Create and manage activities for tagged products

YouTube Shopping lets you create a shopping experience that feels right for you and your viewers. With product tagging, you can promote your products on your YouTube channel, or if you’re in the Affiliate program, products from other brands too. To help build excitement for tagged products, and offer viewers the latest info and deals on products, you can use these activities:

Promotions & Price reduction

The promotions & price reduction feature highlights deals on tagged products to viewers. There are three types of promotions & price reductions that can be displayed in the product list or pinned product banner.

  1. Merchant Promotion: A deal that may include, but is not limited to:
    1. A percentage off a product that is applied automatically or with a discount code
    2. A tiered or fixed amount of money off a product that is applied automatically or with a discount code
    3. A non-quantified deal, like “Gift with purchase” or “Buy X, Get Y”
  2. Sales price annotation: A discounted price on a product.
  3. Price drop: A badge that shows when the current price of a product is lower than the reference price. The reference price is the lowest price listed for the last 30 days.

Creators can trigger the “Price drop” badge by updating their product’s price in their stores. Creators can create and apply Merchant Promotions and Sales price annotations using:

  1. Shopify, or
  2. Google Merchant Center (GMC) - Only if you have direct access.

YouTube will show deals to viewers based on retailer data. If a tagged product has more than one deal available, YouTube will show the largest one available. Tagged products are only visible to viewers using a mobile device in these countries/regions. If tagged products aren’t surfacing for your viewers, make sure they’re using a mobile device and are in an available country/region. Tagged products will only surface if the products are available to ship to the viewer’s country/region.

Eligibility

To use the promotions & price reduction feature, your retailer may need to meet other eligibility requirements depending on the type of deal. While there aren’t any other retailer requirements for Sales price annotations and Price drops, there are more retailer requirements for Merchant Promotions:

  • Merchant Promotions (from Shopify):
    • For deals that are applied automatically (automatic discounts): Your Shopify store must be in one of the following countries/regions: AU, BR, CA, DE, ES, FR, IN, IT, JP, KR, NL, UK, and US.
    • For deals that are applied with discount codes: Your Shopify store must be in the US.
    • For non-quantified deals: These types of deals are not supported right now.
  • Merchant Promotions (from GMC): Your supported retailer must be in one of the following countries/regions: AU, BR, CA, DE, ES, FR, IN, IT, JP, NL, KR, UK, and US.

Set up and manage promotions & price reduction

There are different ways to set up deals depending on what you want to offer. Once a deal is reviewed and approved, you can tag the product.

Note: When you tag products, you can’t view the deal while you are selecting products. But, the deal will be viewable after being tagged.

 We recommend setting up any promotions at least 5 days before sharing them to YouTube.

Merchant Promotions

Create or edit a merchant promotion through Shopify

You can create Merchant Promotions through Shopify, with an amount off automatic discount or a discount code. When a viewer buys eligible items, the amount off automatic discounts are applied automatically at checkout. When you create and share a discount code, viewers must enter the code at checkout to get a discount on eligible items.
Note: Non-quantified deals and $0 shipping promotions are not supported right now. Learn more about supported promotion types for Shopify.

To create a Merchant Promotion in Shopify:

  1. Go to Discounts and then Create discount.
  2. In “Select discount type”, choose: “Amount off products,” OR “Amount off orders.”
  3. Under “METHOD,” select the type of discount you want to offer:
    1. Automatic discount: Discounts are applied automatically at checkout for viewers.
    2. Discount code: Viewers must enter the code at checkout to get the discount.
  4. Add the details for your promotion  and then Save discount.
  5. Sync your discount with the Google channel app:
    1. Under Discounts, click the relevant discount.
    2. In the Sales channels section, select the Google Channel app.
    3. Click Save.

 Create or edit a merchant promotion in the Google Merchant Center (GMC)

To create a merchant promotion in GMC:

  1. Create and submit your promotion using one of the available methods for the relevant products:
    1. Merchant Center promotions builder
    2. Promotions feed
    3. Content API

Merchant promotions are reviewed and confirmed against the Google Merchant Center Editorial requirements and Promotions policies. If approved, it’s set live across Google and YouTube surfaces.

Sales Price Annotation

When you set your sales price, make sure it meets all other requirements.

Create or edit a sales price through Shopify

To create a sales price through Shopify:

  1. Go to Products  and then Click the relevant product.
  2. Under Pricing, set the Compare at price to your product’s original price.
  3. Set the Price of your product to the new sale price.

Create or edit a sales price in GMC

To create a sales price in GMC:

  1. Make sure the original price for your item is listed in the price [price] attribute.
  2. Submit the sales price using the optional sale price [sale price] attribute.

Price Drop

The “price drop” badge will show when there’s a significant drop to what has been a fairly stable price for a product. You can change the price of your product so Google can show the “Pride drop” badge. To trigger the “price drop” badge, update the price of your product with your store. The new price should be lower than the average price you listed in the past. Learn more about how price drop annotations work.

Product drops

With the product drops feature, you can build excitement and maintain the element of surprise when you release a new product during a live stream. A placeholder image with a shopping bag is displayed in your live stream’s product list, letting viewers know your product is dropping soon. Once the product is revealed on your live stream, viewers can buy it immediately.

Product drops can be set up with or without publish dates, depending on your needs and eligibility.

