Personalization and Pattern Card Matching

Question

Using 8.1

I would like to implement some personalization on the top banner of a page. So, if the user matches Pattern Card A, they see banner A, if they match Pattern Card B, they see banner B, and so on. My problem is that if the match Pattern Card A first, they can never get to Pattern Card B because in the hierarchy of the rules, once they match A, the always match A and can never change to B because their values still match A.

I'm not sure if I am misunderstanding how pattern card matching is working? Or not setting up my rules correctly?

UPDATE

On my banner, I have the following Rules:

Condition 1. where the current contact matches Exercises in the MyCustomPersona profile : Show the Exercise banner

Condition 2. where the current contact matches Swimming in the MyCustomPersona profile : Show the Swimming banner

Default Condition. Of none of the other conditions are true, the default condition is used.

MyCustomPersona is a Profile, with several Profile Keys: Exercise, Swimming, etc...

My profile cards are all or nothing, meaning the profile card for Exercise is Exercise = 100, my profile card for swimming is Swimming = 100

And what is happening is that once a user meets the Exercise = 100 threshold, I only ever see the Exercise banner, no matter what else I do on the site.

AND, this seems to be the case when my rules are based on Visitor. If I use rules based on Visit I seem to be OK. But I really want historical data. Meaning if I browse on the site one day and meet the Exercise threshold, I should be able to come back to the site and it still be personalized for Exercise.

Answer 1

The user can still be matched in Pattern Card A or B. Let us take the following scenario:

Pattern Card A is assigned to users who are more involved in reading articles that concerns Exercises.

Pattern Card B is assigned to users who are more involved in reading articles that concerns Swimming.

So, if your user is tag with the Pattern Card A, this means that the user has a preference for exercises articles. For the user to be tag with the Pattern Card B, you need to make him/her to read Swimming articles. To do so, you will require to make use of Goals and Engagement Values which will drive the user to start reading articles about swimming.

As long as the user keeps reading Exercises articles, he/she will stay in the Pattern Card A. It all depends on how you set the rules and what you want your users to do on the site.

Update

Sitecore Rules evaluation is like this: Once a condition is met, it will return the action. So, if there are other rules below, they will not be executed.

The issue here is that both Exercises and Swimming are 100 and if Exercises Rule is above the Swimming Rule, it will always return Exercises. So, you will need to either rethink on how to set the points or modify the rule to add a certain time limit of displaying the Banner or how to tag your content with the pattern cards. If I am not mistaken, you may tag a content with more than 1 profile card.

I would suggest to work on the points because personalization is mostly based on what the user wants. Also, it is Sitecore in its core who calculates in which pattern it will place the user. It all depends which profile cards have been used to tag content and base of each profile card weightage, Sitecore determines in which pattern the user falls.

Answer 2

I would suggest ordering the rules for personalization from most specific to least specific.

In your example I would do this like:

1. Exercise and Swimming
2. Exercise only
3. Swimming only
4. Default

The thresholds for Exercise and Swimming could also be something less than 100, so you can build upon the points in each facet in a more granular way to determine their level of interest more specifically. This will give you more options for evaluating the rules and determine the content to show. i.e.: Exercise and some Swimming and Swimming and some Exercise, etc.