Troubleshooting - Web Personalization (RTP) Content Recommendation Engine Not Working

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Overview

The Content Recommendation Engine allows content assets to be promoted to visitors on your website. But what happens if it stops working? This doc will show you the common things to check and troubleshooting steps to try to get it working again.

 

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Troubleshooting Steps

 

Verify Global Settings

The CRE can be switched on or off for your entire RTP instance whenever you want. It's possible that another user may have switched it off and not turned it back on again (it happens more often than you'd think). To enable or disable the CRE globally, go to the Account Settings page and look for the Recommendation toggle switch. Full directions can be found here.

 

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Check for CRE Excluded URLs

You have the ability to prevent the CRE from being added onto specific pages. If you have URLs excluded from allowing the CRE to be displayed, that would cause the CRE to no longer display on those pages. Many times the exclusion can be set and then forgotten, or set by a different user on accident. Directions on how to set up the exclusions can be found here Web Personalization (RTP) - How To Exclude or Include the CRE on Specific Pages

 

 

Content assets can be switched on or off to designate whether that content should be included in the CRE recommendations or not. Each piece of content can be enabled or disabled individually, but if you don't have any enabled at all, there's nothing for the CRE bar to recommend, so it won't even show up on the page.

 

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To check whether content is enabled, from the menu, select Recommendations

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In the Content Recommendations page, look for the Recommendations column. This will list out all pieces of content you have in RTP and display whether they are enabled or disabled.

  • The Red box means it is turned Off and is disabled.
  • The Green circle means it is turned On and is enabled.

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Make Sure the Page Has the RTP Tag Running

The CRE is a feature of RTP, so if the RTP script tag isn't running on the page, there's no way for the CRE to work. The RTP tag can be implemented in many different ways besides by having it directly in the page's HTML, like having it in a tag manager. These other implementation methods can cause problems so be sure to follow the directions in the documentation here when setting it up: RTP Tag Implementation - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

 

If you know for sure that the RTP tag is on the page, here's documentation on how to troubleshoot what could be keeping it from loading properly: Troubleshooting Web Personalization (RTP) - RTP Tag

 

Clear Your Browser's Cache and Cookies

Web browsers store cached data from websites, which can frequently cause old versions of webpages to continue showing even if a different newer version of the page should be loading instead. Try clearing both cache and cookies in your browser and then testing the page again. You can also test using a different browser.

 

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