Brands and Product Lines

Enable the Shop by Brands feature on your Optimizely Configured Commerce website to allow your customers to quickly focus their search for products on a brand they know and trust. The brands feature also allows merchandisers to manage a brand's identity, for example by featuring or boosting specific brands on the website.

With brands enabled, a number of new Configured Commerce settings and behaviors become available, including new brand-specific widgets, a brand detail page, and brand-specific behavior on the Configured Commerce website.

Within brands, Configured Commerce has Product Lines, a series of products merchandised or sold together. For example, within a certain brand, you may have a set of fixtures in the same design family, or tools in the same product line. With brands functionality turned you, you can also set up product lines for these families of products.

See the Shop by Brands FAQ for frequently asked questions about this functionality.

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Note

You also need to update your theme and do some storefront work in addition to enabling this functionality. See Theme Updates for Brands and Product Lines.

Brand-specific behavior

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Note

If you have existing pages or URLs named Brands or BrandDetail, you will receive a warning when you enable this feature via the Enable Brands setting. To leverage the brands feature, you must delete these pages from your site. Once your previous Brands pages are deleted, then disable/re-enable the Enable Brands setting.

When you enable brands, a new Brands page appears on the Configured Commerce storefront website. This page lists all brands configured for a site and has a default URL of /Brands (although this field is hidden from the page properties when you go to edit the Brands page in the CMS). The page shows an alphabetical display of all configured brands, and clicking any letter brings the customer to the brands beginning with that letter.

Selecting a brand name takes the user to the Brand Detail page, which displays categories and product lines associated with the brand. Clicking Shop All Products on the Brand Detail page shows the customer all products associated with that brand. Clicking any of the categories or product lines on the page shows products assigned to both the category or product and the brand.

When customers perform a search on the website, the option to filter search results by brand or product line appears. Customers can display brand and product line columns on the table view of a product list page, if any of the products belong to a brand or product line. Customers can also sort search results alphabetically by brand. The brand name and/or logo for a given brand displays on all product detail pages for products assigned to that brand. The brand name also displays as the first product attribute on product detail pages.

When a customer views a list of products associated with a category, the list is filterable by brand name and alphabetically sortable by brand. When viewing a list of products associated with a brand, the list of products is filterable by Product Line. Customers can also filter any search results page by product line.

Enable brands

1. Go to Administration > System > Settings and search for Enable Brands.
2. Set the Enable Brands setting to YES. When set to YES, this setting turns on brand functionality and exposes brand pages and settings in the Admin Console to configure brand pages and functionality on the website. The default value is NO.
3. Go to the Content Creator page under the Debug Tools in the Admin Console.
4. Click Run next to the brands-related content creator to create the Brands page.

Configure brands

Import Brand Information

1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Brands.
2. Click the up arrow icon to import brands. 
3. Choose Brands, Brand Category Images, Product Lines, or Products to import.
4. Click Choose File and select a file to import. Click Download Template to download a sample import template to use as a starting place for the import.
5. Click Import.

Add brands using Admin Console

1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Brands.
2. Click + Brand and add the brand information. The Name and URL Information are required on the Details finger tab.
3. Click Save.

Add products to brands

1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Brands.
2. Click the Edit icon next to the brand you want to add products to.
3. Click the Products finger tab.
4. Click Assign Products.
5. Select the checkbox next to the products you want to assign to the brand. You can search the list of products by Product Number, Product Title, or URL Segment. Note: Only products unassigned to a brand appear in the list. You can only assign a product to one brand.
6. When you are finished selecting products, click Assign.

You can also assign brands to products by going to Admin Console > Catalog > Products, clicking the Edit icon and selecting a brand from the Brand drop-down list under Product Details.

Configure product lines

Add product lines to brands

1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Brands.
2. Click the Edit icon next to the brand you want to add product lines to.
3. Click the Product Lines finger tab.
4. Click + Product Lines and add the product line information. The Name and URL Information are required.
5. Click Save.

Add products to product lines

1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Brands.
2. Click the Edit icon next to an existing brand.
3. Select the Product Lines finger tab.
4. Select the Products finger tab.
5. Click Assign Products.
6. Products currently assigned to the selected brand display. You can search these products by Product Number, Product Title, or URL Segment.
7. Select product by checking the box on the left and clicking Assign.

You can also assign product lines to products by going to Admin Console > Catalog > Products, clicking the Edit icon and selecting both a brand from the Brand drop-down list and a product line from the Product Line drop-down list under Product Details.

