If you have been on an ecommerce website, you have likely seen product suggestions that appear under headings such as "Related Products," "Customers Who Bought This Also Bought," "Suggested Product," or something to that effect. The idea here is that the ecommerce website somehow figures out what you might want to buy before you disclose your intention to buy it. These are product suggestion lists.

Done right, these can be a valuable marketing tool.

How Are Product Suggestion Lists Generated?

There are many drivers for product suggestions. Some of the most common are:

• Suggesting Products Based on Social Signals

One of the best parameters to evaluate which other product buyers of widget ABC would want to buy is by monitoring what else buyers of widget ABC generally buy. That suggestion would be based on objective empirical evidence. Also, if the algorithm learns constantly, the product suggestions do not grow obsolete.

• Vendor Mandated Suggestions

Sometimes the seller of a vacuum cleaner may want to suggest that customers buy an extension cord too. In fact, they may be willing to pay for such a suggestion. Instead of payment, or in addition to it, they may be ready to offer a discount for a bundled purchase.

• Manually Curated Suggestions

If your range is not too extensive, you could consider manually curating your list of suggested products. Even in the case of voluminous product catalogues, you could manually curate suggested products for some of your most popular products or categories.

• Suggestions Based on the User's Clickstream

The earlier approaches use statistical methods that assume homogenous customers. But we know that is not the case. Product suggestions could be influenced by the navigation and browsing history of each specific buyer. This level of customization would lead to each prospect viewing the product recommendations that are best suited to them.

• A Combination of Two or More of the Above

There is no reason that the approaches listed above can only exist in isolation. Some of the best lists of related products might arise out of a combination of two or more approaches. Also, there might be an opportunity to create more than one list. I am sure I have seen Amazon come up with both the following on the same page: "People Who Bought This Also Bought," as well as "You Recently Viewed."

What Is the Advantage of Suggesting Products?

What causes a person to land upon one of your product pages? There are several possibilities and each of them can gain from product suggestions:

• A Prospect Deliberately Navigates to a Specific Page on Your Website

This is a highly interested prospect who has quite likely clicked a few times to reach the correct webpage. Now that you have their undivided attention, a judiciously chosen product suggestion would likely be well received.

• A Prospect Reaches Your Landing Page From a Search Engine

This prospect was looking for a specific product, but not necessarily on your website. So this could be a lucky break for you. Why not upsell to this prospect and gain more from that visit?

• A Prospect Was Browsing Around Without a Clear Intention to Purchase

There's a lot of casual surfing around on the Internet, even on ecommerce websites. A casual surfer is not necessarily interested in the specific product being described on this webpage, but there is a reason she or he landed here in the first place. Might as well suggest some more products that could lead to a sale.