Automated discounts boost your conversions and average order value. Shopify automatically applies discounts to eligible baskets. This encourages customers to buy more and reach basket thresholds.
Automated discounts offer discounts when customers meet criteria. Examples include minimum spending or specific products in their basket. Discounts are automatically applied at checkout.
In this article
- Set up automated discounts
- Eligibility and requirements
- How it works
- Add product attributes
- Give Google access to write discounts
- Modify your shop theme
- Request verification in Google Merchant Centre
Set up automated discounts
Here are the necessary steps to make Google automated discounts work in your Shopify shop:
- Install the Shopify Google & YouTube app.
- Add the product attributes:
- Give Google access to write discounts:
- Go to https://channel-app.google/?pi=automated_discounts&shop=[SHOP_ID].myshopify.com and accept.
- Send an email to the Google team for them to update the access token from their end: [email protected].
- Modify your theme to make URL price passing work: add app block.
- Request verification in Merchant Centre.
Eligibility and requirements
Before you decide to participate, check if this feature is a good fit for your business based on the following requirements:
- Conversion tracking with basket data. Learn about setting up and testing reporting with conversions with basket data. Shopify Google & YouTube app conversion reporting provides basket data suitable for this project.
- You need to provide the
[auto_pricing_min_price]and [cost_of_goods_sold]product data attributes for at least 20% of product impressions across your inventory.- To get you started, you can set:
[auto_pricing_min_price]attribute to <=95% of the price currently shown to consumers (current[price]or[sale_price]) and >=[cost_of_goods].[cost_of_goods](cost per item in Shopify) must be lower than[auto_pricing_min_price]and between 5% and 95% of the price currently shown to consumers (current[price]or[sale_price])
- To get you started, you can set:
- Your website integration must be able to accept and honour Google-provided product prices from Google-generated JSON web tokens.
- Allow Google to show opted-in products to consumers with a performance-based ramp up of initially 10% for three days and 90% thereafter.
- You're responsible for ensuring that your use of this feature complies with all local laws and regulations that apply to you and your business.
How it works
The automated discounts feature is an AI-powered solution that helps to effectively maximise (gross) profit performance across your entire inventory, consistent with your settings.
Google uses AI algorithms to continuously optimise your product sale prices based on market signals such as:
- Product demand
- Price elasticity
- Price competitiveness
- Seasonality trends
- Estimated delivery day
- Brand value
- Delivery cost
Adjusted sale prices will be shown in Google Shopping ads (channel-based discounting) and will be passed securely to display the same price on the product landing page in your online shop.
| Before | After |
| Your usual price of £885.95 is displayed in the shop. |
Example day 1: Google automated discounts set price to £538.52 for consumers coming from Google Ads. Example day 2: Google automated discounts set price to £753.95 for users coming from Google Ads. You can expect the price to change multiple times per day for users coming from Google Ads. Visitors coming directly to your website won't view automated discounts prices. |
Automated discounts will optimise the price shown to users coming from Google Shopping ads to maximise your gross profit. Your cost_of_goods_sold data conversions with basket data will be used for profit optimisation and performance reporting.
For each offer, automated discounts will set prices above auto_pricing_min_price and cost_of_goods_sold.
Products without auto_pricing_min_price and cost_of_goods_sold are excluded from the price adjustments.
Add product attributes
To opt your products in to automated discounts, Google needs two product attributes: cost per item and minimum price.
You can opt products in by providing valid cost per item and minimum price attributes for each product. Google will optimise the sale price above the minimum price and cost per item, and below your current price, and will only apply a price change at a given time for those products in your inventory that benefit the overall goal of maximising profit across your entire inventory, taking cross-selling and cannibalisation effects into account.
Cost per item
Cost per item is a pricing attribute available by default for all the products in your shop. You can add this attribute either per product or in bulk. Cost per item values must be greater than 0 to opt a product in to automated discounts. Note that cost per item is used for profit optimisation and performance reporting only and will not be shared with your customers.
Per product: Navigate to the product that you want to add a cost per item value and scroll down to the pricing section. Here you'll find the cost per item field. Populate this field with the appropriate value and click Save.
Method 1:
In the 'Products' section of your shop admin page, tick the products to bulk edit and click Bulk edit in the upper-right corner. In the 'Columns' menu, search for and activate the cost per item column.
Method 2:
Navigate to the below link and enter cost per item in the bulk editor for products that you want to opt in to the pilot.
{Replace [SHOP_ID] with your Shopify shop ID in the link below}
https://admin.shopify.com/store/[SHOP_ID]/bulk/product_variant?resource_name=ProductVariant&app_context=1780363&edit=price %2Ccost
Minimum Price
Auto pricing minimum price is the minimum sale price that can be set by the automated discounts programme. Only products with a minimum price will be discounted.
[Optional] Create a metafield
- Log in to your Shopify admin page and navigate to Settings > Custom data > Variants.
- Click Add definition.
- Enter the following values and click Save:
- Namespace and key: mm-google-shopping.auto_pricing_min_price
- Type: Single-line text
Use the bulk editor to add minimum price values
{Replace [SHOP_ID] with your Shopify shop ID in the link below}
https://admin.shopify.com/store/[SHOP_ID]/bulk/product_variant?resource_name=ProductVariant&app_context=1780363&edit=price %2Ccost%2Cmetafields.mm-google-shopping.auto_pricing_min_price
Product bulk editing apps like Matrixify allow you to add the minimum price metafield at scale, by importing the data from a CSV file. Currently, Shopify implementation for importing products doesn't support custom attributes like this.
Give Google access to write discounts
To use the feature, you would have to provide Google with the access to write back the new auto-generated discount codes to Shopify discounts. This is needed to further apply the auto-discount code to the selling price to reflect the discounted price to the end consumer.
To grant Google the permissions to access and write discounts on the Shopify platform, follow these steps:
-
{Replace [SHOP_ID] with your Shopify shop ID in the link below}
https://channel-app.google/?pi=automated_discounts&shop=[SHOP_ID].myshopify.com
- Click Finish to provide access to the Google & YouTube app to view and sync discounts.
Modify your shop theme
This section takes you through the process of adding an app block to your online shop to display the sale price from automated discounts as a strikethrough price.
- Log in to your Shopify account and navigate to Online shop > Themes > Customise.
- From the menu at the top of the page, navigate to the products page view.
- Add an 'Automated discounts price' block under the existing price block. Note that if you have multiple price blocks, add it only once.
You're all set: 'Automated discounts price' should be below your price in the template. Click Save to finalise the changes.
Request verification in Google Merchant Centre
- Go to the 'Automated discounts' tab in Merchant Centre and 'Submit for review' so that Google can verify your integration and start automated discounts. If you don't see this button, you can send an email to [email protected] to ask for final review.
- Enable the 'Automated discounts' add-on, if the 'Automated discounts' tab is not available.
- After Google has reviewed your integration, the automated discounts programme will be started for your shop.