Driving Growth for the World’s Leading Pet Marketplaces

Pet Media Group faced significant inefficiencies in directing users toward relevant listings, often resulting in user sessions ending without meaningful engagement or successful outcomes. In markets characterized by high demand and limited supply, this issue was particularly pronounced, leading to missed opportunities, reduced session continuity, and lower user retention. These challenges directly impacted conversion rates and diminished long-term loyalty. Addressing this problem was critical not only for business growth but also for advancing Pet Media Group’s broader mission of helping millions of animals find suitable homes while delivering a seamless experience for prospective pet owners.

Recombee enabled Pet Media Group to go live in a third of the time compared to typical alternatives, thanks to a flexible feed reader and instant proof of concept using the existing product feed. A dedicated support team ensured smooth implementation, while intelligent fallback strategies eliminated empty search results by showing relevant alternatives. Personalized AI recommendations based on pet taxonomy improved discovery, both on-site and through fully Recombee-powered email campaigns. What was once a low-impact channel became a key growth driver, supported by a scalable system capable of sending millions of personalized emails each month with optimized content rotation.

Marketing team, product team, and pet seekers using the platform (who receive the recommendations)

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-Collaborative Filtering Recommendation Models (Deep Variational Autoencoders, Matrix Factorization, Linear Models, …) -Content-Based Recommendation Models (Convolutional Neural Networks, LLMs, visual similarity) -Reinforcement Learning Recommendation Models (Multi-Armed Bandit Models, Deep Reinforcement Learning) -beeFormer Transformer Architecture

Executive leadership (C-level)

Joint implementation with the client

Recombee’s internal team maintains the service provided.

Not applicable, as we are a system as service.

There are no technical requirements, the payment for SaaS is on a monthly basis.

Recombee’s personalisation engine improved how users interacted with listings on Pet Media Group platforms by tailoring suggested adverts to individual browsing behaviour. Buyers engaged with more listings, spent longer on-site, and were more likely to convert from passive visitors into active participants. Email campaigns also became a stronger retention and engagement channel, with smarter content selection reducing user churn and increasing interest over time.

After Pet Media Group implemented Recombee, click-through rates on suggested ads increased by 29%, while conversion rates from visitor to buyer rose by 17%. Session durations expanded as users explored more listings per visit. In email campaigns, unsubscribe rates dropped by 36%, while open rates increased by 18% and click-through rates climbed by 34%, turning email into a key driver of engagement and retention.

“Our experience with Recombee has been exceptional, improving our marketplace’s efficiency and user engagement. Integration was quick, taking less than two hours, accelerating our time to market. The low total cost of ownership and the intuitive UI for seamless system adjustments allowed our team to innovate at an unprecedented pace. Recombee’s impact on our metrics across various touchpoints – on-site, in-app, and through email and push notifications – has been phenomenal: a 29% increase in click-through rate, a 17% boost in on-site conversion rate, and an 18% increase in email open rates, 34% increase in click-through rate and 36% decrease in unsubscribes, significantly elevating the relevance of our communications. The value of Recombee’s robust recommendation system is essential for any e-commerce player aiming for a competitive edge without the massive investment of developing this expertise internally. ” – Eyass Shakrah, Co-founder at Pet Media Group

Some key factors for success: -Client’s technical readiness: The integration of recommendations itself is not technically complex; however, it is necessary to have the basic catalog data in good order and to identify users. -Flexibility and customization options of Recombee: Clients appreciated that they could fine-tune the behavior of recommendations according to specific use cases. -Teamwork and support from Recombee: Fast and responsive support, active involvement in finding solutions for unique requirements, and a professional approach helped achieve the desired results quickly.

The biggest challenge is ensuring data consistency and measurement. It is important to guarantee that the same data is available both on the client’s side and in Recombee in order to correctly measure and optimize KPIs. The Recombee team, in cooperation with the client, ensures this (through checks, report exchanges, etc.) before the start of an A/B test.

Some of our recommendations: -Choose the right metric you want to optimize: Define your main KPI – e.g., click-through rate, conversion rate, time spent, etc. – that you want to maximize. -Select an appropriate first use case: Suitable are typically placements that are seen by many users (allowing models to be optimized quickly and significant A/B test results to be obtained fast) and are not complex to implement. Most often, these are placements on the homepage or on article/video/product detail pages. -Invest in data preparation: Identify users and maintain a consistent catalog. -Leverage the system’s flexibility: Don’t be afraid to design specific personalization use cases with the help of a combination of Logics, filters, boosters, and other tools.