Marketing Cloud Personalization | Troubleshooting Einstein Recipe Recommendations Not Displaying on Website

Troubleshooting: Testing Any Eligible Item in the Recipe Simulator

This section describes the steps to take when the Recipe Simulator does not return the expected results. To ensure accurate troubleshooting, run the Simulator under the same conditions as when recommendations failed to display on the actual web page — specify the actual user who experienced the issue, and if the recipe requires an anchor item, specify the Anchor Item accordingly.
First, to determine whether the issue is with the recipe's Ingredient settings or the catalog data, create a new recipe with only "Any Eligible Item" as the Ingredient and run the Simulator.

If the expected items are returned → Proceed to Pattern A
If the expected items are not returned → Proceed to Pattern B

See also: Troubleshoot an Einstein Recipe
Note — When the recipe status is "Training": Even while a recipe is in Training, the pre-training model continues to be used, so Training status is unlikely to be the direct cause. Check other possible causes. For details, refer to: Recommendations Not Displaying While Einstein Recipe Status is "Training"

Pattern A: Results Are Returned with Any Eligible Item

If items are returned when testing with Any Eligible Item, this confirms that the catalog data itself is not the issue. Check whether the items you expect to see are included in the results. If they appear here (but not in your original recipe), the original recipe's conditions may be too restrictive, or the user profile data may be insufficient.

A-1. Step-by-Step Testing of Recipe Components

Add one component at a time and run the Simulator to identify where the issue lies.
Common failure pattern: A frequently seen situation is testing with all Ingredients, Exclusions, and Boosters configured at once, leading to confusion about why recommendations are not appearing. When multiple conditions are combined, isolating the cause becomes difficult. It is recommended to first run the Simulator with only the Ingredient, confirm that results are returned, and then add Exclusions and Boosters one at a time and re-test.

Impact of Exclusions / Boosters: If recommendations stop appearing immediately after adding a specific Exclusion or Booster, that condition may not align with the user's affinity, or the exclusion rule may be too restrictive.
Insufficient training data for Anchor Items: Ingredients based on a specific anchor item, such as Co-Buy, require accumulated historical data such as past purchase records. If no results are returned, consider adding Trending or Collaborative Filtering as a Fallback as a temporary workaround, then re-train and re-simulate. It is also effective to change the Anchor Item and check whether results are returned.
ID mismatch in Exclusions: When using "from user attribute" in the Exclusions tab, if the item ID does not match the user attribute, unexpected results may occur.
- Reference: Recipe "from user attribute" Filtering Issue with Related Catalog Objects

Reference: No results in the Interaction Studio recipe simulator
Covers cases where exclusion rules are too restrictive, and the behavior where items with missing images are not displayed.

A-2. Insufficient Profile Data

The actual user's profile (browsing history, purchase history, affinities, etc.) may not have accumulated enough data to generate recommendations. Verify the affinity data and the validity of the results. It is also effective to run the Simulator with a different user and check whether results are returned.

Pattern B: No Results Returned Even with Any Eligible Item

If the expected items are not included in the results, or no results are returned at all when testing with Any Eligible Item, the items themselves may not be recognized as eligible for recommendations. Check the following.

B-1. Item Configuration Check

Verify that all of the following conditions are met for an item to be recognized as a recommendation target.

ID, Name, URL, and Image URL are not empty
Price and Units in Stock are greater than 0 (for Products)
If Published is set, the publish date has passed
If Expiration is set, the item has not expired
Promotion State is set to "Eligible" (items set to "Excluded" are not eligible for recommendations)
The Archived checkbox is not selected

Reference: Einstein Recipes - Products Not Loading

B-2. Time Lag After Catalog Ingestion via ETL

Even if all item conditions are met, the items may still not appear due to a pending system sync. When a large volume of product data is ingested or updated via ETL all at once, synchronization to the system can take time. During this period, items may not be reflected in recommendations — or may only be partially synced. Wait and re-simulate after some time.

If the Issue Is Not Resolved After Following the Steps Above

If the cause cannot be identified after trying all steps in Patterns A and B, grant login access and submit a support case with the following information.

Username for which login access has been granted
MID
Dataset name
Recipe name
Item ID of the item not appearing in the Simulator
User ID used in the Simulator