Promotions in Merchant Center are referred to as "discounts" in Shopify. When you set sale price or promotion on your products, Google will feature a “SALE” annotation and strikethrough price, or a promotion annotation like “25% Off” or “$40 Off” that can help your sale stand out to shoppers.
This article explains the benefits of sale price and promotions and when to use each. For more information on sale price and promotions, review:
- How to sync sale price and promotions from Shopify to Google
- Get your sales and promotions ready for big shopping events
On this page
Benefits
-
Increased sales: Offering discounts or promotions can entice customers to make purchases they might have otherwise postponed, resulting in increased sales for your business.
-
Customer attraction: Sales and promotions can attract new customers who are looking for a good deal, expanding your customer base.
- Build trust: Sales and promotions help in showcasing your product and business benefits resulting in building customer loyalty.
About sale price
If the sale price and original base price meet certain conditions, both prices and sale price annotations will appear across different Google platforms like Google Search, Shopping ads, and the Shopping tab. The sale price will show as the current price alongside the original price, which will show with a strikethrough. Your product will also show a badge that highlights your sale. The specific colors used for annotations differ depending on where your product appears.
When to use sale price
Use the sale price setting on products when you want to show a temporary, discounted price for an item on Google Search, Shopping ads, and the Shopping tab.
Example: A watch is normally priced at $100. You offer a sale price of $80 for the next 2 weeks. This is a valid sale price.
Sale price requirements
For the sale price annotation to be shown on your free listings, Shopping ads, and local inventory ads, you need to meet certain requirements:
Requirements for free listings
In Australia, Canada, United States, Japan
- The sale price must be lower than the base price.
- The discount of the sale must be greater than 5% and less than 90%.
In Brazil, France, Germany, India, Italy, Korea, the Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom
- The sale price must be lower than the base price.
- The discount of the sale must be greater than 5% and less than 90%.The base price of the product must be valid for 30 days within the past 200 days (doesn’t need to be 30 consecutive days).
Requirements for Shopping ads
In the United States
- The sale price must be lower than the base price.
- The discount of the sale must be greater than 5% and less than 90%.
- The base price of the product must be the same throughout for either duration below, whichever condition is met first:
- 5 days within the past 30 days (doesn’t need to be 5 consecutive days)
- Or, 15 days within the past 200 days (doesn’t need to be 15 consecutive days)
In Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK
- The sale price must be lower than the base price.
- The discount of the sale must be greater than 5% and less than 90%.
- The base price of the product must be valid for 30 days within the past 200 days (doesn’t need to be 30 consecutive days).
Note: Sale price annotations aren't always guaranteed to show, even if you meet the requirements above. This is because Google wants to ensure that the best performing annotations surface on your offers.
Requirements for local inventory ads
- The base price must be provided in the primary feed and must match the store price in the inventory feed.
For your product to show with sale price annotations, you need to meet certain requirements:
- The base price of the product must be valid for 30 days within the past 200 days (doesn't need to be 30 consecutive days).
- Note: This requirement doesn't apply on free listings in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan.
- The sale price must be lower than the base price.
- The discount of the sale must be greater than 5% and less than 90%.
- For local inventory ads, the base price must be provided in the primary feed and must match the store price in the inventory feed.
Learn how to sync sale price from Shopify to Google.
About promotions
Promotions allow you to distribute online offers across different Google platforms like Google Search, Shopping ads, the Shopping tab, and your online store. You can offer your customers an amount off discount on products, collections, or variants in your store.
When to use promotions
Use promotions to advertise specific offers on multiple products. You can set different conditions for promotions, such as a discount that will apply automatically for a certain group of products during a set date range.
Example: At the end of the summer, you offer a discount on seasonal apparel. You set a promotion for 15% off all shorts, sandals, and swimsuits, valid for 2 weeks. No coupon is needed and the shopper will view the promotion automatically at checkout.
Learn how to sync promotions from Shopify to Google.
Promotion types supported
The following promotion types can be connected with Merchant Center:
- Discount codes: Discount codes for "fixed amount off" or "percentage off" the price of certain products and variants.
- Automatic discounts: Fixed amount or percentage discounts that apply automatically at checkout and in the shopping cart.
- Collection discounts: Discounts that apply to all the products that you’ve grouped into a specific collection in your store. A collection cannot contain more than 250 products. You can apply a collection discount to up to 4 collections.
Promotion types not supported
At this time, the following types of promotions and conditions can’t be connected to your Merchant Center account:
- Any free shipping promotions
- Buy X get Y promotions
- Local in-store discounts
- Only online discounts will be connected with Merchant Center
- Discounts targeted to specific users
- Promotions without an end date
- Promotions with a start date older than 6 months
Additionally, promotions aren’t supported if your account has no active US offers regardless of the promotion target country.