This guide explains how to use Smart Collections to feature products and create promotional tiles within your online store’s collection pages.
You’ll learn how to:
Highlight key products with Featured Products and customizable badges.
Create and manage Promo Tiles to showcase deals, redirect shoppers, and control placement within collections.
Understand how collection-level settings interact with Campaigns and when one overrides the other.
Give a collection its own Merchandising Rules that replace your global Merchandising Rules for that collection.
By using these tools, you can drive attention to high-value items, run targeted promotions, and create a more engaging shopping experience for your customers.
Live Preview Editor
The Collections editor includes a live preview of your actual storefront, rendered directly within the Rebuy admin as you configure settings. When you open an individual collection to merchandise it, the preview loads that specific collection, so you can see exactly how it will appear on your storefront as you make changes. Nothing goes live until you save.
Collection Settings
The Smart Collections collection editor holds the settings that apply to one collection only. To open it, go to Search & Collections > Smart Collections > Collections in your Rebuy dashboard, then click the collection's name or click Edit on its row. The editor opens with the heading Customize Collection followed by the collection name.
Within the collection settings, you can:
Add Featured Products: Promote specific items with a badge and optionally boost them to the top of the collection page.
Create Promo Tiles: Highlight promotions or deals, choose where to place them, and optionally link them to another landing page.
Set Merchandising Rules: Give this collection its own Boost, Demote, and Hide rules, which replace your global Merchandising Rules for this collection.
Featured Products
What are Featured Products?
Featured Products let you showcase specific items within a collection. When shoppers visit that collection page, those products will display according to your configured settings.
Important: Featured product settings only apply to the specific collection you're editing. To feature products across multiple collections, use Campaigns.
Key Settings
Show Featured Badge
When toggled on, featured products display a badge (default text: "Featured"). You can customize the badge text to fit your brand.Add Featured Products from Collection
Select products you want to feature within this specific collection.To feature the same products in multiple collections, use Campaign settings.
How Featured Products Respond to Applied Filters on the Collection Page
Featured Products respect the shopper's applied filters on the collection page. When a shopper applies filters, each Featured Product is checked against them and only stays if it matches:
Products with variants: stay visible only if one variant matches every applied filter at once, for example a single variant that is both green and size 10.
Products without variants: match on product-level filters like product type or vendor. If a variant-level filter like color or size is applied and the product has no matching variant, it is removed.
When filters change: a removed Featured Product re-appears as soon as the filters change to include it again. Adding a filter re-checks every Featured Product against the new combination.
If all Featured Products are filtered out: the collection page shows only the standard matching products, with no error or empty state.
When no filters are applied: Featured Products display as configured, with no change to existing behavior.
This behavior is always on when filters are active and cannot be disabled.
Promo Tiles
Promo Tiles allow you to replace a product slot within a collection with a promotional image, perfect for showcasing sales or redirecting shoppers to other pages.
Step 1: Create a Promo Tile
Click "Add Promo Tile".
In the popup, give your tile a name (for organizational purposes only—this does not display to shoppers).
Step 2: Upload an Image
Promo Tiles require an image. Upload from your computer or select from the Rebuy Image Gallery.
Supported formats: SVG, PNG, JPG, GIF (max size: 5 MB).
Step 3: Add a Redirect URL (Optional)
Enable this setting to send shoppers to a specific page (e.g., another collection, sale page, or landing page) when they click the Promo Tile.
Marketing Tip: Great for promoting site-wide sales or related collections.
Step 4: Set Placement
First Page Only: Tile appears once, only on the first page of the collection.
If using Continuous Scroll, it displays only once as you load more products.
Every Page: Tile appears on all pages.
With Continuous Scroll, it repeats each time more products load.
Image Position: Choose its placement (within the first 16 product slots).
You cannot place two Promo Tiles in the same position within a single collection.
Adding Multiple Promo Tiles
You can add multiple Promo Tiles per collection to fit your promotional needs.
Note: If the collection is part of a Live Campaign, Campaign settings will override collection-specific settings—even if no Promo Tiles or Featured Products are configured in the Campaign. When the Campaign ends or is in Draft/Scheduled mode, your collection-specific settings will reapply.
What size should I make my Promo Tile image?
There isn't one fixed pixel size for Promo Tile images in Smart Collections. Instead, size your Promo Tile to match the image ratio configured in the collection's Template settings, since a Promo Tile takes over a product slot in the grid and scales to fit that slot exactly like a product image does:
Square (1:1): export the Promo Tile as a square image.
Portrait (3:4): export the Promo Tile at a 3:4 ratio.
Tall (9:16): export the Promo Tile at a 9:16 ratio.
Supported formats are SVG, PNG, JPG, and GIF, with a maximum file size of 5 MB. Keep the design simple and bold so it stays legible once scaled down for smaller product-grid layouts on mobile.
Why does a gray box show up around my Promo Tile image?
A gray box appears around a Promo Tile image when the image's aspect ratio doesn't match the image ratio configured for that collection. For example, uploading a 2:3 image into a collection set to Square (1:1) leaves empty space above and below the image inside the product slot, and that empty space shows the slot's default background color, a light gray fill.
To fix this, do one of the following:
Match the aspect ratio. Re-export or crop the Promo Tile image to the exact ratio configured for that collection (Square 1:1, Portrait 3:4, or Tall 9:16) so it fills the product slot completely, with no empty space.
Override the background color with Custom CSS. If matching the ratio isn't an option, add the following to the Custom CSS field in the collection's Template settings to make the empty space transparent instead of gray:
#rebuy-smart-collections .rebuy-smart-collections__product-media {
background-color: transparent;
}See the Smart Collections CSS Guide for more on customizing collection styles with CSS.
Give this collection its own Merchandising Rules
The Merchandising Rules setting in the Smart Collections collection editor gives one collection its own Boost, Demote, and Hide rules. A collection's own Merchandising Rules replace your global Merchandising Rules from the Template & Settings page for that collection only, so every other collection keeps using the global list.
To set up Merchandising Rules for one collection:
Open the collection from Search & Collections > Smart Collections > Collections.
Under Settings, find Merchandising Rules, directly below Promo Tiles, and click Edit.
In the Merchandising Rules slideout for this collection, click Add New Rule and choose Boost, Hide, or Demote.
Build the rule the same way you build a global Merchandising Rule, then click Save.
Keep the following in mind about a collection's own Merchandising Rules:
The collection's rule list starts empty, and Rebuy doesn't copy your global rules into it. Add every rule you want on this collection, including any global rule you still want applied here.
Your global Merchandising Rules keep applying to this collection until it has a rule of its own. Once it has one, even a rule that is turned off, only the collection's own list applies.
A global rule that hides or demotes out-of-stock products, including the one Rebuy added automatically when your store moved to Merchandising Rules, doesn't apply to a collection with its own rules. Add a Hide or Demote rule on Inventory Status to this collection's list to keep that handling.
For how rule order, rule types, condition types, and limits work, see Smart Collections: Merchandising Rules.
FAQs
Check out our full Smart Collections FAQ for more details. If you don’t see your question answered there, reach out via the messenger on this page.
Can I set different featured badge texts for Featured Products within the same collection?
Smart Collections featured badge text is set at the collection level and applies to all Featured Products in that collection. You cannot set different badge texts for individual products within the same collection.
Can I use logic or rules to change badge text dynamically?
Smart Collections featured badge text is static and must be set manually in the collection settings. It cannot be changed dynamically using rules, conditions, or logic.
Can I add a title or text overlay to a Promo Tile?
Promo Tiles don't have a built-in title or text field in the editor. Any promotional text for Promo Tile's you want shoppers to see—needs to be designed directly into the image file before you upload it as the Promo Tile.
If I leave Promo Tile or Featured Product settings empty in a Campaign, will my collection-specific settings apply?
When a Campaign is Live, its Promo Tile and Featured Product settings override all collection-level configurations, including any fields left empty. Collection-specific settings do not apply while the Campaign is Live.
What happens to Featured Products when a shopper applies filters on a collection page?
Featured Products respect the shopper's applied filters on the collection page. Any Featured Product that doesn't match the active filters is removed, and it re-appears when the filters change to include it again. A product with variants stays visible only if one variant matches every applied filter at once, for example a variant that is both green and size 10. This behavior cannot be disabled while filters are active.