The Personalization Push API allows you to receive information in real time when a visitor to your website enters a segment in which you’re particularly interested. In the Personalization interface, you can enter a URL and associate specific segments to this location, so that whenever a person enters those segments, a notification containing information about the person, touch, event and matched segments is sent to the URL that you have chosen.
Note
In addition to configuring the Push API in Personalization, you will also need to set up a HTTP server to listen for notification messages (also called an endpoint). This setup will be different for different servers, but generally, you will open a port on a public domain and write a program to listen on that port. This program can be written in any language. Contact your service provider for more instructions on how to set up your server.
Using the Push API
The notification messages that the Personalization service sends to an HTTP server will contain the following parameters:
| Parameter | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
person | Contains values for the fields in the Omnichannel person table | anonymous_visitor, do_not_track |
identifiers | Contains values for the fields in the Omnichannel person_identifier table | person_identifier_type_id, person_id |
touch | Contains values for the fields in the Omnichannel touch table | engagement_score, number_of_page_views |
event | Contains values for the fields in the Omnichannel event table | keywords, page_url |
newMatchedSegments | Contains values for the fields in the Omnichannel matched_segment table | segment_id, and all of the new segments the visitor has entered during this touch |
currentMatchedSegments | Contains values for the fields in the Omnichannel matched_segment table | segment_id, and all of the segments the visitor was in before this touch, including segments the visitor reentered during this touch |
Configuring the Push API
To configure the Personalization Push API:
- Sign in to the Personalization interface, and then click the Configure tab.
- Click the Push API link.
- Click the Add new rule link.
- Configure the following settings:
- Name - Enter the name of the new rule you are creating.
- Endpoint URL - Enter the URL where you want the Personalization service to send notifications.
- Description - Enter a description of this particular push configuration for your own use.
Interval - Enter a number that corresponds with your selection in the Frequency criteria field: for example, if you want to push notifications triggered by the same website visitor every four hours, enter
4in this field.Note
If you select event or touch in the Frequency criteria list, you do not need to enter a number in the Interval field.
- Frequency criteria list - Select how frequently you want to push notifications to be triggered by the same website visitor:
- event - Receive notifications to your specified endpoint URL every time a visitor enters this segment.
- touch - Receive notifications to your specified endpoint URL only for the first a visitor enters this segment during a particular touch. A touch is a series of contiguous events (such as content views) with a duration between events of no more than 30 minutes, and can can contain several events that are matched into the same segment. Choosing this option means that you will only receive a notification the first time an event in a touch matches a segment, and not when subsequent events in the touch match the segment.
- minute - Set how many minutes you want to elapse between each push notification triggered by the same visitor.
- hour - Set how many hours you want to elapse between each push notification triggered by the same visitor.
- day - Set how many days you want to elapse between each push notification triggered by the same visitor. If you select minute, hour or day, you will receive a push notification only if the visitor re-enters the segment after this timeframe; no push will be sent if the visitor re-enters the segment before the set time has elapsed. For example, if you set the frequency criteria to 10 minutes, you would not receive a push notification if the visitor re-enters the segment after eight minutes, but would receive a notification if it occurred after 12 minutes.
- In the Segment Triggers section, in the Select a segment list, click the segment that you want to add to the Segment Triggers table.
- Click Add. The segment name, ID, and description will appear in the Segment Triggers table. A segment trigger means that if a website visitor enters the segment you have defined as a trigger, the Push API sends a notification to the endpoint URL. For example, you can define as a trigger a segment in which a visitor views two pages on your website. In this case, whenever a visitor views two pages on your website, the Personalization service triggers a push notification to the endpoint URL.
- Click Save to save this configuration.
The Personalization Push API will now begin sending notifications to your endpoint URL.
Deleting a segment
To delete a segment from the Segment Triggers table:
- Sign in to the Personalization interface, and then click the Configure tab.
- Click the Push API link.
- In the Segment Triggers table, in Actions, click Delete to the right of the name of your segment.