Product Recommender Item

Include your best-selling or newest products in your campaigns and automations with the Product Recommender Item.

This article will teach you to automatically include your best-sellers or newest products in your email content.

Product Recommender automatically pulls up to 12 products from your store – images, titles, descriptions, prices, and product links. You decide what information should be included in the email content. This item is refreshed every hour to ensure the latest information is pulled from your store.

To include the most recent information from your store, recommended products are pulled at the last moment before the email is sent. Therefore, products do not appear in the email builder and preview but are automatically added to the email content when sent to the recipient.

To start using Product Recommender, go to either your new campaign or a separate email in your automation workflows.

You can add product recommendations by dragging and dropping a product recommender item from Elements → Product Recommender or by adding a specific product recommendation to your email content from Products. You can always adjust the type of recommendation afterward.

Once you have your item in place, you can start editing it.

Start by selecting if all contacts should see this block, or a specific audience, and the type of products you want to recommend, such as best-selling products. Then, choose a fallback option, such as recently added products, which will be used if the main selection is unavailable. You can also filter products by price to exclude low-cost items by setting a preferred minimum price. 

Lastly, for certain types of recommendations, you can set the time using the time range slider, for example, to define how far back to look for your best-selling products (e.g., the last 12 months). The product details will be automatically filled in the block.

In your Campaigns and Automation, if your store is on the Free or Standard plan, you can choose from three standard recommendations:

If you choose to display best-selling products, the system will automatically show the items that have sold the most in your store over the last 12 months. You can adjust this time frame using the toggle to fit your preferences, with a maximum span of 12 months. Please note that your store must have recent order data for this setting to function correctly.

If you select to show recently added products, the item will pull recently added products to your store. The product recommender acts upon the date when the product was published, but is not updated.

If you choose to display the most viewed products, we will show recommendations from the store. All of the most viewed products within the store will be displayed in the email for all recipients. Additionally, you can select the time range for the newest products, from 1 to 3 months.

Stores on the Pro plan can improve their marketing by adding personalized product recommendations to their campaigns and automation. This feature allows you to include items that each contact has recently viewed or products similar to past purchases, making emails more relevant and engaging. 

With personalized product recommendations, our system helps you show the right products to the right customers – automatically.

Here’s how it works:

✅ This means you don’t have to guess what to promote – your emails will always show smart, tailored product recommendations that help increase sales.

For recently viewed products recommendations, our system uses real-time browsing data to identify up to 10 recently viewed products per contact at the time of sending. If a contact doesn’t have any browsing history, fallback options are available. You can configure it to show best-sellers, newly added items, or the most viewed products instead.

For similar to past purchases products recommendations, the product recommender looks at a customer’s individual purchase history in the connected store. Instead of just repeating the exact products previously purchased, it pulls in other items from the same or related product categories. It relies on product attributes to determine which products are similar.

Just like with standard recommendation types, when designing your email, you can choose between a grid or list layout. Both options automatically apply your store’s brand styling, so there’s no need for extra coding or manual design adjustments.

If you select products similar to past purchases, the product recommender will show more relevant products for your post-purchase or win-back automations. You don't need to pick items manually for cross-sell and upsell automations. You can add this type of recommendation and make more sales while bringing real value to your customers.

When you select the Products Contact Recently Viewed option in Automation emails, the email will show up to 10 products that each contact has recently viewed. The number of products shown depends on how many products the contact has viewed.

If a customer has no viewing history, the email will display the best sellers, newest products, or most viewed products as a fallback, just like in Campaigns. You can choose which fallback option to use.

Data Retrieval:

Co-occurrence Analysis:

Recommendation Generation:

Result:

You can then choose between the grid or list layout and select the number of products you want to show. 

A single item can hold up to 12 products. Please note that if you need more than eight products displayed in a single email, you must drag and drop more product items into your email content.

If you select a layout with multiple columns, move the toggle or type in the number of columns and products you want to show. You can also show products side by side in a single column.

With the columns option selected, you can choose how many columns of products should be displayed in the email. The maximum number of columns is 4 to ensure your customers will see products even on small screens.

It's important to note that only up to 2 columns can be displayed on the phone screens. You can check this by previewing the email. As a result, all products will be grouped by 2 in a single row.

You can also limit the products shown to a particular category (collection) by selecting 'Specific category' and choosing the collection name from the dropdown options.

You can also exclude specific products from recommendations, even if no category is selected. You can do so by clicking 'Exclude products' → selecting the products → clicking Exclude.

Once you've selected the type of your Product Recommender products, you can edit the content that should be shown. You can automatically choose the information you want to pull for each product (image, name, description, price, button that links to product).

After selecting product details, you can show products that are out of stock in your emails or recently bought by your customers.

To limit the visibility of the Product Recommender, choose which devices should show the item selected. You can show it to users viewing your email from:

Then, you can edit the conditions (only in automation) of the item and decide who should see this content block by selecting and applying conditional rules to target your contacts.

Manage paddings by typing in the best ones for your email style.

Lastly, you can define the background color or image. You can select the background color for the Product Recommender or use an uploaded image as its background.

Click on the plus icon to add your color from the color palette → pick the color you need or type in hex, → click Add color.

You can also type in the hex color value next to each color field.

That's it; your Product Recommender is all set! It will be saved in real-time automatically as you edit it.

If your store is connected to Omnisend through the API, you can use personalised product recommendations such as Recently viewed products and Products similar to last purchases. To make these work, ensure that the correct data is being sent from your store to Omnisend.

Omnisend uses your product and order data to display accurate recommendations. You’ll need to have specific events implemented in your store for this to function correctly.

If you want recommendations to include previous purchases, you can sync your historical orders through the API. Learn how to sync historic orders.

If you’re sending large amounts of data, it’s best to use batches to avoid reaching API limits. Learn more in our POST Batches documentation.

Can I use multiple Product Recommender Items in a single email?

Absolutely! You can send multiple items to a single email. Additionally, various types of product recommendations can be added, including best sellers, new arrivals, and personalized suggestions.

What’s the difference between the Product Recommender and Abandoned Products layouts?

The Product Recommender and Abandoned Products layouts display product information in different ways depending on the event that triggers the message and the purpose of the flow or campaign.

The Abandoned Products layout is designed for reminders about specific items that a contact left behind or viewed recently. When the message is triggered by the added product to cart event, it includes all products that were left in the cart. When triggered by the viewed product event, it shows only one product — the most recent one viewed before the message was sent. This layout is best for flows focused on cart or browse abandonment, where the goal is to remind someone about the exact items they interacted with.

The Product Recommender, on the other hand, can be used with any trigger Automations and any Campaigns. It collects data from multiple recent “viewed product” events and displays several products that your contact has recently interacted with or that are similar to previous purchases. This makes it a more dynamic and personalised option for showcasing relevant products, not limited to a single cart or session.

In short:

The Product Recommender layout provides a more flexible and engaging experience because it can show multiple items and adapt to each contact’s activity — offering stronger personalisation and higher engagement compared to Abandoned Products.

The product images in my email appear too large. How can I resize them?
You can adjust the image size in dynamic product listing blocks using a built-in slider. This allows you to control how large or small the product images appear in your email layout.

Here’s how to do it: