Pinning and excluding products

Overview

Pinning and exclusion are the two most direct control mechanisms inside the Liva 7 Personalisation Engine. They define which products must appear, which products must never appear and how the engine balances your merchandising intent with adaptive personalisation.

These rules operate globally and influence every system that generates product recommendations.

How pinning works inside Liva 7

Pinning elevates selected products into a protected tier of visibility. It does not force a specific position, but it guarantees that pinned items are always considered first whenever a recommendation block has space.

Pinned products:

• appear before algorithmically ranked items when eligible
• maintain visibility even when shopper behaviour shifts
• support merchandising priorities such as seasonal pushes or hero products
• help guide early discovery for new or low‑signal shoppers

Pinning is most effective when you want consistent exposure without removing the engine’s ability to adapt to each shopper.

How exclusion works inside Liva 7

Exclusion removes products or collections from the engine’s candidate pool entirely. Once excluded, an item cannot appear in any recommendation context, regardless of relevance or shopper behaviour. This ensures sensitive, discontinued or low‑priority items never surface anywhere in the storefront.

Excluded products or collections:

• are removed from all ranking and scoring processes
• cannot appear in widgets, Smart Content or Smart Bundles
• protect brand guidelines and merchandising constraints
• prevent irrelevant or restricted items from surfacing

How pinning and exclusion interact with algorithms

Algorithms determine relevance. Pinning and exclusion determine eligibility. This creates a predictable hierarchy inside Liva 7 that ensures your merchandising intent is always respected.

Hierarchy of influence:

1. Exclusion removes items from the pool
2. Pinning elevates items within the pool
3. Algorithms rank the remaining eligible items
4. Fallback behaviour fills gaps when needed

This layered structure keeps the engine adaptive while maintaining strict control over what it is allowed to show.

How these rules influence widgets

Widgets are the primary delivery mechanism for product recommendations. They control layout, strategy and placement. Rules control the product pool they draw from.

Pinned products:

• are included whenever the widget has space
• appear before algorithmically ranked items
• can appear across multiple widgets if relevant

Excluded products:

• never appear in any widget
• cannot be surfaced even if the widget strategy would normally select them

How these rules influence Smart Content

Smart Content uses the same engine as widgets, so pinned and excluded items apply automatically. This ensures consistency between dynamic content and recommendation blocks.

Smart Content will:

• prioritise pinned items when generating product lists
• avoid excluded products and collections entirely
• follow fallback behaviour when content requires a minimum number of items

How these rules influence Smart Bundles

Smart Bundles rely on product relationships and behavioural signals, but they still respect all rules. This ensures bundles remain aligned with your merchandising constraints.

Bundles will:

• never include excluded products or collections
• include pinned products when relevant to the bundle logic
• adjust bundle composition if fallback behaviour is disabled

When merchants typically use pinning

Pinning is most valuable when you want to:

• highlight seasonal or promotional items
• maintain visibility for hero products
• support brand partnerships or featured lines
• ensure new arrivals receive exposure
• stabilise recommendations during campaigns

When merchants typically use exclusion

Exclusion is most valuable when you want to:

• hide discontinued or low‑priority items
• prevent clearance or sale items from appearing
• remove restricted or sensitive categories
• avoid recommending items with low stock
• maintain strict brand or merchandising guidelines

How pinning and exclusion support long‑term personalisation

Together, these rules give you a stable foundation for personalisation by ensuring:

• your brand priorities are always respected
• the engine never recommends products you do not want promoted
• key products receive consistent visibility
• adaptive personalisation remains controlled and predictable

They allow you to combine the flexibility of AI with the precision of manual merchandising.