Troubleshooting: Web activity does not display top-browsed or best-seller lists in store preview

After you create a web activity that uses the Display Top Browsed or Display Best Sellers actions, you use store preview to generate the browsing or order data. However, when you view the e-Marketing Spot in store preview, the lists are not displayed.

Possible causes and actions to take

There are a number of reasons why these lists might not display when you preview your store. The following table lists some of the most common causes, and suggests actions that you can take.
Possible causes Actions to take
You did not browse or purchase the products from the target category in store preview, so there is no customer data for the lists. To generate data for the lists, you must do the following things in store preview after you activate the web activity:
  • For the Display Top Browsed action, browse multiple, different catalog entries in the target category.
  • For the Display Best Sellers action, place orders for multiple, different catalog entries in the target category.
The server has not generated the top-browsed or best-seller list yet. These lists are processed and generated only once a day at a configured time, usually during an off-peak hour, such as 2 a.m. If this processing has not occurred yet, you cannot see the generated lists in store preview. You can do either of the following things:
  • Wait until the next day to preview the top-browsed or best-seller list. Consider checking with a site administrator to find out the time of day that the lists are generated so that you know what to expect.
  • Ask a site administrator to force the daily processing of the lists so that you can see the results right away. Information for site administrators is in Testing the Display Top Browsed and Display Best Sellers actions in Web activities.
Your store uses an incompatible URL format that does not provide the required customer data to generate the top-browsed and best-seller lists. Ask your site administrator to investigate the URL format for your category and product display pages and determine whether configuration changes are required. To determine when a customer is viewing a page that is related to the categories you specify, the server uses either the categoryId parameter on the CategoryDisplay URL or the productId parameter on the ProductDisplay URL. If your site uses different parameters, a developer can make configuration changes so that best-seller and top-browsed lists can be generated for your store.