## Prerequisites

To set up the Optimizely personalization, you need to provide Optimizely with a product catalog feed. See [Catalog feed specification](🔗).

## How it works

The JavaScript API consists of two independent components:

• **JSON tracking** To get the best recommendations from the algorithms, track all pages relevant to a customer’s purchasing experience on your site. JSON tracking lets clients provide user journey and user details to Optimizely. By doing this, clients can control how and when a given page on their website is tracked.

• **JSON recommendations** Optimizely provides the most relevant `refCodes` for product recommendations (either `refCode` only or full details). Then, the JSON Recommendations function lets clients control the precise design, information display, and positioning of the Recommendations widgets displayed on their web pages.

When developing using the JavaScript API, you must set up a test site that references the Optimizely Staging environment before going live. Contact Optimizely client services to whitelist your site in our UAT environment.

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Note

You cannot provide personalized recommendations on UAT because behavior is gathered in the live environment. However, you can deploy recommendations live under SPR prior to full release for review.

## JSON integration overview

The following image shows an overview of the integration process.