Explain is the Empathy Platform Playboard tool that elevates explainability to the next level. Reinforcing the commitment with the principle of transparency, Explain provides merchandisers with enjoyable visualizations of how product scoring determines the order of products on the search engine results page (SERP) or the product category page (PCP), detailed explanations about how scoring criteria affect each product, and granular analytics of how queries or categories perform in terms of KPIs such as CTR, findability, or checkout, among others.

The Explain landing page includes a mandatory filter section to narrow your experience—with an Endpoint selector to choose whether you want to analyze search queries or browse categories—and a search box to enter the query or category you want to consult.

Instant bubbles, representing the top search queries within the last 15 minutes in your commerce store, float at the bottom of the screen below the search bar. Click one of them or type your query on the search bar to start your Explain experience.

Getting started with Explain

To start your Explain experience, perform the following steps:

1. Apply the mandatory filters from the filter section to set a specific scenario to display data.

   • Within the filters section, select the Endpoint whose performance you want to analyze (Search, Browse, or another option available depending on your implementation). Note that the Explain view varies depending on the endpoint you choose.

2. Select the Explain view you want to explore:

   • Search / Browse: Regardless of the endpoint selected, the product ranking analysis done is the same. With these views, you can understand which scoring criteria participate in the total product score, why products are positioned the way they are on the SERP or the product category page (PCP), and how this position or score can be modified to adapt the product result list to your commerce store's needs and business requirements. Within the Search / Browse view, you can access Product Analysis information, where scoring criteria affecting a product and insightful KPIs are detailed.
   • Query Analysis: You can analyze the query performance for the last seven days in terms of the total number of queries, number of queries per session, CTR, conversion, and other insightful KPIs related to shoppers' interactions with queries and products on the results page. This view is only available with search-related endpoints.

3. If you've selected a search-related endpoint in the filters section, enter a query in the search bar or click a top query bubble to open the corresponding Search or Query Analysis view. If you've selected a browse-related endpoint in the filters section, select an attribute and an attribute value to open the Browse view.

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For more information on the Explain feature, see Discover Explain and the Explain feature white paper (opens new window).