Web activities

Web activities display targeted marketing content to customers in predefined e-Marketing Spots.

Web activities are typically created by a Marketing Manager. They can be associated with a campaign that contains a collection of activities. As an example of this relationship, if an office supply store had a "Back to School" campaign, the Web activities would be responsible for lower-level actions, such as advertising a discount on pens, or suggesting lined paper to any customer who has registered and listed their occupation as a student.

Web activities deliver a message to customers based on a target customer segment, and other customer behavior. Web activities are capable of displaying the following types of content:

Display advertisement

This action displays advertising content designed to increase a customer's awareness about activities at the online store, highlight special offers, and to increase brand awareness.

Display merchandising association

This action displays a predefined static merchandising association defined by the team responsible for the catalog and inventory.

Display category recommendation

This action displays a category recommendation.

Display product recommendation

This action displays a product recommendation.

Web activities can be incorporated into any page on the site. When the site is designed, special placeholders, called e-Marketing Spots, are placed on the site. When displayed to a customer, these placeholders are replaced by the specific targeted content. Target locations are assigned by selecting an e-Marketing Spot in which the Web activity displays when the activity is created.

When multiple Web activities are scheduled to display in the same e-Marketing Spot at the same time, the following rules determine the behavior:

  1. Run activities in descending priority sequence. A higher numeric value denotes a higher priority.

  2. If no request specification is set in the JSP for any content types, then run activities until an activity returns some data.

  3. If there is one or more request specifications in the JSP for individual content types, then run activities until the desired number of content is reached. The JSP can set the desired number of categories, products, and content to display in the eSpot.

  4. Activities with equal priorities will all be run (even if there is already enough data as requested by the JSP)

Web activities can be directed to specific customers contain a condition that determines when and to whom they are displayed. You specify the target condition as part of the Web activity creation. Customers are tracked using their personalization ID.

This means that the new Marketing tool can effectively target all types of customers (generic, guest, and registered), whereas the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator Marketing Tool was only effective with registered customers. The benefit to this improvement can be illustrated in the following examples:

Example 1

Consider a customer that buys a shirt as a guest user, then closes the browser. Later, the same customer returns as a generic customer. The new 'purchase history' customer filters are able to consider the shirt purchased as a guest.

Example 2

Consider a customer that buys a shirt as a guest user, then closes the browser. Later, the same customer buys shoes as a guest user. That is, with a different guest user ID than for the shirt purchase. The new 'purchase history' customer filters are able to consider the shirt purchase made under previous guest user ID. Again, the customer closes the browser, and later still, the customer returns as a generic user. The new 'purchase history' customer filters are able to consider the shirt and shoes purchases made as different guest users.

Example 3

Finally, consider a customer that registers on a site, makes a purchase of socks, then closes the browser. Later, the same customer returns as a generic user. The 'customer segment' customer filter can consider the registration information of the user. Also, the 'purchase history' customer filters are able to consider the socks purchase. Finally, if the customer adds something to their cart, they get a new guest user ID. The 'customer segment' customer filter is able to consider the registration information of the user, and the 'purchase history' customer filters are able to consider the socks purchase.

Web activities are created using the WebSphere CommerceManagement Center.

If your store has enabled workspaces, Web activities may be managed using workspaces and inherit the benefits from that feature.

Web activities generate statistics about their use, which are saved in the database, but are not accessible by the tools at this time.

Some examples of the Web activities that you can create include:

  • On the StoreHomePage e-Marketing Spot, for all Male Customers, display the Sporting Goods category.

  • On the StoreHomePage e-Marketing Spot, for all shoppers who have made 2 purchases in the last 2 months, display the 'Preferred Buyer Club' content image.

  • On the ShoppingCart e-Marketing Spot, for all customers with over $200 in their cart, display the 'Buy now and get free shipping' content image.

  • On the ProductDisplay e-Marketing Spot, show the Upsell merchandising association for the current product on the page.

 

Mapping between Web activities in the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator and the Management Center

There are several changes in behavior in attachments with the move to the Management Center. If you have used the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator in the past to manage attachments, you can review this section to view any changes.

WebSphere Commerce Accelerator differences Management Center differences What this means to you
In WebSphere Commerce Accelerator you can create Promotion Web activities that are associated with a promotion, and the corresponding content. This Activity type is not currently supported in the Management Center. Any Web activities that are tied to promotions will no longer work properly if you choose to enable the Management Center.
You can create product recommendations based on suggestions generated based on clickstream analysis, or based on custom filters. This method of recommending products is not currently supported in the Management Center. Any Web activities that recommend products based on this method will no longer work properly if you choose to enable the Management Center.
You create activities by entering data into the forms in the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator. You create Web activities using a drag-and-drop interface. This helps simplify understanding how customers will experience the activity.

Furthermore, Web activities now incorporate experiments directly.

Web activities, created inside the Web activity builder, are more flexible, and easier to create.
You should also be aware that there is no support offered for migrating Web activities created using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to the Management Center.