Using 'Smart categorization'

Smart categorization is a way to speed up the categorization process for your products. Thanks to a powerful machine learning algorithm, we made it possible for your items to be automatically matched to the most likely product category. The smart categorization feature is now available for 16 languages and 20 channels + all Google category channels. 

Here is list of all available languages and supported channels:

How does smart categorization work?

When you want to use the smart categorization function to automatically generate categories, you will need to set the category field in the settings tab of your project.

We will use the field you select here to automatically map your items to categories. When this is done, you will be able to view the categories in the categories step of your export channels.

When you set the Category field in the settings tab the auto-categorization will take place. If you don't want to use the auto categories, you can use manual categories which will overwrite the auto categories. More information about manual categories can be found further in this article.

The image below displays an overview of the number of items that the algorithm was able to auto-categorize (1), those that are manually categorized (2), those that are excluded (3), and those that are not yet categorized (4). The list below shows the item categories from the import feed (5) and the API category that it was mapped to (6). The list also displays the amount of items (7) belonging to this category. 

Clicking on this number will take you to the list of items belonging to this category. The progress bar shows the percentage of categorized items.

To improve or change the categories input field, you can for example use the master rules. In this example, a title is converted to a product_category, because the product_category field is selected in the category field in the settings tab.

Or you can manually add categories like in the previous version of our smart categorization feature you can auto-generate categories based on an input field. The feature will suggest manual rules based on the uncategorized items. For example, in the screenshot below the input field title was used to generate rules for all uncategorized products.

Further actions like copying categories from different projects, deleting, pause and/or activating rules can be done from the ‘Actions’ menu. You can find this menu in the Manual categories tab at the bottom of the page. If you pause rules that categorize products, these products will be excluded from the categorization. They will show up in the status bar as ‘excluded'. Once you use the ‘save categories’ the categorization rules are executed and the count of how many products are in each category is refreshed. The top bar will also be refreshed. 

Whenever the smart-categorization algorithm is not certain that a product belongs to a category, it will place it in the uncategorized items tab. When you setup the rule we will still show the most likely categories based on the predictions of the algorithm in the ‘set to category’ drop-down:

These suggestions are ranked from high <> low prediction certainty. 

When you click on the uncategorized items tab it displays all items that don't belong to any category. This gives you a clear overview of which items still need to be categorized. You can search through items, sort them or click through to an item to view its details.

In short, the smart categorization v3 workflow looks like this: 

Removing auto-categories

For this you simply remove the category field from the settings tab to start over or completely remove the auto-categorized products. This will take you back to the categorization overview with the message ‘category field has not been set’.