Promotions in Smart Target based on user activity

Question

Is SmartTarget capable of displaying promotions to the user based on his “Recent Visits” and most “Frequently Visited” pages?

Let’s say, the user accesses the website, navigate through a set of links and then end his session. Can SmartTarget remember the items that he usually visits or have visited over a period of time and display promotions on page when he accesses website the next time? So our aim is to display promotions based on the behavioral patterns of the user on the website. If it is possible, how can this be implemented in the scenario of before user login and after?

Also, I came across a term called Facet Promotions in one of the links on the site. Could you please shed some light on the same? Are they part of the SmartTarget 2014 SP1 release? If yes, how are they different from the promotions that we create in the Targeting tabs in SmartTarget 2014?

Answer 1

SmartTarget doesn't store visitor data, so it cannot do it alone.

However, you can do quite a lot with a combination of the Ambient Data Framework (say, a cartridge that remembers when the user does X or Y), Audience Manager (for logged in users, if you wish to store information for later), your own database, SDL Campaigns, SmartTarget, etc.

There's no free rides there, however. You'll need to know what is relevant and what is not, store it in claims in the ADF, add them as triggers, and then you can base your Promotions on those triggers.

As for Facet Promotions, they do not exist anymore in 2014+. They were a sub-set of Promotions that were specific to a location (either on the website or virtually in Fredhopper). The distinction was unnecessary and confusing so we removed it; they're all just Promotions now.