How to create a Google Merchant Center Promotion Feed

Promotional promotions are a great way to attract new customers or to encourage regular customers to return, and thus increase your overall sales, revenue, and profitability.

Merchant Center Promotions is a tool for creating and managing Google Shopping promotions.

Unfortunately, this tool is not yet available in Ukraine and we can only wait for this function to appear, but on foreign projects you can safely launch promotions in Google Shopping to increase sales. Merchant Center promotions are currently available in Australia, France, Germany, India, UK and USA.

There are two options for launching promotions on the Google Merchant Center:

1. Adding a promotion through the interface (Promotion -> List), where information about the promotion is set: launch country, promotion category, its name and id, promotion products, as well as launch and end dates. You must first set the promotion_id attribute in your data feed.
2. Automatic adding of promotions via Promotion Feed.

Advice! If you need to launch a promotion only once, it will be more convenient to do this through the interface. But if you need to work with promotions constantly, in which data often changes (for example, products participating in a promotion, display schedule, conditions for receiving an offer, etc.), it is more convenient to create a Promotion Feed and make appropriate changes to it. This will save you a lot of time.

Today we will take a closer look at the second option, launching promotions through the Promotion Feed.

WHAT IS PROMOTION FEED

Promotion Feed – this is a file-table, which contains detailed information about promotions. Such information is set in the form of mandatory and additional attributes: promotion id, title, start and end dates of the promotion, discount percentage, product id, id of excluded products, discount code, discount amount, etc.

The advantage of launching promotions through a Promotion Feed the fact that there is no need to launch a separate action every time. It is enough to form a feed one-time, and then add new attributes or make changes to existing ones, after which Google automatically generates a promotion. Also, a large number of additional attributes allows you to fine-tune the conditions of the promotion.

The method for creating a Promotion Feed is similar to creating a Google Product Feed. Google supports uploading the Promotion Feed in .txt file, .xml file or Google Sheets format.

ATTRIBUTES PROMOTION FEED

Required Promotion Feed Attributes:

• promotion_id – unique id code of the promotion. Promotion_id is used to associate promotions with specific products.
• product_applicability – indicates whether the promotion applies to all products or only to certain ones. Set to ALL_PRODUCTS if all products are eligible for the promotion, SPECIFIC_PRODUCTS if specific products. If the value is SPECIFIC_PRODUCTS, either the product filter attribute must be used or the promotion_id must be matched to the corresponding products in the data feed.
• offer_type – indicates whether the buyer is required to enter a coupon code to receive an offer. Set to NO_CODE if not required, GENERIC_CODE if a promotional code is required. If the value is GENERIC_CODE, the additional attribute generic_redemption_code must be used.
• long_title – sets the name of the promotion, which will be displayed in the offer. Examples of filling and requirements for the long_title attribute are available here.
• promotion_effective_dates – start and end dates of the promotion. The shares have a 6-month limit (183 days). Attribute filling format: (YYYY-MM-DD), followed by the letter “T”, then the time of the start or end of the promotion, then the time zone value. For example, 2019-02-24 T0: 00: 00-05: 00 / 2019-03-31 T23: 59: 00-05: 00
• redemption_channel – indicates that the promotion is valid online. Available value is ONLINE.

Additional Promotion Feed Attributes:

Additional Promotion Feed attributes are divided into: product filter attributes, promotion details, promotion categories, restriction attributes.

Product filter attributes

Important! If you’re creating a promotion that only applies to specific products in your data feed, use a product filter. Product filter attributes are applied only if the product_applicability attribute is set to SPECIFIC_PRODUCTS.

• item_id – indicates the id of the goods to which the promotion will be applied. The item_id attribute must match the id attribute in the data feed.
• product_type – specifies the value of the product_type attribute of the products from the data feed to which the promotion will be applied.
• brand – the promotion will only apply to products that match the brand indicated in this attribute.
• item_group_id – the promotion will only apply to products that match the item_group specified in this attribute.
• item_id_exclusion – indicates the id of the goods that will be excluded from the promotion.
• product_type_exclusion – indicates the value of the product_type attribute of products from the data feed that will be excluded from the promotion.
• brand_exclusion – Products that match the specified brand (s) in this attribute will be excluded from the promotion. If there are several brands, specify the value separated by commas.
• item_group_id_exclusion – Products that match the item_group_id value from the data feed will be excluded from the promotion.

