Product Recommendations – OptiMonk Help Center

Recommending customers relevant products can not only improve customer experience significantly, but it can literally multiply your revenue, as well. Implementing relevant product recommendations, however, does not have to involve complicated development processes. It’s not the luxury of Amazon-like superpowers anymore. It can be done with a few clicks for anyone in OptiMonk. In this article, we'll show you how to use

Product recommendations manually,
Most popular products,
Recently viewed products,
Shopify recommendation,
Products in the cart.

1. How to use Product Recommendations manually?

When you create a campaign, you may want to pick the products you recommend for several reasons. For instance, you're running a campaign for a specific product category and want to recommend products you need to clear from stock. This is when manual Product Recommendations can come handy.

1) First, log in to your OptiMonk account at https://app.optimonk.com/login/en
2) Select New campaign in your OptiMonk dashboard:

Next, select the type of campaign you want to create. Popups and Embedded Content are recommended for Product Recommendation.

3) Select a template from your Theme that contains product elements or select the Product Recommendation goal on the left to see the ready-to-use templates with Product Elements:

4) You will see a preview of the Campaign template. Click on Use this template in the top right corner to continue to the Campaign Editor:

5) Select a domain from the dropdown list, then click Next:

6) This is the Campaign Editor. You can start customizing your Campaign by clicking on one of the Elements. You can access the Product Recommendations feature by clicking on a Product Element, and you will see the available options on the right:

Manual: with this setting, you can manually set the products you want to show to your visitors.
Recently viewed: (Shopify-specific) with this setting, you can help the returning visitors to continue where they had left off. OptiMonk tracks which products your visitors recently viewed and depending on the setting we use recommends the last 1, 2, or 3 product(s).
Most popular: (Shopify-specific) this setting allows you to promote your store's most viewed products based on the views of the last 14 days.

Make sure to select Manual from the dropdown to be able to modify recommended products manually.

7) To choose the products you want to recommend in this campaign, hover over the Product Element and click on Modify product.

8) Browse your products and select any to recommend you have in stock.

9) To finalize the changes in the Campaign Editor, click Next in the top right corner:

2. How to include Recently Viewed Products?

OptiMonk tracks which products your visitors recently viewed, and recommends these products again, so they can continue the purchase where they left off.

This new feature is available in our Product Element for Shoprenter and Shopify sites. To start using Product Recommendations, please follow these steps to set it up in the Campaign Editor:

1) First, log in to your OptiMonk account at https://app.optimonk.com/login/en

2) Select a New campaign in your OptiMonk dashboard:

3) Select the Increase sales goal on the left to see the ready-to-use templates with Product Element:

You can fully customize the design in the next steps, or create your own.

4) You will see a preview of the Campaign template. Click on Use this template in the top right corner to continue to the Campaign Editor:

5) Select a domain from the dropdown list then click Next:

6) This is the Campaign Editor. You can start customizing your Campaign by clicking on one of the Elements. You can access the Product Recommendations feature by clicking on a Product Element, and you will see the available options on the right:

If you click on the drop-down menu under General / Mode, you will see the available options:

Manual: with this setting, you can manually set the products you want to show to your visitors.
Recently viewed: with this setting, you can help returning visitors continue where they had left off. OptiMonk tracks which products your visitors recently viewed and depending on the setting we use recommends the last 1, 2, or 3 product(s).
Most popular: this setting allows you to promote your store's most viewed products.
Shopify recommender: this setting leverages Shopify’s product recommendation engine to display personalized product suggestions based on visitor behavior and store data.
Products in the cart: with this setting, you can display products that are already in the visitor’s cart, helping to reinforce purchase intent and encourage checkout completion.

You also have the option to determine the number of recommended products between 1 and 5. This is available for all the modes (Manual, Recently viewed, Most popular):

It is also important to note that OptiMonk will recommend only those products that you currently have in stock based on your website. If there are not enough products that could be recommended, the popup will not be displayed.

7) To finalize the changes in the Campaign Editor, click Save in the top right corner:

You will have the option to edit the Teaser page as well, you can click on the Teaser page at the bottom of the screen to edit this page. Click on Save & Exit in the top right corner to save the changes:

3. How to include Most Popular Products?

OptiMonk tracks which are the most popular products on your website based on the number of views in the last 14 days, and recommend these products to your visitors.

This new feature is available in our Product Element for Shoprenter and Shopify sites. To start using Product Recommendations, please follow these steps:

1) First, log in to your OptiMonk account at https://app.optimonk.com/login/en

2) Select New campaign in your OptiMonk dashboard:

3) Select the Increase sales goal on the left to see the ready-to-use templates with Product Element:

You can fully customize the design in the next steps or create your own.

4) You will see a preview of the Campaign template. Click on Use this template in the top right corner to continue to the Campaign Editor:

5) Select a domain from the dropdown list, then click Next:

If you click on the drop-down menu under General / Mode, you will see the available options for Product Recommendations:

Manual: with this setting, you can manually set the products you want to show to your visitors.
Recently viewed: With this setting, you can help the returning visitors to continue where they had left off. OptiMonk tracks which products your visitors recently viewed and depending on the setting we use recommends the last 1, 2, or 3 product(s).
Most popular: This setting allows you to promote your store's most viewed products based on the views of the last 14 days.
Shopify recommender: this setting leverages Shopify’s product recommendation engine to display personalized product suggestions based on visitor behavior and store data.
Products in the cart: with this setting, you can display products that are already in the visitor’s cart, helping to reinforce purchase intent and encourage checkout completion.

The Most popular option has additional settings:

4. How to include Shopify recommendations?

The Shopify Recommendation option uses Shopify’s own algorithm to suggest relevant or complementary products on different pages:

on product pages: it utilizes Shopify's AI to suggest complementary or similar products,
on collection pages: highlights the most popular items in the collection,
on any other page: it features your site's top favorites of the day.

💡 Please note that this feature only works for Shopify stores, and most popular products are updated once a day.

💡 Shopify app embed must be enabled for this feature to work.

You can use the Shopify recommendation mode for your campaign, just like any other recommendation mode in Editor.

4. How to include Products in the cart recommendations

The 'Products in the cart' recommendation feature enables you to showcase the items that a visitor has added to their cart. This recommendation logic is particularly useful for exit reminders or cart abandonment scenarios, as it allows you to display to visitors the items they are leaving behind. You can easily implement this feature by selecting the 'Products in the cart' logic in Editor and using it with any product recommendation template.

Please note that this feature is only available for Shopify and Shoprenter stores.

What happens if the user has multiple products in their cart, but the product recommendation template features only one product?

OptiMonk displays a product randomly from the user's cart.

What happens if the product recommendation campaign features three products, but the user only has one product in their cart?

OptiMonk won't display the campaign until the user has at least 3 products in their cart.

If you have any further questions or need any help, just let us know at support@optimonk.com, and we would be happy to assist you :)