Search

Sponsored products in Elevate

Here is an overview of features focusing on sponsored products in Elevate when Retail Media is enabled.

Retail Media features are currently in beta. Contact your Account Manager to learn more.

Sponsored lists are created on category and landing pages. When Retail Media is enabled on your cluster, the option to create sponsored lists is added to the Page editor.

Page editor showing the Add list button with Sponsored list as a selectable option

To add a list:

  1. Select Add list.
  2. Select Sponsored list.
  3. Add a list ID.

Sponsored list configuration showing the list ID field and category assignment options

Sponsored lists are similar to recommendation lists, but they don't have a product selection. Instead, you assign a category for them to use. By default, Elevate automatically identifies the category that best matches the page's primary list. If no primary list exists, the category must be assigned manually. This option is also available when a primary list is present. Read more under Settings below.

Settings

You can fine-tune how products in a sponsored list are filtered and shown. Options include:

  • Applying category filters automatically or manually
  • Changing list size
  • Setting image priorities for idle, hover, and thumbnail states

While optional, these tools can help align the presentation of sponsored products with your campaign goals and site design.

Sponsored list settings panel showing category filter mode, list size, and image priority options

Selectable categories are based on the category/categories attribute supplied in the product feed, but also allow the selection of parent categories for more coverage. For example, if a product belongs to "Tops > T-shirts", you can find it under both "Tops" and "Tops > T-shirts". This lets you choose the level of granularity you want for the list. When a supplier wants to sponsor their products, they pick one or more categories to compete in.

Once published, a sponsored list is populated with products from active supplier campaigns. During page rendering, a real-time auction determines which products qualify, and Elevate selects the most relevant based on bid and context.

Sponsored slices function like regular (non-sponsored) slices on a product listing page. They allow you to override the organic ranking by displaying sponsored products within the product list.

The key difference is that, instead of pulling products from a predefined product set, a sponsored slice acts as a dynamic placeholder. Similar to a sponsored list, it is populated with sponsored products based on real-time bidding.

Adding a slice

When Retail Media is enabled for your cluster, the option to create sponsored slices becomes available in the Page Editor.

Page Editor showing the Slices button with the option to add a sponsored slice

  1. Select Slices.
  2. Choose whether the slice should apply to subpages of the current page.
  3. Select how slices should be positioned:
    • Sequential, or
    • Positioned

Slice creation panel showing Sequential and Positioned options for slice positioning

Sequential slices are stacked from the top of the list. Organic and sponsored slices can be combined within the same list.

Positioned slices are pinned to specific positions in the product grid. In this case, you must choose how to handle organic slices.

Read more about adding slices in general.

Sequential slices

If you are using Sequential slices, select Add sponsored slice and drag it into the desired position.

By default, the slice contains four product placeholders. This can be changed via the kebab menu by selecting Edit slice size.

Sequential slice shown in the page editor with four product placeholders and the kebab menu open showing the Edit slice size option

Positioned slices

When using Positioned slices, select Sponsored instead of Product sets.

Then select the positions in the grid where you want sponsored products to appear.

Positioned slice configuration showing a product grid with selected positions highlighted for sponsored products

The products displayed in a sponsored slice are limited to those included in the primary list. All slices on a page are populated through a single auction — products with the highest bids and strongest relevance appear at the top.

Learn more

For more guidance and practical tips, explore these related resources:

Was this article helpful?

/