How Instant AI handles empty and coming soon collections in flows

Instant AI automatically checks whether a collection has published products before sending a collection abandonment email. This means merchants don't need to manually exclude collections that are empty, in draft, or being used for waitlists and sign-up pages.

What counts as a valid collection?

For a collection abandonment email to send, the collection must have at least one published product at the time a customer views it.

Collections that will be skipped automatically include:

Collections with no products
Collections where all products are in draft or unpublished
Collections set up as coming soon or pre-launch pages
Collections used for waitlists or sign-up forms with no live products

Tip: This check happens at the time of customer enrolment into the flow — not at the time of send. If a collection has no published products when a customer views it, they won't be enrolled, and no email will be sent.

What if my collection gets products added later?

If a customer views an empty collection and later products are added, the customer will not receive a retroactive email. Instant only enrols customers into collection flows at the point of viewing, based on what's published at that moment.

Once products are published to the collection, any future visitors who view it will be enrolled as normal.

What if a collection has been deleted or removed?

If a customer received a collection abandonment email but the collection page has since been deleted or unpublished, links in the email will return a 404 error. This is expected behaviour — the email was sent when the collection existed, and Instant has no way to retroactively update links in emails that have already been delivered.

This most commonly happens when:

A merchant deletes a collection after emails have already been sent
A coming soon or pre-launch page is removed once a product launches elsewhere

No action is needed. Future emails will not link to deleted collections, as customers will not be enrolled if the collection has no published products.

FAQ's

My collection is a sign-up page with no products. Will Instant send emails for it?

No. Instant will not enrol customers into a collection abandonment flow unless the collection has at least one published product. Sign-up and waitlist collections are skipped automatically.

I have a "Coming Soon" collection with products in draft. Will emails send?

No. Draft products don't count. The collection needs at least one published product for emails to send.

A customer received an email for a collection that's now empty. Why did this happen?

The email was sent at a time when the collection had published products. If the collection was emptied or deleted after the email was sent, links in that email may no longer work. This is expected, and no new emails will send for that collection going forward.

Can I manually exclude a specific collection from emails?

Instant automatically excludes collections with no published products. There is currently no option to manually exclude a collection that has published products.