FAQ and troubleshooting
"I sent a campaign yesterday but it's not in Insights"
Three checks, in this order:
- Is the campaign completed in Smaily (not scheduled/in progress)? Completed campaigns enter analytics after the sync runs.
- Was it sent from the same Smaily account that is connected to the engine?
- Was it a campaign, not an automation? Automations do not appear in the campaign list.
Details: email metrics.
"A customer gets the same products in several emails in a row"
Some repetition is intentional: a recommendation may repeat while it is still the best pick. The rhythm: the same product can reappear at the earliest after about 7 days (the exact threshold is spread ±2 days per customer, so large groups don't all refresh on the same night); if a product produces no result within 35 days, it falls back in the rotation. For a customer with very little purchase history (cold start tier 0) the selection is inevitably more similar — it improves with the first purchases/browse signals.
"Why did this customer get this exact product?"
Open the customer view in Audience: every issued recommendation carries a
reason (e.g. replenishment due, complements the first purchase, popular
in their segment). The same reason travels with the email in the
rec_N_reason field, which you can also show in the template.
"A recommendation link leads to a 404"
Almost always a link-pattern mistake in the template: a custom prefix (e.g.
/product/) was inserted between the domain and rec_N_link_path. The
correct pattern is exactly https://your-store.com/{{ rec_N_link_path }} —
see Smaily templates.
"The email had empty spots / broken blocks"
A slot can be empty (e.g. the customer doesn't have enough suitable
products). The template must wrap every slot in the condition
{% if rec_N_sku and rec_N_sku != "" %}…{% endif %} (the nil-safe form — it also covers comparison-group contacts whose fields are absent).
"Lots of opens but no visible sales"
Two separate things: open rate is inflated by Apple's privacy protection (email metrics), and an open alone does not prove impact (attribution). Watch click rate and engine revenue; for proof of impact, watch incrementality.
"The numbers changed after the fact"
Normal for two reasons: campaign statistics keep updating for up to ~35 days (late opens), and today/yesterday are computed live in the console, with the nightly aggregate confirming them.
"A new customer joined the list — when do they get recommendations?"
The contact gets its fields on the next nightly sync after the engine has matched them with store data. If an email goes out before that, the empty-slot condition protects the template.
"How fresh is each field — when do opens and clicks update?"
Different data moves on different clocks: the recommendation fields are pushed around 05:00 (with daytime catch-ups), opens and clicks are pulled every 15 minutes, and campaign statistics refresh hourly. The full table is in Smaily templates → How often fields update. If you need certainty right before a send, use "Sync now".
If something still doesn't make sense
Write to the operator — every decision leaves a trail in the console data, and most "odd" numbers are an event-vs-state reading question.
Last updated: 2026-07-12