App Recommendation Engine: Putting Your App Front and Center in Merchant Dashboard

When it comes to marketing, some rules are universal. What can make or break your business, whether it’s a brick-and-mortar shop or an online app? Location, location, and location.

Previously, Clover’s App Market includes space for top, new and notable, and function-specific apps on homepage carousels. These app placements, while helpful for attracting merchant attention, were static; nothing changed unless someone at Clover modified them. While general-purpose apps may benefit from this setup, apps specific to certain merchant demographics don’t always. Plus, something just feels unfair about only getting placement if you know who to contact.

App Recommendations Engine aims to solve issues for small and big apps alike. Apps that have killer functionality for one highly specific type of merchant may be actively recommended to merchants in that category. Well-loved apps in particular categories will still have the opportunity to be viewed and downloaded.

And no matter which category your app falls into, it may be featured outside of the App Market. Clover is creating more space for more apps to be seen across our dashboard.

Identifying apps for recommendation

With the introduction of the App Recommendation Engine, Clover aims to improve which specific apps a merchant may see. An app may be recommended to merchants based on interactions from similar merchants. Interactions are defined primarily based on merchants’ installation and uninstallation activities. A small number of uninstalls as compared to a high installation rate would be favorable.

Similar merchants are determined based on many characteristics:

• Merchant vertical: Having a restaurant, a retail store, or a service shop will help identify the apps that best fit their industry.
• Merchant sub-vertical: Restaurant, retail, and service are broad categories; sometimes an app is more useful to a handful of sub-verticals. An app specializing in bicycle parts inventory, for example, would not be useful to a screenprinting store even though they’re both considered retail.
• Types and count of Clover devices: If your app only works on a Mini, it wouldn’t be relevant to a merchant who has a Flex. And if a merchant has a fleet of seven Flexes, they might be more interested in an app that allows communication between users of different Clover devices.
• Merchant’s length of time using Clover: The more time a merchant has spent on Clover, the more we know about their specific use cases and functioning. If we better understand their use cases, we can better predict what apps match their needs.
• Clover subscription tiers: Different subscriptions mean different Clover features. If your app relies on functionality that doesn’t exist in the merchant subscription plan, we won’t recommend it. On the other hand, if your app is geared towards restaurants, your app will be more likely to surface for a merchant using the Restaurant SaaS plan than one using the Register SaaS plan.

Additionally, other factors may influence when your app is seen by which merchant, such as experiencing a sudden burst in merchant downloads (if it’s trending) or having been newly released. Apps that are frequently bought together or function similarly may also be recommended. If your app is loved by merchants, the Recommendation Engine will do its best to offer it to similar merchants.

Where recommendations will surface

If you’ve seen Clover’s 3rd Generation Dashboard (affectionately called Dash3 at Clover HQ), you may have noticed a reorganization of Clover functionality. Notably, the lefthand navigation, which originally listed all apps on a merchant’s account, has been significantly streamlined to highlight the categories Sales, Reports, Finances, Employees, and More. A merchant can find specific apps by clicking on these categories.

When a merchant selects any one of these topics, they land on a summary dashboard showing analytics and useful metrics for tracking their business. At the bottom of these summaries, they will see a widget labeled, ‘Get more out of Clover.’ This widget will include apps directly related to the functionality of the dashboard. For example, if a merchant is looking at the Finances dashboard, they may be recommended apps related to financing or business analytics.

This new location for apps will help get eyes on your product when a merchant is most likely to be thinking about its functionality. If the merchant is already thinking about what can make their workflow more useful and your app can solve the problem, they’re more likely to download it.

To avoid information overload, this section will feature a maximum of three apps and will be dynamically determined based on the merchant and their needs. If the merchant owns a watersport rental business, for instance, when reviewing their Clover inventory statistics, they’re more likely to receive recommendations for apps on timekeeping than they would receive apps that manage liquor inventory.

These placements are not a replacement for App Market. Your app will still be available via Clover App Market, which is nested under the ‘More’ section of the lefthand navigation.

Final thoughts

App Market’s update aims to better showcase your apps in context. Whereas before apps were displayed in largely static carousels on the App Market home page, they will soon be replaced by dynamically-generated choices for merchants based on specifics about both their business and your app. Apps will also surface in locations contextually relevant to merchant needs, making them more likely to be downloaded.

These changes will help your app get seen by the right merchants at the right times. In marketing terms, it’s prime real estate.