Enable the Shop by Brands feature on your Optimizely <<product-name>> 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 <<product-name>> settings and behaviors become available, including new brand-specific widgets, a brand detail page, and brand-specific behavior on the <<product-name>> website.
Within brands, <<product-name>> 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.
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
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 <<product-name>> 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
Go to **Administration \> System \> Settings** and search for **Enable Brands.**
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**.
Go to the **Content Creator** page under the **Debug Tools** in the Admin Console.
Click **Run** next to the brands-related content creator to create the Brands page.
## Configure brands
### Import Brand Information
Go to **Admin Console** \> **Catalog** \> **Brands**.
Click the up arrow icon to import brands.Â
Choose **Brands**, **Brand Category Images**, **Product Lines**, or **Products** to import.
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.
Click **Import**.
### Add brands using Admin Console
Go to **Admin Console** \> **Catalog** \> **Brands**.
Click **+ Brand** and add the brand information. The **Name** and **URL Information** are required on the **Details** finger tab.
Click **Save**.
### Add products to brands
Go to **Admin Console** \> **Catalog** \> **Brands**.
Click the **Edit** icon next to the brand you want to add products to.
Click the **Products** finger tab.
Click **Assign Products**.
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:**Â Only products unassigned to a brand appear in the list. You can only assign a product to one brand.
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
Go to **Admin Console** \> **Catalog** \> **Brands**.
Click the Edit icon next to the brand you want to add product lines to.
Click the **Product Lines** finger tab.
Click **+ Product Lines** and add the product line information. The **Name** and **URL Information** are required.
Click **Save**.
### Add products to product lines
Go to **Admin Console** \> **Catalog** \> **Brands**.
Click the **Edit**Â icon next to an existing brand.
Select the **Product Lines** finger tab.
Select the **Products** finger tab.
Click **Assign Products**.
Products currently assigned to the selected brand display. You can search these products by **Product Number**, **Product Title**, or **URL Segment**.
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
Go to **Administration** \> **System** \> **Settings**.
Search for **Show Brands**.
Set the **Show Brands** setting to **YES**. When you enable this setting, brand search results display in the search autocomplete options.
Enter a maximum number of brand autocomplete results in the **Brand Limit** field.
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
Go to **Marketing** \> **Search** \> **Brand Boosting** in the Admin Console.
Click the **Edit**Â icon next to a brand you want to boost or bury.
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.
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.
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
Go to **Marketing** \> **Search** \> **Product Line Boosting** in the Admin Console.
Click the **Edit**Â icon next to a product line you want to boost or bury.
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.
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.
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
Go to **Admin Console** \> **Catalog** \> **Brands**.
Click the **Edit** icon next to a brand.
Scroll down to the **Meta Data** section of the **Details** finger tab.
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.
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.
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.
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
Access the CMS by clicking the **Site Preview** button in the Primary Navigation header.
Select the website you want to edit in the CMS. The website opens in a new browser tab.
Click **Show CMS** in the upper left corner.
Click **Toggle Content Tree** to open the Content Tree.
Click **Brands** in the content tree and click **Edit** on the page.
Click **Add Content** on the page and select the **Brand Gallery** widget from the **Item Type** drop-down list.
Enter a title for the widget in the **Title** field.
Select the Brands to display:
**Random** – Brand logos display at random on page load
**Select Brands** – Select specific brands to display in the widget
Select a value from 1-18 from the **Number of Brands to Display**Â drop-down list, if you chose **Random**.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Go to **Admin Console** \> **Catalog** \> **Products**.
Select the product you want to exclude from the **Top Sellers** widget.
In the **Product Recommendations** section, set **Exclude From Dynamic Product Recommendations** to **YES**.
Click **Save**.
## Exclude categories from top sellers widget on the brand detail page
Go to **Admin Console** \> **Catalog** \> **Categories**.
Select the category you want to exclude from the **Top Sellers** widget.
In the **Product Recommendations** section, set **Exclude From Dynamic Product Recommendations** to **YES**.
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 <span style="font-weight:bolder">OverwriteAllImages</span> to true, which updates all images based on top seller data.
**See also** [Creating Integration Jobs](🔗).
## Override dynamic brand category images
Go to **Admin Console** \> **Catalog** \> **Brands** and select the desired brand.
Select the **Category Images** finger tab.
Click **Edit** next to any of the images in the grid to edit the image settings.
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.
Or, choose **Media Library Image** \> **Browse** and find a local file to upload as the brand category image.
Click **Save**.
## Override dynamic product line images
Go to **Admin Console** \> **Catalog** \> **Brands** and select the desired brand.
Select the **Product Lines**Â finger tab.
Click **Edit** next to any of the product lines configured on the brand.
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.
Or, choose **Media Library Image** \> **Browse** and find a local file to upload as the brand category image.
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 <<product-name>> 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](🔗).
Go to **Admin Console** \> **Marketing** \> **Promotions**.
Click **+ Promotion** to add a new promotion rule.
On the **Rules** finger tab, select **Ordered Product from Brand** or **Ordered Product from Product Line** from the **Rule Type** drop-down list.
Select the appropriate **Brand** or **Product Line** from the drop-down list and enter the other information associated with the promotion.
Go to the Content Management System (CMS) and find the page variant for the promotion you created.
Click **Edit** to edit the page.
Select **Edit Variant Rules** and select either **Brand Fields** or **Product Line Fields** from the **Rule Type** drop-down list.
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.
Go to **Admin Console** \> **Marketing** \> **Promotions**.
Choose an existing promotion, or create a new one.Â
Select the **Results** finger tab.
In the **Result Type** field, select **Discount Products in Brand** or **Discount Products in Product Line**.
Enter an integer in the **Amount** field. This can be either a whole dollar amount, or a percentage discount for products in the brand.
To create a percentage discount, set **Is Percent** to **YES**.
Enter the specific **Brand** or **Product Line**.
Click **Save**.