This article only applies to products for sale in the United States. The Checkout feature is available on free listings and Performance Max Display ads. It’ll be expanding to other ad formats soon.
Using the checkout feature, you can make the shopping experience quick and easy for customers by giving them the option to go directly to your checkout landing page or cart from your listings. One way you can do this is to provide a URL template of your checkout or cart page at the account level. Another way is to turn on checkout at the individual product level by providing the checkout link template [checkout_link_template] attribute in your product feed.
On this page:
Benefits
Typically, all traffic from ads and free listings goes to a merchant’s product details page. From there, some shoppers make a purchase. The checkout feature allows shoppers who are ready to buy to go directly from a product listing to a merchant's checkout or cart page. This allows merchants to retain traffic to their product details page while also making it easy for shoppers who want to buy now.
- Better results: Drive more gross merchandise value (GMV) and gather higher conversion rates.
- Ease of shopping: Help ready-to-buy shoppers complete their purchase with less friction.
- Ease of participation: Minimal effort is required to participate.
Tracking Performance
The same URL will be used across destinations, ads and free listings.
- Free listings: To track performance of this feature Google recommends turning on auto-tagging in Merchant Center and selecting a conversion source.
- Ads: Make sure you’ve set up conversion tracking for your ads accounts. Learn more about how to Set up conversion tracking for your website.
How it works
Any ads or free listings with a valid checkout or cart URL will display checkout capabilities which redirects ready to buy customers directly to your checkout or cart page for products with a valid checkout URL. The default link to your products details page will remain for all listings, and direct users who want to learn more about the product to visit the existing product details page.
Additionally, a redirect to your checkout or cart page will display that makes it easier for shoppers who are ready to buy to complete the purchase with less friction.
Minimum requirements
- To turn on the checkout capability for free listings, your products must be opted into free listing and follow free listings policies
- To turn on the checkout capability for ads your products must be opted into ads and follow ads listings policies
- Provide a valid checkout or cart URL
Instructions
You can opt in the checkout feature by providing your URL at an account level or at a product level. Only one method is allowed, so be sure you only opt in at the account level or the product level, not both.
If you have a general URL template that is applicable across all of your products we recommend you provide your URL template at the account level (Method 1 below).
If you have a customized checkout or cart URL and would like to opt in a subset of your products for checkout, we recommend you use the product level option (Method 2 below).
Whether you opt in to the checkout feature at the account (Method 1) or product level (Method 2), make sure you select applicable destinations for your product listings. You can show your checkout links on ads and free listings, simply select one or both boxes.
Checkout URL requirements
The URLs that you provide must:
- Support the HTTP GET method which allows adding an item to the cart or checkout to allow users to complete purchase. You can find URL examples in the following section.
- Match the domain of your free listings or your products won't be approved for checkout.
- Direct the customer to a checkout or cart page that doesn’t require signing in.
Products from Feed/API
Method 1: Opt in at the account level
Opting in at the account level will apply the URL template you enter to all eligible products. If you opt in at the account level, make sure you aren’t sending the [checkout_link_template] attribute in your product feed.
- In your Merchant Center, navigate to the left menu and click Business info.
- On the “Checkout” card, click Edit checkout settings.
- On the “Checkout” page that opens, select Include link to your cart or checkout page.
- Add the URL
- To test the URL, click TEST URL STRUCTURE. This will randomly select a product from your feed and open the checkout page for that product in a new tab. If the URL has any issues, a blank page will be displayed. If you receive a blank page, we suggest reviewing your URL for accuracy.
- Select each destination where you want your products to display.
- “Show in ads”
- “Show in free listings”
- Click Save.
For more information on URL formatting, expand the “Account level URL formatting” below.
Account level URL formatting
Merchants will need to provide a standard URL template that will be applied to all eligible products. The URL template should include the {id} parameter to ensure shoppers are directed to the correct checkout experience:
{id}(required): Associated with a product ID. Google will substitute this with the ID[id]product data attribute.
Checkout URL template example:
The account level checkout URL template can either specify the required product parameters as part of the query string or as part of the URL path. For example, if your product feed has the following attributes:
title |
color |
item_group_id |
id |
| Red Google Malibu sunglasses | red | 12345 | 12345-R |
| Green Google Malibu sunglasses | green | 12345 | 12345-G |
Example #1: Take users to your store’s cart page:
https://mystore.com/cart?productId={id}
If your store supports the above URL template, Google will then substitute {id} with your product ID from the feed. Users will be redirected to your store’s cart page to complete the purchase.
title |
id |
URL |
| Red Google Malibu sunglasses | 12345-R | https://mystore.com/cart?productId=12345-R |
| Green Google Malibu sunglasses | 12345-G | https://mystore.com/cart?productId=12345-G |
Example #2: Take users to your store’s checkout page:
https://mystore.com/checkout/{id}
If your store supports the above URL template, Google will then substitute {id} with your product ID from the feed. Users will be redirected to your store’s checkout page to complete the purchase.
