Promotions in Merchant Center are referred to as 'discounts' in Shopify. When you set sale prices or promotions 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 prices and promotions and when to use each. For more information on sale prices and promotions, review:
- How to sync sale prices and promotions from Shopify to Google
- Get your sales and promotions ready for big shopping events
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Benefits
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Increased sales: Offering discounts or promotions can entice customers to make purchases that they might have otherwise postponed, resulting in increased sales for your business.
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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 to showcase your product and business benefits, resulting in building customer loyalty.
About sale prices
If the sale price and original base price meet certain conditions, both the prices and sale price annotations will appear across different Google platforms like Google Search, Shopping ads and the Shopping tab. The sale price will be shown as the current price alongside the original price, which will be shown with a strikethrough. Your product will also be shown with a badge that highlights your sale. The specific colours used for annotations differ depending on where your product appears.
When to use sale prices
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 two weeks. This is a valid sale price.
Learn how to sync sale prices 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 shop. You can offer your customers an amount-off discount on products, collections or variants in your shop.
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 clothing. You set a promotion for 15% off all shorts, sandals and swimming costumes, valid for two 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.