products in their favorite list.
Tracking and Restoring the favorite list:
Like the Abandoned Favorite Trigger there is two ways setting up the Price Drop Favorites Trigger depending on your setup.
1. Price drop favorites redirect to favorite list
Tracking:
Event type (P1): favorite
ProductId (P2): When a product is added to the favorite list, the productId should be fired in ProductId (P2).
ItemPrice (P12): Send the actual price of the product under Itemprice (P12). The sales-price if the item is on sale - otherwise the original price.
Favoritelistcontent (P14): A comma-separated list of all ProductId's in the favorite list, must be fired at every favorite event, when a product is added or removed from the favorite list.
favoritelistId (P23): The unique ID of a favorite list.
RUID (Email Marketing ID): E-mail or other External identifiers for the e-mail marketing system must be set under RUID (Email Marketing ID). Read more about user tracking here.
Generic URL:
Your web shop need a generic URL such as https://www.mywebshop.com/favoritelist. The combination of the genric URL combined with the basketid will redirect the client to the basket.
💡 Example:
Generic URL: https://www.mywebshop.com/favoritelistid=
favoritelistid: 45046e39-d048-4841-b3dd-f1629aaab3e9
The user will be redicted to: https://www.mywebshop.com/favoritelistid=45046e39-d048-4841-b3dd-f1629aaab3e9
Read more about the Product Catalog setup in the Product Catalog documentation Raptor’s Help Center.
2. Price drop favorites redirect to products
Tracking:
Eventtype (P1) : favorite
ProductId (P2): When a product is added to the favorite list, the productid should be fired in ProductId.
ItemPrice (P12): Send the actual price of the product under Itemprice. The sales-price if the item is on sale - otherwise the original price.
Favoritelistcontent (P14): A comma-separated list of all ProductId's in the favorite list, must be fired at every favorite event, when a product is added or removed from the favorite list.
RUID (Email Marketing ID): E-mail or other External identifiers for the e-mail marketing system must be set under RUID (Email Marketing ID). Read more about user tracking here.
Product Catalog:
The Product Catalog must be set up with the following parameters:
- ProductNumber
- ProductUrl
- ImageUrl
- OriginalPrice
- OnsalePrice
🔍 Note: It is important that the field 'Onsaleprice' always holds the product’s price, even when the product is not discounted, which means the parameter must never be null or empty. Raptor monitors the field and activates the Trigger when prices in 'Onsaleprice' change.
Find tracking for setting up the product product catalog here: https://support.raptorsmartadvisor.com/hc/en-us/articles/13480621408156-Setting-up-a-Product-Catalog-for-Recommendation-Engine
🔍 Note: Ensure that the ProductId in the tracking matches the ProductNumber in the Product Catalog.
Combine the Trigger with e-mail recommendation modules
Combination 1
Abandoned Favorites x Personal recommendations (The personal shopping assistant)
Let's make shopping feel like it's tailored just for the user. With our personalized recommendations, we're all about enhancing the shopping experience. If the user already got some goodies on the favorite list, why not present some other items that complement their choices perfectly? It's like having your own personal shopper, suggesting items that go hand in hand with what you already love. So go ahead, explore our cross-sell recommendations, and discover even more treasures to add to your basket. Look for the module 'The personal shopping assistant (additional sales)' in Raptors Control Panel.
E-mail example:
Combination 2
Abandoned Favorites x Customized Recommendations
Gain control of your recommendations by utilizing the Merchandising items strategy. This strategy is based on items selected by you in the Merchandising tool and then sorted by the users' personal preferences or general popularity. Build a query of products such as "new arrivals," "products on sale," or accessory products that you wish to push to all users who receive an Abandoned Basket e-mail.
The module maintains itself, automatically removing products that go out of stock or no longer meet your query. Additionally, all selected products are sorted according to each individual's preferences. Look for the module 'Items of Customized Feeds sorted by personal preferences and popularity'.
🔍 Note: In order to use the Merchandising module, access to Merchandising is required.
E-mail example:
Abandoned Favorites reminder
Ever wondered why some online stores send you reminders when you leave items in your shopping cart without completing the purchase? It's not just a random act of kindness—it's a smart business strategy. These reminders, known as abandoned basket reminders, are like gentle taps on the shoulder, reminding you about those items you were interested in.
You can do exactly the same with your favorite list!
Not only does this help you recover potentially lost sales, but it also shows your customers that you care about their shopping experience. It's a win-win situation! So, if you haven't already set up abandoned favorites reminders for your online store, now's the time to do it. You'll be amazed at the impact it can have on your sales and customer satisfaction levels.
When you have your first abandoned favorites set up, it's easy to set up an Abandoned favorites reminder. The requirements for the Triggers are the same, you only have to change the latency, and then you are good to go.
The price drop favorites reminder Trigger is easy to set up. Simply clone your price drop favorites Trigger, change the event name and the latency, and then you are good to go.
You might want to consider the disqualifying and limit settings for the user, depending on your business.