  • Product drops with publish dates: Have strict requirements to prevent leaks and require setup further in advance. Creators with direct access to their Shopify store, or to the Google Merchant Center (GMC) of their connected store can use publish dates.
  • Product drops without publish dates:  Are set up when you tag products to your live stream. These drops stop your product from surfacing on YouTube ahead of time, but viewers may find your product elsewhere. To help prevent leaks, you can unlist your product page until the drop. Creators in the affiliate program or creators with connected stores can use this feature.

Once you set up your product drop, you can schedule your live stream, add your product drop to the stream, and do the big reveal.

Set up product drops without publish dates

To set up your product drop without publish dates, you must:

Make sure you’ve added the product to your store so it can be reviewed for compliance with our policies and the Google Merchant Center policies. This process typically takes a few business days. Once approved, your products will show up in YouTube Studio for you to add to your live stream.

Set up product drops with publish dates

To set up your product drop with publish dates, you need direct access to:

  • The Google Merchant Center (GMC) of your connected store, or
  • The admin page of your Shopify store

As a best practice, set up your product drop a minimum of 1 week before your live stream. Once you set up your product drop, you can schedule your live stream and add your product to the live stream for the reveal.

Set up a product drop with publish dates through Shopify

If you’ve connected your Shopify store to YouTube, set up your product drop in Shopify:

  1. Upload the product drop offer to Shopify.
  2. Schedule the same date and time for the Google Channel app and Shopify’s Online Store:

    • Online store: In the Products section, schedule the date and time for your Online store availability. This date and time is when your offer will be visible and shoppable on Shopify.

    • Google Channel App: Under the Sales channel & apps section, schedule the date and time for Google. This date and time is when your offer will be visible to and shoppable for YouTube viewers.

    • Check that the product drop date and time (including the UTC time zone) are the same in the Google Channel App and Shopify’s Online Store.
  3. Your product will be reviewed for compliance with our policies and the Google Merchant Center policies. This process typically takes a few business days. Once approved, your product will show up in YouTube Studio.

Set up a product drop with publish dates through the Google Merchant Center

If you have direct access to the Google Merchant Center (GMC) of your connected store, you can set up your product drop with publish dates:

  1. Use a primary feed or supplemental feed to submit your product drop’s product data, with the “disclosure_date” attribute.
  2. Check that the product drop date and time (including the UTC time zone) are set correctly.
  3. Your product will be reviewed for compliance with our policies and the Google Merchant Center policies. This process typically takes a few business days. Once approved, your products will show up in YouTube Studio.

Add a product drop to your live stream

Once you’ve set up your product drop, schedule your live stream and tag the product drop to your live stream:

  1. In YouTube Studio, schedule your live stream.
  2. In the Live Control Room, tag the product drop and any other relevant products to the live stream video. 
  • If you used publish dates: Your product drop will have a “Product drop” badge next to it, with the date it’s available. Check that the product drop date and time (including the UTC time zone) are set correctly. 
    • Note: The product drop date and time should be the same in the Live Control Room, GMC or Shopify, and for your product drop’s landing page. The landing page must be available (listed and searchable) by the time of the product drop. Otherwise, viewers will get an error message.
  • If you didn’t use publish dates: Click “Create product drop”  next to the product. Your product will be hidden until you’re ready to drop it.
  1. If you want your product drop to surface as the first item in your product shelf when it releases, rearrange your products.
  2. Click SAVE. 
Tagging Tips: If your product has variants (for example, the product is available in different sizes or colors), each variant can be tagged separately. 
  • If your product doesn't have many variants, you can tag all of them. 
  • If your product has numerous variants, you can tag variants that are different prices. 
  • Update the name of each tagged product so the difference between the variants is clear. 

When viewers select the variant that they like, they’re taken to your website with the variant details pre-selected. If they want, they can then choose a different variant on your website.

You can pin your product to your live stream before its release to feature it more prominently. Prior to the release date, a “Dropping soon” banner will pop up. An hour before your product is released, a countdown timer will pop up next to the banner. Once your product is released, the countdown timer will automatically change to a regular product pin and the product will be visible across Google and YouTube.

Manage your product drop

Tips to prevent product drop leaks 

Be mindful of where your product’s landing page and image URLs are linked to ahead of the product drop. For extra security, creators with direct access to their Shopify store, or to the Google Merchant Center (GMC) of their connected store can:

  1. Wait until the live stream to publish your product’s page 
  2. Submit your product drop using publish dates at least 1 week in advance

Change the time of your product drop

You can update your scheduled drop time the same way you scheduled it. It takes around 1 hour for the new scheduled time to take effect. To view the updated time, you must reload YouTube Studio. You also have to retag the product with the desired updated time.

If your live stream is running late and you don’t want the product drop to surface early, remove it from the product list. When you’re ready to announce it on your live stream, you can tag it again in the Live Control Room for the reveal.

Note: If you remove a product drop from your live stream, it will not surface in your live stream’s product shelf. But, it will still surface on other YouTube surfaces at the scheduled time.

Drop your new product during your live stream

In the Shopping tab of the Live Control Room, you can decide if you want to have a countdown timer or drop your product immediately: 

  1. Next to your product drop, select the timer . If you used publish dates for your product drop, you can select the timer once the publish date and time have passed.
  2. Choose whether you want to do a 1:00-minute countdown or an Instant drop. 
  3. Click APPLY. 
  4. If you selected the countdown, click START  when you’re ready to start the countdown. You can’t change or pause the countdown once you click start, so make sure you’re ready to drop the product.

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