Step 2: Create a promotion

This article offers information on the 4 different ways you can create promotions for your products after you activate the Promotions add-on in your Merchant Center account.

On this page

• Use the promotion builder tool
• Create a promotions data source
• Use the Content API for promotions
• Use promotions from third party partners

Use the promotion builder tool

The promotion builder tool allows you to manually input your promotions individually and specify things like spend thresholds, discount amounts, gift descriptions, and more. We recommend using the promotion builder if you only have a small number of promotions to submit.

The promotion builder supports the following incentives:

• Amount off: Offer a monetary discount for your items.
• Percent off: Offer a percentage discount for your items.
• Free gift: Offer a free gift based on an item purchase or amount spent.
• Free shipping: Offer free shipping based on an item purchase or amount spent. Note that this incentive isn’t available for local inventory ads.
• Discount range: Offer a discount range as either a fixed amount range or a percentage range. For example, $15-$20 off, "starting at $15", and up to 10% off. For this type, the promotion can’t be mapped to specific products.
• Cashback: Offer cashback discount as either a fixed amount or a percentage.

If you create promotions using the promotion builder, you can still upload promotions in a promotions data source. After you select your promotion incentive, the tool will display all of the applicable conditions for your promotion.

These conditions include:

1. Purchase minimum:
   • By amount: You can require shoppers to spend a minimum amount to redeem the promotion. For example, “spend $50” or “get 10% off.”
   • By number of items: You can require shoppers to purchase a minimum number of items to redeem the promotion. For example, “buy 2, get 1 free.”
2. Eligibility requirements:
   • Subscribe and save: The promotion must require customers to sign up for subscription based purchase.
   • First order: The promotion must require customers who haven’t previously made a purchase.
   • Sign up for email: The promotion must require customers to sign up for the store's email list.
   • Sign up for text: The promotion must require customers to sign up for the store's SMS marketing.
   • Custom text description: Other eligibility conditions

Follow the prompts and guides to create your promotion.

Instructions

Follow the steps below to create a promotional offer using the promotion builder tool:

1. In your Merchant Center account, click Promotions in the left navigation menu.
2. Click the Add promotion dropdown.
3. Select the option to Add one by one.
4. On the “Promotion type” page, follow the instructions to provide country and language, how you want to show the promotion on Google, Promotion category, Promotion type, and Promotion details.
5. Click Continue.
6. On the “Promotion setup” page, follow the instructions to add Promotion title and ID, Products, Promo code (optional), and start and end dates.
7. Click Save.

Create a promotions data source

If you don’t want to use the promotion builder tool to add promotions one by one, you may upload a promotions data source according to the Promotions data specifications. This option is best if you have a high volume of promotions to submit.

Instructions

To create a new promotions data source:

1. In your Merchant Center account, click Promotions in the left navigation menu.
2. Select the Promotions sources tab.
3. Click Add promotions.
4. Provide your target country and language, name and input method, and setup details.
5. Click Continue.

To make changes to an existing promotion or its status, refer to Edit a promotion or change promotion status for more information and steps.

Data attributes

The attributes you include in your data source will define how your promotions will be displayed on Google. The following attributes are required for promotions data source:

• Promotion ID [promotion_id]
• Products eligible for promotion [product_applicability]
• Coupon code required [offer_type]
  • Generic redemption code [generic_redemption_code]
• Promotion title [long_title]
• Promotion destination[promotion_destination]
  • Note: When you target a promotion for the Youtube affiliate destination, that promotion cannot be targeted to any
    additional Promotion destinations because it can lead to un-mapping of the promotion.
• Promotion start date [promotion_effective_dates]

• Eligible channel for promotion [redemption_channel]

Visit promotions data source specifications for a more detailed list of required and optional promotions attributes.

Use the Content API for promotions

The Content API for Shopping allows you to automatically share and manage your promotions data with Google. After integrating with your account, the Content API permits apps to interact directly with Merchant Center Next to increase efficiency by directly importing your data as it's updated.

With the Content API you can:

• Quickly scale the number of products to which you can add promotions.
• Streamline manual operations to save time and limit errors.
• Experience reduced lag as your data syncs with your account.

The new conditions (subscribe and save, first order, sign up for email, text, custom) and incentive (discount range, cashback) attributes are not yet supported in Content API.

Visit the developers guide to learn more about the Content API for Shopping.

Use promotions from third-party partners

You can use your Shopify or WooCommerce account to connect product discounts to your Merchant Center account to easily show your product promotions on Google. When you link your third-party account to your Merchant Center account, you're no longer required to create your promotions through Merchant Center. Learn more about how to Create and manage promotions with third-party partners.

Key benefits include:

• Simple integration: Your existing and new discounts or promotions from supported third-party partners will seamlessly integrate with your Merchant Center account to show your promotions.
• Improved Performance: Products with promotion annotations often have an increase in clicks and conversions.

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