Adding promotions to Google Merchant Center is pretty easy once you understand the steps. I will explain how to add promotions to particular products or all products. I have also written an article describing how promotions work.
Check if promotions option is available
First, check that the promotions option is available. Please log in to Google Merchant Center and check in the left-hand side menu if you see Marketing > Promotions.
If you do not see the promotions, you can activate this by enabling the program.
- Go to Growth
- Manage programs
- Enable Merchant Promotions
The promotions option is available for:
- Australia
- Brazil
- Canada
- France
- Germany
- India
- Italy
- Japan
- Netherlands
- South Korea
- Spain
- United Kingdom
- United States
Before You Create A Promotion
You can create promotions directly in Google Merchant Center or FeedArmy. However, there are some extra features available in FeedArmy, that are not available in Google Merchant Center. It can take Google up to 24 hours to approve a promotion.
From experience, I have noticed that if you add promotions around holiday seasons, the delay of approval can be more than 24 hours, so make sure to submit your promotions a week in advance.
Creating Promotions In Google Merchant
Login to Google Merchant and go to Marketing > Promotions > Click on the blue plus button
Select your country and language
Choose the promotion type
For me, I chose a percentage off, for each promotion type follow the instructions and choose the right options.
Once you have chosen the promotion type, you will see the option to add extra information.
Promotion Title
Enter a simply title, such as 20% Discount
Promo ID
Choose a unique promotion id.
A good tip is to add the current date to the promotion ID to avoid duplication errors.
Products
You can apply the promotion to all products or to a specific selection of products.
Promo Code
You can add a promotion code If you have a one.
Start and end dates
The timezone will be chosen based on the target country, simply add the start date and end date.
Checking The Status Of Your Google Shopping Promotion
You can check the status of your promotion in Google Merchant under Marketing > Promotions
It will take 15 to 30 minutes after you created the promtoion before you will see it listed.
Alongside the status of the promotion you can also check the following
- Promotion ID
- Title
- Promo Code
- Start Time
- End Time
- Applicability
- Target Locale
- Visible
- Policy Status
- SKU Status