OREANDA-NEWS. April 20, 2015. Certona, the leader in real-time omnichannel personalisation for the world's largest brands and retailers, today announced that the United States Patent Office (USPTO) has issued the company a patent for personalised search. The patent supports expanded search functionality within Certona's Personalised Experience Management suite to personalise retailers' site search and product discovery capabilities and optimise paid search landing pages. With real-time consumer behavioural and transactional knowledge, Certona helps retailers create engaging and personalised customer experiences.

The patent, "System and Method for Personalised Search," US Patent No. 8,903,811, covers the indexing of search terms based on behavioural outcomes rather than text analysis. In particular, Certona's behavioural search predicts which products or content the site visitor is most likely to be interested in based on what previous visitors have browsed after using those search terms, overlaid with the personal interests of the search user. Typically, a search provider ranks search results on a retailer's site based on word structure and proximity to a search term. This is problematic in scenarios where there is no exact match or a high volume of results. Certona's self-learning algorithms improve the performance of site search by using individualised behavioural profiling to influence the order in which products display in results, based on an individual's unique profile.

Certona's Smart Discovery solutions are easily integrated into client applications via API calls to the Certona® Predictive Cloud™. New search and discovery products include:

·      Visual Discovery: Delivers personalised keyword and product results by capturing the context of a shopper's keystrokes in real-time, including type-ahead keywords and visual product personalisation.

·      Auto Discovery: Re-ranks and personalises search results or product listing pages based on a shopper's intent implicit in prior or current browse, search and purchase behaviour.

·      Guided Discovery: Interacts with shoppers through a set of engaging product and/or lifestyle related questions to help guide them through a fun product discovery journey.

·      Paid Search Discovery: Improves conversion of paid search campaigns by optimizing personalised landing pages with a higher return on search spend.

·      Alternate Discovery: Provides alternative search suggestions based on individual profiles and behaviours, in addition to the static site search results or product listing pages and even on "no search results found" pages where there is no exact keyword match to the site's catalogue.

"Consumers have a profound amount of possible product and brand choices in the retail landscape," said Geoffrey Hueter, CTO and co-founder of Certona. "With our patented search and listings functionality, we can give brands a competitive edge through personalised experiences that optimise the consumer's path to purchase."

Certona Smart Discovery analyses a customer's keystrokes to provide the best results to entice them to click through and ultimately purchase. Often, customers are directed to a search results page that does not connect them to the products they're likely to buy. Certona Smart Discovery allows customers to click directly into the product of interest, ultimately improving conversion for retailers.

"As a fashion-forward global brand, it is imperative that we stay ahead of trends and serve our diverse customer base with highly relevant personalised experiences", said Erik Lautier, EVP and Chief Digital Officer at bebe. "We are seeing measurable gains in performance from Certona's product recommendations and are excited about offering Smart Discovery to engage and help guide our customers to the products that suit their individual lifestyles." 

Certona's behavioural search and discovery is complementary to existing text-based search engines. By combining the two approaches, Certona's technology greatly improves the search experience by delivering search results tailored to each individual using a seamless balance of text-based indexing and behaviour modeling. Unlike text-based search engines, which require hand-tuning by a site merchandiser, Certona's behavioural search learns from the behaviour of the site's visitors, continuously self-learning and adapting so that the search results get better with use.

Last year, Certona was awarded two patents for profiling and predicting consumer behaviour and identifying non-normative behaviour. Its new patent for personalised search further validates core technology that powers the Certona Predictive Cloud™, with another eight patents pending. Certona's new search capabilities are available in the Certona Experience Manager™. Learn more at: http://www.certona.com/solutions.