Correct use of product.categories

This is for:

Developer

In this article, we’ll show you how to use product.categories correctly to avoid issues in emission of the product event.

What is it?

Warning

It is critical that the following information is adhered to when implementing product.categories.

product.categories is used on product and listing pages to identify the product categories that a product belongs to.

The following snippet is a good example of using product category:

[
  'Clothing > Sweaters > Short Sleeve Sweaters',
  'New Arrivals > Clothing'
]

This product appears in 2 categories: Clothing > Sweaters > Short Sleeve Sweaters and also a New Arrivals > Clothing.

Guidelines

DOs

  • Do provide only the most relevant category, or, alternatively, provide all of categories at once if that’s easiest

  • Do provide different categories on different pages, to match the context.

    For example, it is acceptable to send New Arrivals > Clothing if visitors arrived via the New Arrivals menu item, and also acceptable to send Clothing > Sweaters > Short Sleeve Sweaters if visitors arrived via the Clothing menu item

  • Do implement a human readable category name that is formatted for display purposes. It can’t be a technical term such as 457, SHOP/NW/CL or B_CLOTHING

  • Do use any number of levels required, e.g. a › b or a › b › c › d are both OK

  • Do match your categories with your website’s breadcrumbs. We recommend this approach, because it will make the content more familiar to customers

DON’Ts

  • Do not include the top level category such as Home or Shop in the category path

  • Do not include the name of the product in the category path

  • Do not use View all in your category structure, for example Tops > View all. Instead, use Tops

Good examples

Refer to the following examples of a correct implementation of product.categories

Only 1 most relevant category:

['Clothing > Sweaters > Short Sleeve Sweaters']

['Clothing > Tops > Blouses']

Only 1 contextual category:

['New Arrivals > Clothing']

All product categories at once, including any temporary category:

['Clothing > Sweaters > Short Sleeve Sweaters', 'New Arrivals > Clothing']

['Clothing > Leggings', 'Sale > Clothing']

['Clothing > Leggings', 'Sale']

Multiple categories with different types of classification:

['Men > Clothing > Shirts', 'Designers > Moncler > Shirts']

['Activity > Run > Running Pants', 'Activity > Yoga > Yoga Pants', 'Clothing >Pants']

Bad examples

Refer to the following examples of an incorrect implementation of product.categories

Too broad or repetitive:

['Clothing > All clothing']

['Clothing > Clothing']

['All clothing']

Should not include Home:

['Home > Clothing > Sweaters']

Missing hierarchical information, you must provide full category path:

['Blouses']

['Skirts']

Too technical, should be a human readable display name:

['457']

['SHOP/NW/CL']

['B_CLOTHING']

Must be a human readable name, with consistent casing:

['CLOTHING > ALL CLOTHING']

['clothing > Sweaters > short sleeve Sweaters']

Must use ` > ` surrounded by spaces as the separator:

['Clothing', 'Tops', 'Blouses']

['Clothing>Tops>Blouses']

Includes use of View all 

['Tops > View all']