Good advice encourages action. In this case, action means that a customer clicks through to the PDP of a product, because that increases the chance of purchasing. We call that click through from advice to a PDP the Click-Through-Ratio. The higher the CTR, the better your advice.

The Click-Through-Ratio is therefore a good indicator of good advice. Is the CTR of your product finder lower than 50%? Then we recommend that you take a critical look at the advice using the tips below.

Haven't you published your product finder yet? Even then we recommend to apply the tips below ;-).

You can mainly check the quality of the advice in Matching > Test & Tweak. We also recommend that you run through the preview of your product finder a few times and feel free to share the link to the preview with your colleagues.

Do you use Package advice for your product finder? Read this article: Advice multiple products with Package advice.

Try out as many different answer combinations as possible in Test & Tweak and take the points below into account when testing.

1. Make sure that the desired products come back in the advice and test this with all kinds of different combinations of answers

Does the advice need improvements? See if you can add nuances to the matching with a distinction between 'good' and 'perfect' matches.

2. Use custom answer labels for clear advice

Aiden shows your customer's answers for each advice, so that your customer knows why the advice fits perfectly or less well. For answers such as 'Yes' and 'No', you can provide clear advice with custom answer labels. You create a custom answer label for the answer in the Conversation section.

3. Make sure that the 'Best match' really is the best match

Good advice looks like this: the 'Best Match' fits all answers perfectly or at least well, but certainly not badly.

If you see that the advice is not good enough for several answer combinations, then read on!

4. Let your customer skip irrelevant questions to avoid imperfect advices

Does the 'Best match' fit poorly with at least 1 answer? Then check whether you have products available for that specific combination of answers. If not, it is better to skip a question that is not relevant. Or you present your customer with a similar question, but with (partly) different answers. For example: if there are no moisturizers that fit oily and sensitive skin in a Day Cream product finder, then it is better to skip the question about sensitive skin after the answer 'Oily skin'.

You can arrange Flow exceptions in the Conversation section under the desired question in the Flow tab.

5. Avoid advice that is the same or similar

Do the recommended products all fit equally well? Then you make it more difficult for your customer to decide. Are these products really the same or would you recommend one more than the other? Consider whether you can ask an additional question about this, or adjust the matching by distinguishing between perfect and good matches. In the example below, the matching has been adjusted: the third day cream suits male skin slightly less well than the two creams above it. The customer can now decide for themselves whether they need a day cream with or without sun protection.

6. Only use a neutral match in very specific cases

We do not show answers with a neutral match in the advice. 'No preference answers' therefore automatically receive a neutral match.

By providing a neutral match, important information (the answer your customer had chosen) may be missing from the advice. Only if an answer is not useful to show in the advice, giving a neutral match is a good idea. For example, with a question that only has the purpose to split up your conversation flow.

7. Set a filter for a question if you want to exclude bad matches from the advice

Consider excluding hiking boots for children when a customer is looking for hiking boots for a woman. Read more: Set a question as a filter. You can arrange this in Matching > Settings > Filter questions.

8. Prevent Empty advices by using not too many filter questions

Do you use filters for multiple questions? Then check different answer combinations to see if there are any empty advices.

Do you see empty advices? Then consider whether you can turn off the filter on one of the questions, or ask different questions for a specific situation in a separate flow.

Is an empty advice unavoidable? Then let your customers know how they can reach you or what they can do if they receive an empty advice by entering your own text on the Empty advice page. You can set this in Conversation > Advice page.

9. Don't show too many products

We only recommend showing more than 3 products in the advice for style and taste-sensitive products such as clothing, furniture and gifts. For complex products you can easily give advice that consists of 3 or fewer products. Adjust the number of products if necessary in Matching > Settings > Result settings.

10. Avoid advice with the same product in different variants

In a product finder for T-shirts, you want to show T-shirts that really differ from each other (e.g. from a different brand or with a different print) and not show the same shirt 3 times in red, yellow or green (if your customer has no preference for color). If there are different product variants in your catalog (for example the same product in a different size or color), first ensure that they are recognizable as variants in your catalog by using item_group_id. Then enable 'Group variants of product' in Matching > Settings > Result settings. Do you have products with color variants in your catalogue? Show these variants in the advice by switching on the toggle 'Show available variants on advised products'.

Are you happy with the advice? And did you also check the contents of your product finder with this checklist? Then you can publish your product finder and embed it in your website!