Promotion detail attributes

Set the conditions that the user must fulfill in order to take advantage of the offer… For example, in the “Buy 2, get 1 free” stock, set the minimum_purchase_quantity attribute to 2.

• minimum_purchase_quantity – determines the minimum purchase volume required to receive an offer. This attribute is used with percent_off, get_this_quantity_discounted, or
• minimum_purchase_amount – determines the minimum purchase amount required to receive an offer.
• membership_type – set this attribute for promotions where membership or store loyalty card number is required. Available values: FREE_MEMBERSHIP_REQUIRED, PAID_MEMBERSHIP_REQUIRED, STORE_CREDIT_CARD_REQUIRED.

Promotion Category Attributes

• percent_off – indicates the percentage discount offered in the promotion. For example, 10% off.
• money_off_amount – indicates the amount of the discount. For example, $ 20.00 off.
• get_this_quantity_discounted – indicates the number of products covered by the promotion or discount. For example, set this attribute to 1 for the Buy 2 Get 1 Free Promotion (100% off).
• free_shipping – indicates the type of free shipping in the promotion. Available values: FREE_SHIPPING_STANDARD, FREE_SHIPPING_OVERNIGHT, FREE_SHIPPING_TWO_DAY.
• free_gift_value – indicates the monetary value of the free gift offered in the promotion.
• free_gift_description – description of the free gift offered in the promotion.
• free_gift_item_id – indicates a specific free gift from the data feed. Item_id must match the product id from the feed.

For examples of filling in the attributes of the promotion details, see here.

Constraint attributes

Set restrictions that a buyer must meet in order to receive an offer. For example, “Buy 1 get 1 free, upto 10 items”, set the limit_quantity attribute to 10. Or “10% off, upto order value $ 100”, set the limit_value attribute to $ 100.

• limit_quantity – shows the minimum amount of goods you need to buy in order to take advantage of the offer.
• limit_value – shows the minimum purchase amount to receive an offer.

Additional attributes

• promotion_display_dates – start and end dates of the promotion. The date format is similar. The difference between these two attributes is that promotion_display_dates indicates when the promotion will be publicly visible on Google Shopping, promotion_effective_dates – when the promotion can be tested on the site. It is optimal to use both attributes so that the promotion passes validation before the public launch date.
• description – description of the promotion. This description is not shown to users.
• generic_redemption_code – the code that the user must use to receive the offer. This attribute is required if the offer_type attribute is GENERIC_CODE.
• image_link – link to an image with a promotion or promotional item.
• fine_print – additional rules or conditions are set under which it is possible to receive an offer. The conditions are displayed to the user along with the generic_redemption_code.
• promotion_price – a fixed promotional price for a product or a product category is set. For example, a promotion in which all T-shirts cost $ 50.

EXAMPLE OF FILLING IN A PROMOTION FEED FILE IN GOOGLE TABLES

HOW TO DOWNLOAD PROMOTION FEED IN GOOGLE MERCHANT CENTER

Log in to your Google Merchant Center account.

In the control panel on the left, go to the Promotions section and open the Feeds tab. Then click the “+” sign to add a new feed.

Select the country of launch and select the language. Promotional launches are now available in Australia, France, Germany, India, UK and USA. Click the “Continue” button.

Next, enter a name for the feed and select a method for uploading it. Download the file.

The Feeds tab will display the feed you just downloaded.

Now you need to submit it to the Google Merchant Center for review. To do this, open the feed and click the “FETCH NOW” button on the right.

Wait a couple of minutes for the file to be processed. If all the attributes in the feed were entered without errors and according to the rules, you will see:

Next, go to the Promotions section to the List tab, where the generated promotion will automatically appear.

That’s all, after approval (in the extreme column of Promotion status, the value Approved should appear), the promotion will take effect! The check takes about a day.

Important! A stock in the main feed that has already been reviewed and confirmed cannot be edited. If you make changes to the attributes or add new ones to the Promotion Feed, be sure to change the value of the promotion_id. Then re-submit the feed for approval to the Google Merchant Center.

 

Google Shopping promotions make your ads stand out and give them a competitive edge by encouraging new customers to visit your site and existing customers to return to your online store. Which leads to an increase in total sales, as well as income and profitability.