---
title: Business rules
description: What a business rule is, how campaigns hold them, and the four questions every campaign answers — targeting, trigger, schedule and effect.
slug: merchandising/business-rules/overview
docKind: concept
hub: luigisbox-ai
---
Ranking answers most questions well. Business rules are for the ones it cannot know about:
the supplier deal that has to be visible this week, the discontinued line that must stop
appearing, the hero product on the sale page.
A rule does not replace ranking. It is applied *inside* it — the results are still ranked,
and the rule adjusts the outcome. That is why the rules you write and the ranking you did
not configure can coexist without one flattening the other.
A rule names the products it acts on, by ID or by criteria such as a brand or a clearance
flag, and one of four effects. `pin` fixes a position. `ban` removes. `boost` and `bury`
shift the ranking, at full strength or fading over time.
## Four questions
Rules are grouped into **campaigns**. A campaign answers three questions, and each rule
inside it answers a fourth:
| | Question | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| **Targeting** | Which catalogs, channels, surfaces and intents does this apply to? | Campaign |
| **Trigger** | Which requests does it fire on? | Campaign `match` |
| **Schedule** | When does it run? | Campaign `starts_at` / `ends_at` |
| **Effect** | Which products, and what happens to them? | Each rule |
Targeting has a permissive default: a dimension you leave empty means *all of it*. The
trigger is always present, and a campaign with no schedule runs whenever it is active.
A campaign holds 1–50 rules and belongs to one organization. Its name must be unique among
the organization's live campaigns.
"Product" on these pages stands for any catalog object the surface serves. The same rules
apply to categories, brands or articles; an ID such as `category/shoes` names the type.
## A first campaign
Pin one product to the top of search results for "running shoes", for two weeks:
:::hub[Config → Business Rules → New Campaign]{path="/business-rules"}
Opens an editor for everything below: targeting, trigger conditions, schedule, and the rules
with their effects. It saves as a draft, activates, pauses, resumes and archives, so a
campaign never has to be written as JSON.
:::
```bash
curl -X POST 'https://api.eu1.luigisbox.ai/platform/v1/campaigns' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer ' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{
"organization_id": "lbo_r2vn8c",
"name": "Spring running push",
"status": "active",
"starts_at": "2026-04-01T00:00:00Z",
"ends_at": "2026-04-15T00:00:00Z",
"catalog_ids": ["lbc_8w3k2p"],
"intents": ["search"],
"match": {
"operator": "and",
"conditions": [
{ "field": "trigger.request:query", "operator": "matches", "value": "running shoes" }
]
},
"rules": [
{
"name": "Hero: Kestrel Trail",
"record_match": {
"operator": "and",
"conditions": [
{ "field": "@id", "operator": "eq", "value": "product/sku-4410" }
]
},
"effect": { "type": "pin", "position": 1 }
}
]
}'
```
The response is `201` with the created campaign, its `lbm_…` ID and its rules' `lbr_…` IDs.
Read that body as the four questions in order: `catalog_ids` and `intents` are the
targeting, `match` is the trigger, `starts_at` / `ends_at` are the schedule, and the one
rule pairs a product selector with an effect. A pin holds for the whole campaign; a boost or
bury can instead fade over a `decay_window` — see
[Rules and effects](/merchandising/business-rules/rules-and-effects/#hard-and-soft-mode).
## Two condition trees, two jobs
A campaign carries two condition trees that look alike and answer different questions:
| Tree | Asks | Fields |
|---|---|---|
| `match` on the campaign | *Does this campaign apply to this request?* | `trigger.`-prefixed |
| `record_match` on a rule | *Which products does this rule act on?* | Catalog fields |
A rule only runs on requests its campaign fires on, and a campaign that fires but whose
rules select no products does nothing. Both trees have to be right.
## Lifecycle
| `status` | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| `draft` | Saved, never served. The default. |
| `active` | Served, subject to its schedule |
| `paused` | Saved and not served; can be reactivated |
| `archived` | Terminal |
`starts_at` and `ends_at` are UTC instants and are optional — leave both out for a campaign
that runs whenever it is `active`. `timezone` records the zone the schedule was authored in
so it can be reopened there; it is informational and never shifts the instants.
:::caution[Archiving cannot be undone]
An archived campaign rejects every update with `409`, including a status change. There is
no un-archive — create a new campaign. Archiving does release the name for reuse. Use
`paused` for anything you might want back.
:::
## Practical advice
- **Give rules names that say why.** `"Supplier deal — Northwear Q2"` explains itself six
months later; `"Boost 1"` does not.
- **Prefer criteria to lists of IDs.** A rule on `clearance = true` keeps working as stock
turns over; a list of 200 IDs decays into a maintenance job.
- **Always set `ends_at` for a promotion.** Campaigns that outlive their reason are the
main cause of results nobody can explain.
- **Pick the right tool for hiding products.** A ban hides a set of products in one
context: prescription drugs in recommenders but not in search, or a category the mobile
app does not sell. Target the campaign by intent or channel and leave `ends_at` out. Use
a channel's [visibility filter](/concepts/catalogs-and-channels/#visibility-filters) when
the products should never appear on that channel at all, and remove products from the
catalog when they should appear nowhere.
- **Check the effect.** A rule trades relevance for control. Watch the surface's reporting
after a campaign goes live — see [Analytics](/analytics/overview/).
## Where to go next
| | |
|---|---|
| [Rules and effects](/merchandising/business-rules/rules-and-effects/) | Which products, and what happens to them |
| [Triggers](/merchandising/business-rules/triggers/) | Which requests a campaign fires on |
| [Targeting](/merchandising/business-rules/targeting/) | Which catalogs, channels, surfaces and intents it covers |
| [Resolving conflicts](/merchandising/business-rules/conflicts/) | Who wins when several rules hit one product |
| [Authoring API](/merchandising/business-rules/authoring-api/) | The endpoints, field by field |
## See also
- [Sponsored products](/merchandising/sponsored-products/) — third-party placements in the same slate
- [Filters](/discovery/filters/) — the operator vocabulary and the missing-attribute rule
- [Account structure](/platform/account-structure/) — catalogs, channels, surfaces and tags