Be in control of the content on your feed

Written by Josh Hutter

Welcome back to FMTC’s Tech Corner, where we take a deep dive into our tools and technology. This article discusses FMTC’s restricted categories and how to make them work for you.

What Is a Restricted Deal?

A restricted deal is a deal with a flag value indicating if the category is a restricted-content category (see below for restricted categories). FMTC will flag certain content to give subscribers better control over the content they see. FMTC will aggregate and normalize all available data to provide the most up-to-date and accurate information. Regardless of if the data is restricted, it will still go through the same processing as a non-restricted piece of data.

FMTC’s Default Restricted Categories

FMTC’s default restricted categories include but are not limited to Alcohol, Cannabis, Gambling, and Tobacco. For a full list and description of each category, head to our Category documentation.

How can I change the Restricted Categories?

The first step to receive restricted categories is to turn them on in your feed, as FMTC does not send them by default. To do this, go to Deal Feed Settings and select “Enable Restricted Deals.” This will allow any category labeled as restricted to come into your feed.

FMTC offers some restricted categories by default; however, you can manage and change what you consider to be restricted and apply that to your data feeds. FMTC offers the ability to easily add or remove the default restricted categories with a button on the Manage Categories page.

To manage your restricted categories, navigate to Deal Feed Management>Manage Deal Feed Categories within your FMTC platform. If you do not have access to this section, reach out to your account manager and ask for proper access to the “Feed Category” settings. Note: FMTC’s Restricted Categories will only work for version 2 of the feed; they are not compatible with version 1.

Once you have access to these restricted categories, you can fully control what you receive. You will now need to add or remove the restricted categories manually. This will override the FMTC default restricted categories, using the categories that you set up instead. You can still easily use FMTC’s default restricted categories by selecting the button “Add All Restricted Categories.” Once these categories have been configured, API calls made after will immediately reflect these changes and apply to the content you receive.

In this first example, FMTC will ensure the feed does not receive any data in relation to Travel or any of its subcategories.

In another example, FMTC has four categories for Animals & Pet Supplies: bird, cat, dog, and horse. The setup below ensures you will only receive deals under Cat Supplies, as the Bird Supplies, Dog Supplies, and Horse Supplies categories have been restricted.

To remove a category from the restricted list, click the “Remove” button. The content for that category will then show up in your feed on your next pull.

There are many ways to take advantage of restricted categories. The most important advantage is that it gives subscribers better control over the content they want to see.

As always, our team is ready to help you! If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact your account manager or email us at [email protected]. Curious about other FMTC technologies? Find more information on FMTC’s tools in Tech Corner:

FMTC Tech Corner: getDeals Deep Dive
FMTC Tech Corner: getMerchants Deep Dive
FMTC Tech Corner: Get Deals and Get Merchants
FMTC Tech Corner: Deal Types and the getTypes API
FMTC Tech Corner: getNetworks
FMTC Tech Corner: getLogos
FMTC Tech Corner: The Product Feed
FMTC Tech Corner: Pushed Deals
FMTC Tech Corner: Program Directory
FMTC Tech Corner: Full vs Incremental
FMTC Tech Corner: Technical Achievements
FMTC Tech Corner: Targeting Content