# Product Recommendations Upsell

A great way to drive more purchases is to send timely product recommendations based on a customer’s most recent purchase. Use this guide to set up automated product recommendations with Airship Sequences.

## Building a Product Recommendation Upsell Sequence

To get started, identify which behaviors will trigger users into the sequence and which behaviors will exit them out. For a sequence that promotes related products to recent purchases, customers will enter the sequence when they complete a purchase, and exit once they add an item to their cart. Setting up events to send to Airship can be done in the Android or iOS SDK with the following calls.

### Add Retail Events

> **Note:** If you use an [integration](https://www.airship.com/docs/integrations/), or your application is already instrumented with custom events, you may need to adjust the event names for `purchased` and `added_to_cart`.


To enter the user into the sequence, instrument the application with an event when a cart is purchased. Use the following templates to create the `purchased` events:

**Android example**

```kotlin
fun onPurchase() {
    RetailEventTemplate.newPurchasedTemplate()
            .createEvent()
            .track()
}
```


**iOS example**

```swift
func onPurchase() {
    let template = RetailEventTemplate.purchasedTemplate()
    template.createEvent().track()
}
```


Next, add `added_to_cart` event when an item is added to the cart. This will be used to exit the user from the sequence:

**Android example**

```kotlin
fun onAddToCart(identifier: String, description: String?) {
    RetailEventTemplate.newAddedToCartTemplate()
            .setId(identifier)
            .setDescription(description)
            .createEvent()
            .track()
}
```


**iOS example**

```swift
func onAddToCart(_ identifier: String, description: String?) {
    let template = RetailEventTemplate.addedToCartTemplate()
    template.identifier = identifier
    template.eventDescription = description
    template.createEvent().track()
}
```


### Setup an External Data Feed

Next, set up an external data feed to add personalized product recommendations into the sequence messages. In this example, the feed will be able to look up the customer by an ID, and provide product recommendations as well as an optional coupon code. In this guide, we’ll refer to those data feed objects as `recommendations.0.product_name`,  `coupon_value`, and `coupon_code`. Make sure to set up the data feed with a `customer_id` field in order to pull in the customer’s identifier (set as a user attribute), e.g., `http://airship-example.com/products/customer_id={{customer_id}}`.

The `customer_id` needs to be an attribute set on the [Named User](https://www.airship.com/docs/reference/glossary/#named_user). This is generally done when a user logs into the app:

**Android example**

```kotlin
fun onUserLoggedIn(user: ExampleUser) {
   // Map your internal user ID to as the named user on Airship
   Airship.contact.identify(user.userId)

   // Add attributes for personalization
   Airship.contact.editAttributes {
       setAttribute(Attributes.FIRST_NAME, user.firstName)
       setAttribute(Attributes.LAST_NAME, user.lastName)
       setAttribute("customer_id", user.userId)
   }
}
```


**iOS example**

```swift
func onUserLoggedIn(_ user: ExampleUser) {
    // Map your internal user ID to as the named user on Airship
    Airship.contact.identifiy(user.identifier)

    // Add attributes for personalization
    Airship.contact.editAttributes { editor in
        editor.set(string: user.firstName, attribute: Attributes.firstName)
        editor.set(string: user.lastname, attribute: Attributes.lastName)
        editor.set(string: user.identifier, attribute: "customer_id")
    }
}
```


### Create the Sequence

Now that your app is set up to send the necessary events, and the data feed is set up to pull in the recommended product details and coupon codes, it’s time to create your sequence.

To get started, create a new Sequence:

1. In the sidebar, select the **Create** dropdown menu (
), then select **Journey**.
1. Select **Sequence**, then **Start from scratch**.

Name the sequence `Product Upsell`, then use `purchased` for the *Custom Event* trigger, and use `add_to_cart` event as the *Conversion event*.

Next, edit the Sequence and choose the delivery time for the first message. In this example, the first message will be delivered 1 day after the most recent `purchased` event has occurred.

![Setting the message delay in a Sequence](https://www.airship.com/docs/images/use-cases/product-upsell/configure-journey_hu_989069e1afd138b8.webp)

*Setting the message delay in a Sequence*

Next, we can define the message that will be delivered. In this case, the message is a push notification. To personalize the message with the related item and coupon code, we’ll pull from the external data feed. We’ll use a template to create the push and add in the personalization fields. The template can be pulled into the sequence when editing the message.

In the example personalized message, we are addressing the customer by their first name and thanking them for their purchase. If the data feed has a coupon code for the customer, then the message will contain the first recommended item (or a default value if there are no recommendations available) along with the coupon code and value.

![A personalized product upsell message using an external data feed](https://www.airship.com/docs/images/use-cases/product-upsell/create-message_hu_e414bb48ba1d16fe.webp)

*A personalized product upsell message using an external data feed*

Once setup is complete, the sequence is ready for testing and can be started. We recommend using the [Test Run feature](https://www.airship.com/docs/guides/messaging/messages/sequences/create/test/) to ensure the messages are built correctly as they are delivered to your test devices.