Categories are simple tags associated with Content and used to identify which pieces of Content best fit a Subscriber's interests.
Each piece of Content is tagged with Categories of interest, and these tagged Categories are used by our AI to determine the interest of your Subscribers and what types of Content they tend to engage with. Once our AI learns the Categories of interest of a Subscriber, it will include more and more relevant Content in their News Digest based on the data learned.
Category Interest
There are two types of interests that determine each Subscriber's weighted Categories of interest: Implicit and Explicit.
Using both the explicit and implicit interests, our AI will weigh the Categories and decide which are most relevant to each Subscriber. Then, the weighted Categories will be used to decide which Stories are included in each Subscribers’ News Digest and in what order the Stories should appear.
Explicit
Explicit interests are the Categories of interest that the Subscriber selected when going through the personalization process.
When your Audience Members first subscribe to your Instance, they will receive a Welcome Email where they will go through the personalization process. During this process, they can explicitly select the Content Categories they are interested in based on the Categories set inside your Content > Controls. These are the explicit interests inputted by the Subscriber.
Implicit
Implicit interests are based on the type of Content the Subscriber interacts with. When Subscribers click on Content in their News Digest, they gain interest in the Categories that are tagged to those individual pieces of Content.
Once your Subscribers begin to engage with your News Digest and read Stories, our AI will learn from their behavior and determine implicit interests based on the Content they are viewing. Our AI will then weigh the Categories associated with those Stories more with each engagement.
Here is an example of how the Categories will work:
Below is a list of 4 Stories and their assigned Categories.
Stories | Categories tagged to each Story |
Story #1 | Customer Success, Internal Communications |
Story #2 | Internal Communications, Innovation |
Story #3 | Engineering, Innovation |
Story #4 | Customer Success |
Below are 3 Subscribers and their weighted Categories of interest. Please note which Categories each Story and Subscriber shares.
Subscribers | Interest Categories |
Maddy | Engineering, Internal Communications |
Robbie | Customer Success, Internal Communications |
Alex | Innovation, Engineering |
Below are the Stories that each Subscriber received in their News Digest.
Subscriber’s News Digest | Story order in their News Digests |
Maddy’s News Digest | Story #1, Story #2, Story #3, Story #4 |
Robbie’s News Digest | Story #1, Story #2, Story #4, Story #3 |
Alex’s News Digest | Story #3, Story #2, Story #1, Story #4 |
Please Note: Your Subscribers will still receive Content tagged with other Categories even if they are not relevant to them in the extra spaces inside of their News Digest. This is why Subscribers may have Content inside of their News Digest that are not relevant to their interests.
Lets breakdown why each person received their unique Story order inside of their News Digest:
Maddy: Received Stories #1, #2, and #3 first because all three of those were tagged with Categories that she has weighted interest in: Engineering and Internal Communication. Story #4 was placed last because she has no weighted interest in the Customer Success category, which that Story was tagged with.
Robbie: Received Stories #1, #2, and #4 first because all three of those were tagged with Categories that he has weighted interest in: Customer Success and Internal Communications. Story #3 was placed last because he has no weighted interest in the Engineering or Innovation categories, which that Story was tagged with.
Alex: Received Stories #3 and #2 first because both of those were tagged with Categories that he has weighted interest in: Engineering and Innovation. Stories #1 and #4 were placed last because he has no weighted interest in the Customer Success or Internal Communications categories, which those Stories were tagged with.
To learn more about how News Digests work, check out this article.
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.