Merchandising rules

Rules put you in control of the order of results. Move products up or down, fix a product to a position, or remove products completely.

Merchandising rules need the Growth plan or higher. On lower plans, the Merchandising screen shows an upgrade notice instead. See Choose a plan.

Where the rules are

1. Open the PersonalizerAI dashboard.
2. Go to Merchandising.

The Create rule button is at the top right. Below it, the screen has two tabs: Rules and Collections. The Rules tab opens first. It has two parts:

• A plain-English bar — describe a rule and the app drafts it for you.
• The rules list, with one row per rule.

The Merchandising screen: the plain-English bar on top, then the rules list.

The rule actions

A rule does one of these things:

Where rules run

Your rules sit between the app's results and the shopper:

Each rule has a scope. You set it in the builder, on the Scope step:

• Search & recs — search results, collection pages, and recommendation widgets.
• Search only — search results and collection pages.
• Recommendations only — recommendation widgets.

Two surfaces stay outside the rules:

• The autocomplete dropdown under the search box.
• Email product feeds.

Rules with the Recommendations only or Search & recs scope also offer Advanced targeting (optional): a Models list and a Placements list. Leave both empty to apply the rule everywhere in its scope. On search, the Search results and Collection page placements apply, and a rule limited to Models does not run on search (search has no model). The placement options are:

• Homepage
• Collection page
• Product page
• Cart
• Checkout
• Search results
• Other (thank-you, order status, account pages)

Create a rule with plain English

1. Type the rule in the plain-English bar. Example: "Boost all red dresses for Valentine's Day".
2. Click Generate rule.
3. Read the draft card. It shows the rule name, the action, and a confidence score. If you named a tag, vendor, product type, product or collection that isn't in your catalog, the card lists it.
4. Click Review & edit.

The rule builder opens with the fields filled in. The draft uses only your store's own tags, vendors and product types, and it finds the products and collections you name by searching your catalog. Anything it could not find is left for you to pick. Unless you say "search" or "recommendations", the rule applies to both. You always review the draft in the builder before it saves. Check every step, then save from step 3, Where and review.

You can generate up to 50 drafts a day (the count resets at midnight UTC). After that the bar tells you so. Build the rule step by step instead, or try again the next day.

Create a rule step by step

From Analytics → Products, the Create a rule button on an underperforming product opens these steps with that product already selected as the target in step 2.

1. Click Create rule.
2. Step 1, What: type a Rule name, select the action under What should this rule do?, and set the strength, position or sort.
3. Click Next.
4. Step 2, Which products and when: select the target under Which products should this rule target? and a condition under When should this rule apply? A Sort Override has no target, so this step asks only for the condition.
5. Click Next.
6. Step 3, Where and review: set the scope under Where should this rule run? and read the summary. It says in plain words what the rule does, when, and where.
7. For a rule that runs on search, type a search in Search for. If the rule has a search condition, this field already shows its text.
8. Click Preview impact to see the results before and after the rule.
9. Click Create rule to save.

To go back to a step, click Back or the step's name at the top of the builder. If you close the builder with changes you haven't saved, it asks before it discards them.

For a rule that runs on search, the preview does the search on your live store two times: one time without the rule and one time with it. Your other active rules apply to both. The results are the results your shoppers get, for a first-time shopper. When you edit a rule, the preview uses your changes in place of the saved version.

For a rule that runs only on recommendations, the preview uses your most popular products, not a real widget. The products in a real widget are different on each page and for each recommendation type.

The rule builder. Three steps: What, Which products and when, Where and review.

Targeting choices (step 2)

The target selects which products the rule acts on:

Once your target has values, the step shows how many products in your catalog it matches. Matches no products means a value doesn't match your catalog, so check it before you go on.

Condition choices (step 2)

The condition decides when the rule fires:

Scheduling is real and automatic. Outside the date range, the rule stays saved but does not run. Use it for sales and seasonal pushes.

Strength choices (step 1)

For Boost and Bury, a three-step slider sets the strength:

• Light — subtle position change
• Medium — noticeable shift
• Strong — top/bottom of results

In recommendations, a Light boost moves a product up about a sixth of the widget (at least one place), Medium moves it into the top third, and Strong moves it to the first place. A bury works the same way downwards. When several rules boost the same product, or several bury it, their strengths add up, up to Strong. When one rule boosts a product and another buries it, they do not cancel out: the rule higher in your list wins, on recommendations and on search alike (see Rule order and conflicts, below).

