As a point of sale (POS)/inventory data provider, you serve as the key contact between retailers and Google when it comes to local inventory ads (LIA) setup and the data collection process.
How to onboard a retailer
To onboard a retailer, follow these steps:
- Identify a retailer and pitch local inventory ads.
- Retailer creates accounts.
- Retailer identifies you as their data provider.
Identify a retailer and pitch local inventory ads
- Ensure that the retailer has at least one physical permanent retail location and carries at least 50 GTIN-identifiable products.
- (Optional) Add sample inventory data to a test Merchant Center account to estimate how many GTIN-identifiable products a retailer sells before pitching local inventory ads
- Pitch local inventory ads to the retailer.
Business Profile and Merchant Center setup
Retailer creates Merchant Center and Business Profiles
- Retailer or (POS) provider on a retailer's behalf creates and sets up a Merchant Center account.
- Retailer adds or claims a Business Profile on Google.
- Retailer or (POS) provider on a retailer's behalf creates a Google Ads account (optional).
- Retailer or (POS) provider on a retailer's behalf links these accounts and Profiles to each other.
Retailer identifies you as their (POS)/inventory data provider
- Retailer selects you as their POS/inventory data provider in Merchant Center.
- This step sends an email to you with the retailer name, Merchant Center ID, and POS data provider account ID.
- If you don’t send data to Google within 14 days from this email’s send date, we mark the request rejected.
How to incorporate retailer data
After you onboard a retailer, you need to incorporate their data in your feeds.
Augment your existing inventory, sales, and store feeds with data for the new retailer (referenced using the Merchant Center ID from the email), following the specifications in the feed specification.