The carousel is a strip of up to seven drink suggestions at the top of your menu landing page. It is built automatically for each guest, so there is nothing to set up.

Before you start

• The carousel covers drinks only. Food isn't included
• A drink is only included if its category on the item details is set to Drink, Alcoholic drink or Non-alcoholic drink. This is the field on the item itself, not the menu category it sits under. Items synced in from your POS often arrive as Other, so they won't appear until you update them
• Recommendations tuning lives in the Manage platform under Personalisation > Recommendations tuning. If you can't see it, get in touch with your me&u support 

What the carousel is

When a guest opens your menu, the carousel shows drinks they're likely to want. Each drink carries one of three tags:

• Reorder: drinks the guest has ordered at your venue before. It looks at their past orders, how recent they were, how often they ordered the drink and the time of day
• For you: drinks picked from the guest's order history across all me&u venues. A guest can see For you drinks even on their first visit to your venue
• Trending: drinks that other guests are ordering at your venue around this time of day. It shifts across the day, so you'll see coffees in the morning and beers later on

The carousel fills with Reorder drinks first, then For you, then Trending to complete the strip.

What the carousel covers

• Drinks only. Food isn't included in the carousel
• Better results for your venue. In our testing, guests who saw the personalised carousel ordered more often and spent more than guests who didn't
• Who sees what. Guests who aren't logged in see Trending drinks only. Guests who are logged in also see For you drinks, and returning guests see Reorder drinks as well
• Enough orders to work with. Trending relies on recent orders at your venue. A brand new venue, or one with no recent orders, may not have enough data to show anything yet
• Your main menu stays the same. Guests can still browse and order everything as normal

Why you can't choose the exact drinks

You can't pin, hide or reorder specific drinks in the carousel, and you can't set exact numbers for how often a drink appears. Here's why:

• Every guest sees something different. Each carousel is built for one guest at one moment, using their own order history and the time of day. Two guests at the same table can see different drinks
• That's what makes it work. The carousel aims to show each guest the drink they're most likely to want. A fixed list for everyone would take that away
• Exact settings wouldn't mean much. What shows depends on many factors that change from guest to guest and hour to hour. We also keep improving how recommendations work, so a fixed number wouldn't stay accurate

Instead, you steer the carousel with Recommendations tuning, which nudges recommendations towards your priorities while each guest still gets a personalised result.

ℹ️ Note, the carousel is separate from upsells. Upsells are fixed suggestions that you choose and set up yourself. The carousel is automatic and personalised.

How to steer the carousel with Recommendations tuning

Use Recommendations tuning to push drinks, hold them back, or stop them from being recommended:

• More: recommends the drinks in a campaign more often
• Less: recommends the drinks in a campaign less often
• Don't show: blocks the drinks from recommendations entirely. They stay on your main menu, guests just won't see them suggested

To get started, go to Personalisation > Recommendations tuning. The full steps for creating and managing campaigns are in the Recommendations tuning article linked  : Recommendations tuning

Tuning affects Trending and For you drinks. It doesn't change Reorder, because those are a guest's own past orders.

⚠️ Warning, More and Less shift the odds across many guest sessions, they don't guarantee a drink will show. Only Don't show is a firm block, so checking your own phone isn't a reliable test of More or Less. Give changes a few weeks, then check your results in Personalisation > Recommendations metrics.

💡 Tip, choose Less over Don't show to hold a drink back without removing it from the mix. Keep Don't show for drinks that shouldn't be recommended at all, like takeaway-only beers.

If you run a multi-vendor venue, parent operators use Child venue tuning to turn whole child venues up or down. See the Child venue tuning article below.

FAQ

Can I choose which drinks show in the carousel? No. You can't pin or hide specific drinks. You can steer which drinks are recommended using Recommendations tuning, but each guest still sees a personalised result.

Will blocking a drink with Don't show remove it from my menu? No. It only stops the drink from being suggested. It stays on your main menu and guests can order it as normal.

Why is a drink showing that I wouldn't expect? Recommendations come from what guests have ordered. A one-off order, like a test order or a round for a friend, can affect what a guest sees.

Why isn't the carousel showing on my menu? Check that your drinks have their category set to Drink, Alcoholic drink or Non-alcoholic drink on the item details. Items synced from your POS often come in as Other. Also keep in mind that Trending needs recent orders at your venue, and guests who aren't logged in see Trending drinks only.

Is the carousel the same as upsells? No. Upsells are fixed suggestions that you set up yourself. The carousel is automatic and personalised for each guest.

You now know what the carousel shows, why you can't choose exact drinks, and how to steer it with Recommendations tuning.

Any questions? Reach out to us via email at support@meandu.com