For Pin, set Pin to position. Position 1 is the first result. The maximum is 20.

For Sort Override, choose a Sort by field and a Direction. The fields are:

• Price
• Title (alphabetical)
• Inventory quantity
• Compare-at price (recommendations only)
• AI relevance score
• Vendor, alphabetical (recommendations only)

Direction is Ascending (low → high) or Descending (high → low).

A rule that runs on search can sort by Price, Title, Inventory quantity or AI relevance score. Compare-at price and Vendor sort recommendations only: picking one sets the rule to Recommendations only.

Rule order and conflicts

The list order is the priority order. The rule at the top wins conflicts. To change the order, drag a rule row by its handle. The number badge on each row shows its rank in the whole list, even while you filter by type. Dragging is off while a type filter is on, because the filter hides rules in between; choose All types to drag. A new rule starts at the top of the list.

When a boost and a bury reach the same product, the higher rule decides which way it moves and the lower one is ignored for that product. A light boost at the top of the list beats a strong bury further down. When two rules pin different products to the same position, the higher rule gets the position. Products with an excluded tag stay out of recommendations, whatever your rules say. See Model settings that matter.

Pause, edit, or delete a rule

Each rule row has an on/off switch. Turn it off to pause the rule — the row shows a Paused badge. The rule keeps its place in the list.

To edit a rule:

1. Click the ⋯ menu on the rule row.
2. Click Edit.
3. The builder opens on step 3, with the rule's summary. To change a step, click its name at the top.
4. Click Save changes. When you edit a rule, you can save from any step.

Each time you save a change to what a rule does (its target, action, conditions or scope), the old version is kept. Changes to the name, description, schedule or on/off switch are not versions, and restoring a version doesn't change them. Version History describes each version in plain words. To go back:

1. Click the ⋯ menu on the rule row.
2. Click Version history.
3. Select an older version.
4. Click Restore this version.

1. Click the ⋯ menu on the rule row.
2. Click Delete.
3. Confirm with Delete rule.

Each rule row: drag handle, priority number, badges, on/off switch, and the ⋯ menu.

Use PersonalizerAI lists in your Shopify collections

On the Growth plan and higher, you can add four PersonalizerAI lists to your own collections in Shopify. Each one is a collection source that PersonalizerAI keeps up to date.

Each source holds up to 100 products that are for sale and do not have one of your excluded tags. PersonalizerAI updates them every 3 hours.

1. Open Merchandising in the PersonalizerAI dashboard.
2. Click the Collections tab.
3. In Collection sources in Shopify, below the collection list, turn the switch on.
4. In your Shopify admin, open a collection and add a source. Select a PersonalizerAI source. You can combine it with your own conditions.

Let PersonalizerAI order a collection in Shopify

On the Growth plan and higher, PersonalizerAI can set the order of a Shopify collection for you. It writes its order into the collection's manual sort in Shopify. The order then shows everywhere the collection appears: your theme's own collection pages, other sales channels and apps. You turn it on for each collection.

This is different from collection sources above. A source changes which products are in a collection. This feature changes their order.

1. Open Merchandising in the PersonalizerAI dashboard.
2. Click the Collections tab.
3. Find the collection and turn its switch on.
4. Read the message and click Replace order. PersonalizerAI sets the collection to manual sort in Shopify and orders it.
5. In Order by, select the order you want.

Each row shows when PersonalizerAI last synced the collection and how many products moved. PersonalizerAI also syncs on its own: a few minutes after you change a merchandising rule, and every night so that Popular, Newest and Top rated stay current. To see a change in Shopify at once, click Sync now. If a sync fails, the row shows why, and PersonalizerAI tries again on the next sync. PersonalizerAI can order a collection with up to 5,000 products.

PersonalizerAI never overwrites an order that you set yourself. If someone reorders the collection in Shopify, or changes it from manual sort to a different sort, PersonalizerAI stops and the row shows Paused. Select one of these:

• Use PersonalizerAI order — replaces the order you set in Shopify and starts the sync again.
• Keep my order — stops the sync and leaves the collection as it is.