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Understanding Personalized News Digest Logic

Personalized News Digests, How News Digest Logic Works, Newsletters

Maddy Rieman avatar
Written by Maddy Rieman
Updated over 2 months ago

Our Cerkl Broadcast News Digest was built to help your organization’s message cut through the inbox noise. Here’s what you need to know about the parts of the News Digest and the logic used to analyze your Subscribers interests, match relevant Content, and build out those amazing automated News Digests.

The power of Cerkl's platform is that our system automates and personalizes your Subscriber's experience; therefore, each News Digest will be unique based on a myriad of factors.

Here are just a few key factors to keep in mind:

  • Has this Subscriber personalized their experience?

  • Has this Subscriber already seen or clicked on Content?

  • Has new Content been published since the Subscriber's last News Digest?

  • What is the account's Minimum Content Required to Send option set as?

  • What is the account's Maximum Content to Send option set as?

  • Has Content been published with Posting Priorities?

  • Has a piece of Content been published with a corresponding Author?

  • Is the Display Percent Match & Trending feature turned on or off?

Preview Text/Pre-header Text

The Preview Text is the copy that you can find following your subject line in many email clients. This text is also included at the top of your News Digest.

  • Personalized: "Latest {Category 1, Category 2} news from {Cerkl Instance Name}, just for {First Name}."

Please note: Your Organization's email client, as well as device type, can affect the way Preview Text is displayed.

Priority Content

Applying Posting Priorities is the number one more powerful way to ensure that certain Content is shared in a Subscriber's News Digests, and how many times it is included.

Different Posting Priorities have different effects. By Selecting Send to Everyone or Everyone as the First Story, Content will be sent to your audience, even if the Categories are not yet of interest to a Subscriber. For more information, please review: Story Distribution Settings - Posting Priorities.

Content which has Segments added are also shared without Category interest, being added to the Just For You Priority Chip.

Priority Chips

These little visual storytellers show up to let your Subscribers know how important a piece of Content is.

Depending on the Posting Priority and Distribution Settings you place on a piece of Content, a chip will accompany the Content in your News Digest.

Priority Chips coincide with your organization's Branding > Theme Color.

Top Story

The highest Priority Chip. When you choose to set a content piece as "to everyone as the first story" (just once or multiple times), you are buying this piece a first-class ticket straight to the top of your News Digest. If you have many top stories, we’ll choose the three that will be the most relevant to each Subscriber and continue to serve the others in the rest of the News Digest until that Content is consumed or expires.

Big News

The second most powerful Priority Chip. This is triggered when you prioritize a piece of Content as "to everyone" (just once or multiple times). This is still a very valuable tool, but if it’s competing with a Top Story, it will be in second place.

Just for You or Event for You

Did you know that using your Audience Member’s name has been shown over and over to increase click thru rate? That’s the reason for this Priority Chip.

When you set your Content Distribution Settings to send to a specific Segment, it will be given the Just for You Priority Chip, which is meant to entice your Audience Members into clicking. That same idea applies to your events with the Event for You Priority Chip, which is applied to Events sent to a Segment.

Recommended For You

After your three top Priority Content pieces are shown, the Recommended For You section kicks in. This section will show the other priority pieces, accompanied by a text chip based on the stories that our artificial intelligence thinks your Audience Members want to read most.

The layout of the Recommended for You section takes into consideration the format preference you or your Subscribers have selected: Traditional, Headlines Plus, or Headlines Only.

% Match & Trending

If your account has Display Percent Match & Trending toggled on inside Settings > News Digest, and the piece of Content is Trending or has a high % Match, then we will use a Chip to display this distinction. These Chips also link to the story, but they will always be the same colors for all organizations.

If the piece of Content does not have a Posting Priority included, it will have text-based trending and matching as seen above. Only one text-based item should be shown. If multiple are available, they should follow this order of display:

  1. Happening Now (Events)

  2. Trending

  3. Match

Events

Based on the Posting Priority, relevancy of Categories, and whether or not the Event has already been sent in a previous News Digest for a specific Subscriber, Cerkl will automatically format your Events.

  • Priority Events: Will be included in the top of the News Digest and will have the appropriate Chip associated.

  • Non-Prioritized Events: Will be included in the body of the News Digest at least once and will be ordered based on your Subscriber's interest.

  • Upcoming Events: A list of Events that have already been delivered in a previous News Digest or do not have an associated Posting Priority. This section will hold up to 5 consecutive Events.

Based on the Event Start Date and Event End Date, Cerkl will apply the following logic to the event's display within a News Digest:

  • If event time <24 hours, display: Date and time (Ex. Sat, Jul 20 • 4:00 PM EST),

  • If event time >24 hours, display: Start date and end date (Ex. Sat, Jul 20 – Sun, Jul 21).

  • If event length is >24 hours, display: Now/Happening Now.

  • If event is ongoing has more than 24 hours before it expires in Upcoming Events section display: Now + [number of days before Event End Date].

Authors

If a piece of Content has been associated with a specific Author, then the Author's name will be included.

Other News

Only within the Traditional Layout will the Other News section appear for your Subscribers. Here you will notice the call to action is denoted with a Continue Reading hyperlink instead of the read more or # min read button.


If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at support@cerkl.com or use the support Chat toward the bottom right-hand corner of any cerkl.com page.

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