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Preview with sort effect annotations

When you preview a sort order, the preview panel annotates each product with the sorting rules that affected its position. Use sort effect annotations to see why each product appears where it does and to fine-tune your configuration. Each product can display:
  • Promoted / Demoted badges — color-coded indicators showing that a priority rule matched the product and pushed it up (green Promoted) or down (red Demoted). Hover the badge to see which expression caused it, for example Promoted by Priority: Vendor.
  • Boosted badges — a Boosted badge appears when a soft boost matched the product. Hover the badge to see the concrete effect: Boosted +N positions when the product’s rank changed, Boosted +<lift> when the boost changed the score without changing rank, or Matched, no change when the match had no effect. A match that could not be spaced out because the cohort exceeded the spacing budget is labeled Boosted · over spacing capacity and keeps its incoming rank. If spacing seated a matched product below its natural rank, the product shows a red Demoted badge instead of Boosted, and its ranking details label the movement Moved down by spacing. Open View ranking details on a product to see a scoring card that breaks down the base value, position change, lift, and final score for each matched boost. Matched boosts appear even when the lift is zero. The card also notes when Layers switched a boost from multiplicative to additive because the base values were too large for the decay.
  • Sequence badges — indicators showing when a product was placed by a product sequence. Hover for the tooltip Grouped by product sequence, which confirms the position came from a curated sequence group rather than a metric or rule.
  • Diversity badges — Diversity ↑ appears when a product was surfaced to broaden diversity coverage (tooltip: Surfaced for coverage). Diversity ↓ appears when a product was pushed down because its family already filled the diversity cap (tooltip: Capped by family limit).
  • Tied badges — a muted Tied · {attribute} badge appears on products that tied with their neighbors on the primary sort value. The attribute in the badge is the lower-priority row that actually settled the position. Hover for the tooltip N products tied at {value} — ordered by {deciding attribute} (or catalog order when every configured row also tied). If the tied group runs to the end of the loaded results, the count is shown as N+ because later pages may extend it. Tied badges are hidden when the sort order includes a soft boost or diversity row, or when product sequences are enabled. Those effects override the tie-break logic. Open View ranking details on a tied product to see (tied, N) next to each row that tied and ◀ decided on the row that broke the tie.
  • Metric values — the actual value used for sorting when a metric or numeric attribute is part of the sort order. Date attributes are shown as human-readable dates, and values from segmented metrics are tagged Segmented (…). Hover to see the metric name.
  • Weighted score breakdown — when a weighted group drove the product’s score, the preview shows a stacked contribution bar and one row per feature. Each row lists the raw value, normalized score, weight share, and contribution (normalized × share = contribution), followed by a Weighted total. Each row’s color dot matches the feature’s slider tint in the editor. Layers normalizes scores against the current result set, so compare contributions within a preview rather than absolute values across sort orders. Features that are gated out or have no value for the product render as — with a 0 contribution.
Badge tooltips name the expression that caused the effect, so you can trace every badge back to its source in your sort order. Products that don’t match a given rule won’t show a badge for it. If a badge other than Tied would appear on every product in the loaded results, the preview hides it, because it doesn’t tell products apart. For step-by-step instructions, see Preview a sort order.

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Preview by region or marketing segment

When a sort order uses segmented metrics or targeting conditions, the preview lets you select a specific region (country, province, city) or marketing segment (channel, source, medium, campaign) to simulate as the visitor context. The collection then reorders as a visitor from that region or segment would see it. To keep previews meaningful, the region and marketing segment pickers only list values that have enough traffic to actually influence sorting. Long-tail values with only a handful of events are hidden. Selecting them wouldn’t change the sort order anyway, because segmented metrics fall back to global values when segment data is too sparse (see Smoothing factor). If a region or segment you expect to see isn’t in the list, it hasn’t yet reached the significance threshold. Wait for more traffic to accumulate, or preview a broader value (for example, the country rather than a specific city).

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Preview as a saved audience

If your store has saved audiences, use Preview as to select one. Layers evaluates audience conditions as if the visitor belongs to that audience, so you can check audience-specific sorting without finding a real customer to test with. Choose All shoppers to clear the simulated audience. The preview also applies matching browse request transforms, including their hidden product filters and context changes. A transform that changes the sort order does not replace the sort you are currently previewing. The Preview as audience selection is shared with collaborators in the same sort editor. It changes the preview, not the audience definition or live shoppers’ membership.

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See also