Adjust Brand and Product Line Search and SEO

Update search settings for brands

1. Go to Administration > System > Settings.
2. Search for Show Brands.
3. Set the Show Brands setting to YES. When you enable this setting, brand search results display in the search autocomplete options.
4. Enter a maximum number of brand autocomplete results in the Brand Limit field.
5. Set the Show Product Lines setting to YES to show product lines in the search autocomplete options.

See Also Configuring Autocomplete and Overview of Search Autocomplete.

Boost or bury brands in search results

1. Go to Marketing > Search > Brand Boosting in the Admin Console.
2. Click the Edit icon next to a brand you want to boost or bury.
3. Set the Sponsored toggle to YES if you want to flag a brand as Sponsored and have it display at the top of search results.
4. Enter a value in the Search Boost field. This value is a multiplier that is applied to search scores for matches on the brand name. A number greater than 1 will boost the result and a number less than 1 will bury the result (range of 0.0-100.0). When you boost a brand, the system applies the boost multiplier to the score returned by ElasticSearch for any product in that brand returned in search results.
5. Click Save.

When you flag a brand as Sponsored, the system treats all products assigned to it as if they are sponsored products and applies the Sponsored Search and Sponsored Search Limits settings. If the number of sponsored products exceeds the Sponsored Search Limit, the different ways you flag a product as sponsored determines the order in which sponsored products display. For example, a sponsored product that is also part of a sponsored brand displays before a sponsored product in a non-sponsored brand.

Boost or bury product lines in search results

1. Go to Marketing > Search > Product Line Boosting in the Admin Console.
2. Click the Edit icon next to a product line you want to boost or bury.
3. Set the Sponsored toggle to YES if you want to flag a product line as Sponsored and have it display at the top of search results.
4. Enter a value in the Search Boost field. This value is a multiplier that is applied to search scores for matches on the product line name. A number greater than 1 will boost the result and a number less than 1 will bury the result (range of 0.0-100.0). When you boost a product line, the system applies the boost multiplier to the score returned by ElasticSearch for any product in that product line returned in search results.
5. Click Save.

When you flag a product line as Sponsored, the system treats all products assigned to it as if they are sponsored products and applies the Sponsored Search and Sponsored Search Limits settings. If the number of sponsored products exceeds the Sponsored Search Limit, the different ways you flag a product as sponsored determines the order in which sponsored products display. For example, a sponsored product that is also part of a sponsored product line displays before a sponsored product in a non-sponsored product line.

Enter brand titles and descriptions for SEO

1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Brands.
2. Click the Edit icon next to a brand.
3. Scroll down to the Meta Data section of the Details finger tab.
4. Enter a value in the Page Title field. If you enter a value in this field, the system uses this page title instead of the dynamically generated title for the brand detail page.
5. Enter a value in the Meta Description field. If you enter a value in this field, the system uses this description for display in search engine results.
6. Click Save.

Work with widgets

These new widgets are only available on the Brand Detail page:

• Brand Gallery – Displays a gallery of brand logos (using the small image logos on the brands) that link to the brand detail pages.

• Brand Categories – Lists all categories that have products with both the selected brand and specified category associated.

• Product Lines – Lists all product lines that have products with both the selected brand and specified product line associated.

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  Note

  Product Lines will only show on the Brand Detail page if the Featured setting on the Product Lines detail page has been turned on.

• Brand Container – Contains two equal-width columns for adding additional widgets to the Brand Detail page. If only one column has widgets or data configured, that column displays as centered in the widget.

• Brand Image – Displays the image uploaded as the Featured Image on the brand.

• Brand Logo – Displays the image uploaded as the Brand Logo on the brand.

• Brand Content – Allows the user to enter a text description of the brand.