title |
id |
URL |
| Red Google Malibu sunglasses | 12345-R | https://mystore.com/checkout/12345-R |
| Green Google Malibu sunglasses | 12345-G | https://mystore.com/checkout/12345-G |
Method 2: Opt in at the product level
If you wish to opt in to the checkout feature only for certain products, or if your URL uses parameters other than ID, add a checkout or cart URL to your product feed using the checkout link template [checkout_link_template] attribute. You can upload checkout URLs to your main product feed or you can use a supplemental feed as well. If you opt in at the product level, make sure you haven’t entered a checkout URL at the account level in your Merchant Center settings.
- Add a checkout URL to your product feed using the checkout link template
[checkout_link_template]attribute. - In your Merchant Center, navigate to the left menu and click Business info.
- On the “Checkout” card, click Edit checkout settings.
- Select the radio button to include the URL and leave the textbox blank because you’re providing the URL via the product feeds.
- Select each destination where you want your products to display.
- “Show in ads”
- “Show in free listings”
- Click Save.
Product level URL formatting
Each product variant should have a unique URL and the URL domain should match the domain that's being used for your listings. This URL redirects users to your checkout or cart page with the specific product variant added and available to complete purchase.
Product level checkout URL example:
In this example, update your product feed using the checkout link template [checkout_link_template] attribute with a unique checkout link for each product.
title |
item_group_id |
id |
checkout_link_template |
| Red Google Malibu sunglasses | 12345 | 12345-R | https://mystore.com/checkout?sku=12345-R |
| Green Google Malibu sunglasses | 12345 | 12345-G | https://mystore.com/checkout?sku=12345-G |
Alternatively, you may use a supplemental feed in which case you could upload a supplemental feed with the following attributes:
id |
checkout_link_template |
| 12345 | https://mystore.com/checkout?sku=12345 |
| 67890 | https://mystore.com/checkout?sku=67890 |
Opting out
You can opt out of the checkout capability across all destinations, ads or free listings, by selecting the “Don't include a link to cart or checkout” button. Make sure there aren’t any values added to the checkout link template [checkout_link_template] attribute in your product feed.
You can choose to opt out of the checkout capability for a specific destination by de-selecting the appropriate program check box: Show in ads or Show in free listings.
URL validation
To ensure continuity and a good shopping experience, we validate the checkout or cart URLs to check if they work as expected and redirect shoppers to a valid, working checkout or cart page. This is a recurring process that can take up to 24 hours to complete each time.
Landing page recommendations
If your checkout or cart experience has the right information to build customer confidence, it’ll help them complete their purchase more efficiently. It’s important that your customers can verify who they’re purchasing from, what they’re purchasing and how much they’ll pay for it. We recommend clearly communicating your brand and order details by making sure the following details are visible on your checkout or cart landing page:
- Your brand: This helps your customers verify that they’re in the right place.
- Product information: Include all relevant details such as image, quantity, price, and product variants like color and size.
- Price: Cost breakdowns give users confidence that they’re paying the right price.
- Product disclosures: You may want to provide product warnings and other required disclosures on your checkout or cart page (in addition to the product details pages).
Tip: We recommend that products you're providing to Google have complete and accurate data attributes which help users buy with confidence. If you’re not already sending the following information for each product, you may consider updating your feed to include:
- Returns cost and window
- Shipping times and cost
- Minimum order value
- Free shipping thresholds
- Availability
Crawled products
Note: Crawled products are only available for free listings, not ads.
Add checkout links to crawled products
Google retrieves up-to-date information about your products and offers directly from your website. You can mark up your product pages with a cart or checkout url using the checkoutPageURLTemplate [checkout_link_template] schema attribute. The URL should correspond to a specific product/variant. Learn more about this attribute on schema.org/checkoutPageURLTemplate.
Once you have marked up your product pages, Google can retrieve the cart or checkout URL and turn on the option for ready-to-buy shoppers to go directly to your cart or checkout landing page from your listings. The default link to your product detail page will remain for all listings, and direct users who want to learn more about the product to visit the existing product details page.
Additionally, a redirect to your checkout or cart page will display that makes it easier for shoppers who are ready to buy to complete the purchase with less friction.
Note: If you implement the checkout feature, shoppers may not view the product details page on your site prior to making a purchase. You may want to clearly provide product warnings and other required disclosures on your checkout page, in addition to the product details pages, or opt these products out of this feature.
Remove checkout links from crawled products
To remove the checkout capability for your crawled products, remove the checkoutPageURLTemplate schema attribute from your product pages.
Note: Product data passed via feed or content API will be prioritized over crawled data.