How to Use the Product Block in Emails

The Product block in SmartPush lets you easily showcase products in your email content. You can promote specific items, display personalized recommendations, or highlight discounted products — all designed to help you drive engagement and conversions across different marketing scenarios.

This guide explains the types of product displays available, when to use each one, and how AI-based recommendations work behind the scenes.

What is the Product Block?

The Product block allows you to insert product cards into your marketing content to improve visual appeal and encourage clicks or purchases. You can find the block under Email Content when creating an email campaign in the SmartPush editor.

You can customize:

The product source (manual, recommendation, or discount)
The layout - Style (number of products, spacing, image style)
The button text, background color, and more

Available Product Display Modes

You can choose from the following three display modes depending on your campaign goals:

Manual Product Selection - Add Manually

This mode is recommended for seasonal promotions or targeted campaigns where you control the product mix.

Select specific products from your store to feature
Best for spotlighting new arrivals, bestsellers, or curated collections
Preview and arrange the product order manually

AI-Powered Product Recommendations

You can also leverage SmartPush's AI capabilities to dynamically recommend products based on customer behavior. The supported recommendation types include:

Recently Browsed Products
Added to Cart Products
Abandoned Cart Products

Note: The recommended products will vary by contact based on their activity. If no behavior data exists for a contact, the product section will not appear. For more details, refer to the How AI Product Recommendations Work section of this article.

Recommendations only display if:

The message is sent to a known contact (e.g., via email campaign or automation)
The contact has previously interacted with your store (viewed, added to cart, or abandoned checkout)

You can set a fallback layout in case recommendations aren’t available — e.g., hide the section or show fixed products.

Discount Product Display

This mode lets you showcase products with built-in discount capabilities and is recommended for flash sales, membership offers, or new customer promotions. Two methods are supported:

Synchronized SHOPLINE discounts: Select any existing discount created in SHOPLINE Admin
Dynamic discount codes: Automatically generate a unique discount code per contact (e.g., one-time code in an automation email)

Note: To show dynamic discount products, the discount must include eligible product(s) in its setup.

How AI Product Recommendations Work

AI recommendations use customer behavior tracked across your SHOPLINE storefront. Here’s how it works:

SmartPush collects browse/add-to-cart/abandonment behavior for identified users
When sending a campaign or automation, SmartPush matches each contact with relevant products
Each recipient sees a unique set of items tailored to their journey

If no behavior data exists for a contact, the block:

Will not appear in emails
Or will follow your fallback settings

To maximize effectiveness, use these blocks in post-purchase emails, abandonment flows, and retention campaigns.

How to Use Discount Product Display

To use this feature:

Choose the Discount block.
Select one of the following:
- An existing SHOPLINE discount
- A new dynamic discount created in SmartPush
The block will auto-populate products eligible for the discount.
Set style and layout options to match your brand.

Note: Dynamic discount codes are great for automations like "Welcome Series" or "Birthday Offers," where each contact receives a unique code.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What happens if there are no products to recommend for a contact?
A: The block will not display to that contact. You can set fallback behavior when configuring the block (e.g., hide section or show a default product set).

Q: Can I combine product types in the same block?
A: No, each Product block supports only one mode (manual, AI, or discount) per block. You can insert multiple Product blocks to mix types.

Q: Are AI recommendations available for popups?
A: Yes. Learn more about how to set Up AI-Powered Pop-ups for Abandoned Cart Recovery.

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