How to: Personalize users’ viewing experiences with AXIS Smart Lists

How do you make sure your OTT viewers don’t get bored of seeing the same, stagnant content every time they visit your platform? And what can you do to ensure the content they see is the most interesting, useful, and relevant to them?

With our targeted UX management console and suite of multi-platform reference apps, AXIS, it’s simple.

Designed to be used within the sport and entertainment industries by non-technical operators, our ‘how to’ explains how you can utilize list rules to reduce churn and keep your viewers hooked.

First things first, what are lists?

They comprise grouped assets added to AXIS’ Presentation Manager, or UX control panel, from your catalog. These lists could include assets (such as films, TV episodes or sporting events), rules (which we’ll explain in a minute), or a combination of assets and rules.

Lists can also include linked imagery and colors to enrich the appearance of that list within the UI. There are a branded rows examples, including Vin Diesel, Jurassic Park, James Bond, etc. This is the ultimate goal – enriching the presentation of a list for end-users.

You can also include linked imagery and colors to enrich the appearance of lists by using branded rows. Create dramatic, image-centric content to entice your audience.

What are list rules?

Lists (either manual or rules-based) are a superset of assets. The AXIS platform automatically filters content based on availability and offer-ability to a specific user.

Basic rules eliminate manual curation and ensure viewers are served up-to-date content.

Sort on a specific genre or category with parameterized lists, (a specialized use case not visible to operators), which filters lists at run-time based on a customer preference or location within the app.

For example, take the list ‘Recently Released Movies’. With list rules, newly ingested content will be automatically added and sorted based on availability or added date and made available to users with the appropriate subscription tier.

It means your end-users will automatically be kept updated with movie content so they don’t miss out on new releases. The automated system also saves your operators time so they can be freed up to work on other tasks.

How to use list rules within Presentation Manager

When using AXIS, setting up list rules is simple.

1. When curating a list, at the bottom of the page you’ll notice the option to ‘Add an asset’ or ‘Add Rules’.
2. Select the ‘Add Rules’ link to display rule fields.

Note: Rule fields are contextualized depending on the selection made.

How to save and publish lists

By clicking the ‘Save and Publish’ button, the list is visible for your end-users to view and interact with.

Want to make additional changes before going live?

No problem. Simply save your lists without publishing by selecting the ‘More’ button, followed by ‘Save’. This will mean your changes are saved but your list remains in drafts.

If you’ve changed your mind, from here you have the option to ‘Archive’ or ‘Delete’ the list.

List rule 101: Things to remember

• Any applied list rules take priority over assets manually added to lists. If you want to manually change the listing order, simply drag and drop list assets above the rule set.
• Want to change the positioning of the assets within a rule-driven list? To overwrite the order, just type in the name of the asset that exists in the list and reposition it accordingly. Presentation Manager is set up to automatically remove duplicate assets from lists.
• If you’re manually editing a list that’s already in use, any reference app row utilizing this published list is automatically updated.
• Combine rules and assets to ensure prominent (or featured) content is showcased, but then backfilled with related content.
• Utilize metadata and tagging, and the offer-ability/scheduling window of assets (content) to create rule driven lists. For example, create a list displaying episodes (asset type) for a specific channel (tag), that are 'expiring in' (offer) seven days. This is available for any broadcaster offering catchup and means episodes can continuously be added and removed from the catalog.

Do you have any questions for the team or would you like to find out more about how AXIS can help you to drive user engagement and reduce churn? We’d love to hear from you. 

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