Add the brand gallery widget to the brands page

1. Access the CMS by clicking the Site Preview button in the Primary Navigation header.
2. Select the website you want to edit in the CMS. The website opens in a new browser tab.
3. Click Show CMS in the upper left corner.
4. Click Toggle Content Tree to open the Content Tree.
5. Click Brands in the content tree and click Edit on the page.
6. Click Add Content on the page and select the Brand Gallery widget from the Item Type drop-down list.
7. Enter a title for the widget in the Title field.
8. Select the Brands to display:
   • Random – Brand logos display at random on page load
   • Select Brands – Select specific brands to display in the widget
9. Select a value from 1-18 from the Number of Brands to Display drop-down list, if you chose Random.
10. Select the specific Brands to display if you chose Select Brands. Only brands with products and small logos assigned appear in the list. You can reorder the brands after selection.
11. Select a value from 1-6 from the Maximum Number of Brands Per Row drop-down list. This number should be adjusted based on the number of brands you choose to display. For example, if you display 10 brands, you likely want 5 to display per row. Logos will also stack responsively for smaller screen sizes.
12. Enter a value in the Maximum Brand Image Height field. By default, images will scale to meet the width of the screen for the number of brands to display per row. The maximum height value can be used to scale brand logos to be smaller. Default value is 100 pixels.
13. Click Save.

Exclude products from top sellers widget on the brand detail page

When using the Top Sellers widget on the Brand Detail page, only products from that brand display. You can exclude products at the category or product level from the brand Top Sellers widget.

1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Products.
2. Select the product you want to exclude from the Top Sellers widget.
3. In the Product Recommendations section, set Exclude From Dynamic Product Recommendations to YES.
4. Click Save.

Exclude categories from top sellers widget on the brand detail page

1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Categories.
2. Select the category you want to exclude from the Top Sellers widget.
3. In the Product Recommendations section, set Exclude From Dynamic Product Recommendations to YES.
4. Click Save.

Set brand category images

Brand category images are a set of images associated with a brand's categories and product lines. When you configure brands to have these images dynamically generated, a recurring job runs to pull the images for the top selling products in the brand category or product line. However, if you would prefer to manually populate the brand category image, you can choose that option when configuring brands.

If a brand category is a parent category with no products assigned, and it doesn't have a manual image selected for it, the system selects the brand category image from the child category with the lowest sort order, then travels down the category hierarchy until it finds products with images.

The Generate Brand Images job is available by default when you enable brands. This job generates records for every brand/category combination and sets the default image for the top selling product to display for brand categories and product lines on the brand detail page. You can set the job parameter OverwriteAllImages to true, which updates all images based on top seller data.

See also Creating Integration Jobs.

Override dynamic brand category images

1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Brands and select the desired brand.
2. Select the Category Images finger tab.
3. Click Edit next to any of the images in the grid to edit the image settings.
4. Choose Manual Product Image and enter a product number or product title in the search box, then choose a product to assign its image as the brand category image.
5. Or, choose Media Library Image > Browse and find a local file to upload as the brand category image.
6. Click Save.

Override dynamic product line images

1. Go to Admin Console > Catalog > Brands and select the desired brand.
2. Select the Product Lines finger tab.
3. Click Edit next to any of the product lines configured on the brand.
4. Choose Manual Product Image and enter a product number or product title in the search box, then choose a product to assign its image as the brand category image.
5. Or, choose Media Library Image > Browse and find a local file to upload as the brand category image.
6. Click Save.

When you choose either of the manual override options for the brand category image or product line image, the image will remain static until you manually select another image or change the image type to Dynamic Product Image. 

Create promotions and page variants based on brands or product lines

You can create promotions and page variants in the Configured Commerce CMS based on brands and product lines, which is covered in these steps. You can also create restriction groups based on brands and product lines. For more details on creating restriction groups, see Restrict by product group.

1. Go to Admin Console > Marketing > Promotions.
2. Click + Promotion to add a new promotion rule.
3. On the Rules finger tab, select Ordered Product from Brand or Ordered Product from Product Line from the Rule Type drop-down list.
4. Select the appropriate Brand or Product Line from the drop-down list and enter the other information associated with the promotion.
5. Go to the Content Management System (CMS) and find the page variant for the promotion you created.
6. Click Edit to edit the page.
7. Select Edit Variant Rules and select either Brand Fields or Product Line Fields from the Rule Type drop-down list.
8. Click Save to finalize variant page changes.

See also

• Add promotions
• Multiple page variants

Discount products in a brand or product line

You can choose to apply a promotion only to products in a specified brand or product line.

1. Go to Admin Console > Marketing > Promotions.
2. Choose an existing promotion, or create a new one. 
3. Select the Results finger tab.
4. In the Result Type field, select Discount Products in Brand or Discount Products in Product Line.
5. Enter an integer in the Amount field. This can be either a whole dollar amount, or a percentage discount for products in the brand.
6. To create a percentage discount, set Is Percent to YES.
7. Enter the specific Brand or Product Line.
8. Click Save.