Contextual Products make it easy to deliver highly relevant, dynamic product recommendations in automation emails that adapt to each customer’s real-time context.

By leveraging triggers such as abandoned cart, abandoned browse, or back-in-stock events, this feature uses SKU-level data from the trigger to present personalized, intent-based suggestions. Contextual Products are part of Connected Recommendations, integrating Engage with Elevate to deliver smarter, more responsive experiences that boost engagement and conversions.

What is it?

Contextual Products is a smart recommendation module for automation emails that uses Elevate’s algorithms to generate personalized suggestions based on one or more contextual SKUs provided by the trigger. Each recommendation is dynamically calculated at send time, ensuring that every customer receives up-to-date and relevant content.

How recommendations are generated

When Engage sends one or more SKUs from a trigger, such as abandoned cart, abandoned browse, or order confirmation, Elevate analyzes them and returns the most relevant products based on the selected recommendation type.

Two recommendation types are supported:

• Complementary recommendations 
  These suggest products that pair well with the original item. The goal is to increase basket value by showing products that complete or enhance what the customer interacted with. 
  If a discoveryKey is included (meaning the user is identified across both products), the result is further personalized by excluding products the customer has previously purchased, both online and in-store.
• Alternative recommendations 
  These suggest similar or substitute products. The goal is to offer relevant replacements, for example if the customer is still evaluating options or comparing products.

If multiple base SKUs are provided, for example is an abandoned session contains 10 product views, Elevate processes up to 5, selecting the 5 best-selling ones. 

Email layout and recommendation structure

The module nests recommendations under up to 5 base products, for example displaying the product viewed, purchased or added to the cart (the context) followed by its recommended items. By default, the layout shows 3 products per row, but this can be configured in the module, see below.

Contextual Products lets you repeat over base products and, within each of those, over their recommended products, which means the available personalization tags depend on which level you’re working on. Available personalization tags:

Using Contextual Products

Before using Contextual Products:

• Ensure Connected recommendations are enabled for your account. Reach out to your Account Manager if you are unsure. 
• Once confirmed, configure Connected Recommendations in the Engage configuration area.

With that in place:

1. Review the email type, if it's an automations email where the trigger can provide a SKU (the context recomendations are based on), you can proceed. If not use Top-selling products.  
2. Add the Contextual Products module from the module library in Engage Email Design Studio. 
3. Configure the module settings. The available options include:
   • Number of products to display (recommended items per base product)
   • Custom Price ID
   • SKU (for preview only)
   • Recommendation Type: Here you can choose Complementary (show products that go well with the selected SKUs) or Alternative (show similar or substitute products to the selected SKUs)
     
     
     It's also possible to apply addition filters by adding "Product selection" that contain all product attributes available in Elevate, including custom ones. They can be included or excluded.
     
4. Preview and test. Use the SKU preview option, by adding a SKU that will be used to create the contextual recommendations. Check the layout and relevance of returned products before publishing.
5. Publish your email. Once published, Engage automatically sends the SKU data to Elevate when the trigger fires. Elevate returns optimized product recommendations, which are rendered dynamically in the email.

Triggers

The Contextual Products module can be used in automation emails where the trigger provides a SKU. Currently supported triggers include:

• Abandoned cart
• Abandoned browse
• Back in stock
• Back in stock subscription created
• Product purchase (coming soon)
• New return (coming soon)

If the module is added to an email used in an automation where the trigger doesn’t provide a SKU, it will be hidden from the email.

Why use Contextual products?

Contextual Products transform automated campaigns into personalized, behavior-driven experiences. By automatically aligning recommendations with customer intent, marketers can:

• Reduce manual effort while keeping emails dynamic and relevant.
• Increase conversions by showing the right product at the right time.
• Reuse the same module across multiple triggers with minimal setup.

Use cases

Contextual Products are flexible and can be used in many different scenarios. We recommend experimenting with different recommendation types in split tests to see what works best for your audience, but here are some common use cases.

• Abandoned Cart
  Remind customers of what they left behind while suggesting products that complete the look or purchase.
• Back in Stock subscription created
  Show alternative products that are in stock
• Back in Stock Notification
  Re-engage customers when an item returns, and offer similar products to expand their options.
• Abandoned Browse
  Inspire customers to return by displaying alternative products to the one they viewed.
• Post-Purchase Upsell
  After an order, recommend items that complement recently purchased products.
• Returns Follow-Up
  Show alternative options to the returned item, turning potential churn into re-engagement.

Each use case leverages customer intent and product context to deliver content that feels natural, relevant, and timely without manual setup.

Article last reviewed 19 February 2026 11:45