A Collection is a group of pages that are based on a shared template. When you create a Collection, you’re working on additional versions of the original page—without affecting the original itself. This allows you to share one page template across multiple pages, and then add placeholders for your personalized content, while keeping the main page intact.
Why use Collections?
Collections are perfect for anyone who would like to manage multiple versions of a page and keep a consistent structure. Since each page in a Collection has its own URL this feature is especially useful for localized content that enables you to customize pages for different audiences or campaigns.
The steps of creating a collection
1. Click on Collections on the right side menu inside of your account.
2. Click on Create Collection to get started. You will be asked to choose the page that you want to use and to name the new collection. You can only choose pages that are live and published through the Custom Domain method or the Pagedemo method.
Note: If there’s an experiment running for that page, a message will appear that the page with a running experiment cannot be selected. You need to end the experiment first before choosing that page.
3. Once you select Create Collection and name it, a template will be created as a copy of your selected page. You are then taken directly to the template editor and presented with the following popup.
The pop-up message contains instructions on how to create the template and add placeholders. If you wish to stop seeing the message every time you enter the builder of the template, please check the box "Don't show this message again".
4. Add placeholders to the page. The placeholders are texts wrapped in double brackets—e.g., [[First Name]], [[City]]. The text inside the brackets becomes the placeholder name. Placeholders can be added to any element that can contain text: headlines, paragraphs, buttons, etc.
Use descriptive names that will help you identify exactly what you are editing without seeing the page. When you reach the content editing stage, these placeholders will each become the head of a column.
5. Click on Save Template at the top right to save the current changes. To manage the content of the placeholders inside the Collection, click on Edit Content.
6. Once you are done with the changes inside the builder, you can exit, and you will notice that the template was given an automated URL. Now, click on the Manage Content button, which will take you to a table view.
Note: If you did not click on Edit Content to push the placeholders to the live version, the following message will be visible:
After selecting Apply, a Default Page is created, and the placeholders will appear in the table view, with a column for each individual placeholder. The default page for a collection is different from the original page you selected when creating said collection. All of the pages here, including the default one, use the template you previously edited.
7. Click on Add Collection Page to generate more versions of the template. Click on the names to change it accordingly.
8. Add values for your placeholders in the Default Page row, and all the others will be automatically pre-filled. You can edit them after, but this gives you the option of only editing specific placeholders for different pages in the collection and leaving the others as they are.
9. Click on the pre-filled options for the collections pages to add their specific value. If nothing is added, the default values will be shown.
You can click on the eye symbol for each version to see a preview. Only the template has its own builder. The versions cannot be edited; only the values for the placeholders can.
Pro tip: Placeholders will not automatically adjust for longer text, which could affect design consistency. We recommend keeping text lengths similar or using Fluid Grid Blocks so the content adapts and scales automatically. You can find the article about Fluid Grid Blocks here: https://d.pr/Unljbj.
10. Once you are pleased with the changes, you can click on the Publish Updates button at the top. Doing so will publish all the pages under that collection, and they will receive an auto-generated URL.
Click the URLs to customize them to your liking. You will need to click on Publish Updates again once the URLs are changed so that this change is pushed live.
The auto-generated URLs are based on the default page's URL. You can also change the default template's URL by clicking on it and then selecting Edit, as shown below.
Note: It is not possible to use the original page's URL for your collection. If you do that, a message will appear that the URL is in use. The collection's template & default page are separate from your original page, created as a copy, so they need a different URL.
Managing pages
In the Manage Content table, you can publish all pages at once or select specific pages to publish. To publish all pages at once, click on Publish Updates at the top right side.
If you want to publish only one page, there are two options:
1. Tick the checkbox of that page and then click on Update at the top left.
2. Click on the three-dotted menu for that page and select Publish.
In this view, you can also Delete specific pages from the collection.
If you want to update only one page, click on the three-dotted menu for that page and select Publish Updates.
In this view, you can also select to Unpublish specific pages from the collection.
If you want to unpublish all pages at once, you can use the three-dotted menu next to the name of the collection on the top left corner, or the one on the right top corner. These will show the option Unpublish All.
You can also do so by clicking the three-dotted button in the Collections main view and selecting Unpublish All. Here, you can also choose to Delete the whole collection.