Promotions policies provide important guidance about promotion eligibility. To help make sure users have a positive experience, your promotions must comply with the following policies:
- Promotions must add value
- Adhere to Shopping ads policies
- Adhere to Google editorial requirements for titles
- Follow redemption requirements
- Avoid overly restrictive promotions
- Make promoted products clear to the shopper
- Make confirmation of promotion receipt clear
- Include redemption code for shipping promotions
- Follow local promotions policies
- Follow combined promotions policies
Promotions must add value
Promotions must provide a monetary discount or an additional good or service not normally associated with the purchase. All promotions are applied at checkout or point of sale.
Discount percentages must be whole numbers, decimals are not allowed.
Promotions can't be:
- Trade-in offers
- Mail-in or email rebates
- Products and services that are usually free
- Sweepstakes
- Text used to advertise a product without a discount
- Less than 5% off the current price of an item or $5 USD in the US, C$5 CAD in Canada, £5 GBP in the UK, R$5 BRL in Brazil, ₹5 INR in India, ¥5 JPY in Japan, ₩5 KRW in South Korea, A$5 AUD in Australia, €5 EUR in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain
- Equal to or more than the cart value (100% or higher discounts)
- Tax or value added tax (VAT) discounts
- Reflected in the SKU (stock keeping unit) price on the Google product page or your product landing page
Adhere to Shopping ads policies
Some products or services can't be shown in ads or free listings. For details, read the Shopping ads policy restrictions. Google reserves the right to remove any promotion from your ad or listing at any time for any reason.
Adhere to editorial requirements for titles
Promotion titles should be concise, easy to understand, accurate, and only represent the value of the specific deal being promoted.
Titles need to:
- Clearly state any minimum thresholds or items needed for deal
- Disclose any redemption requirements
- Include billing expectations, additional charges, minimum purchase limits, and more
- Clearly state the conditions and any restrictions or limitations of the offer
Titles can't:
- Attempt to trick or mislead customers
- Keep additional fees hidden until checkout
Read our editorial requirements for a complete list, including best practices, and instructions on how to format your promotion's text. To optimize the quality of your promotions, Google may contact your business to request changes based on these guidelines.
Follow redemption requirements
Retailers must not impose deal-specific costs on users upon redemption if these costs don't apply to non-deal purchases. When customers redeem a promotion, they shouldn't be subject to fees which don't apply to someone not redeeming a promotion.
If the website requires phone number verification to get the promotion, ensure that the promotion details are shown on the product landing page or the checkout page before the users are asked to sign up by verifying the phone number. The promotion should be viewable before additional sign up requirements.
Promotions must be redeemable without unspecified additional user requirements. Deals where retailers impose requirements not included in titles in order to redeem are not permissible. Unacceptable additional requirements include, but are not limited to:
- Sign up for store credit card
- Sign up for paid membership
- Take this survey to redeem the promotion
Avoid overly restrictive promotions
Promotions must be generally accessible to all customers. Promotions available only to a subset of customers or specific payment methods that are different from the website’s normal payment restrictions are unacceptable. Examples of overly restrictive promotions can include, but are not limited to:
- $10 off for Teachers & Students
- 10% off for Seniors and Military
- $15 off on your birthday
- 10% discount with Like
- 5% off with Visa credit card
- 10% off when you complete a short survey at checkout
Customers must be able to redeem promotions for all eligible products. When a promotion is limited to specific products, it must be applicable to only the specific products identified in your products data source.
Bundled promotions must clearly disclose all items. If a combination of products must be added to qualify for the promotion, the title should clearly state all products that must be added.
Make confirmation of promotion receipt clear
A customer's receipt of promotions must be clearly confirmed by the point of purchase, given in the cart or at checkout and not on the product landing page.
Discounts must not already be shown on the product landing page. If your promotion says “$10 off” and a customer is purchasing a $100 item, they'd also expect to find the item priced at $100 on your landing page where they could then redeem the promotion. If your landing page shows the item’s price at $90 because the discount was already factored in, customer may expect $10 off on the item’s price at $90 which could be confusing.
Check Shopping ads policies for more information. The price in your products data source, which is the price that we also show in ads and free listings, must match the price on the landing page.
Receipt of free gifts, gift cards or e-cards can be displayed on the product landing pages, and must also be mentioned in one of the following locations:
- Cart or basket
- Checkout page
Include redemption code for shipping promotions
A shipping promotion must have a valid redemption code or it won't be considered an added value. If free shipping is already offered on your site at a certain threshold without a code, you can still offer free shipping at a lower amount as long as it's associated with a code.
Specific products and be mapped only to products that are priced below the offered amount.For example, if free shipping is already given for orders $45+ without a code and you'd like for free shipping to be given at $35+ with a code, you should only map the promotion to items that are priced below $45.
Follow local promotions policies
A local promotion must provide a valid promotion URL where the promotion details can be verified. It must be a link that directs to a web page within the same website where users can find promotion details and redemption small print.
If promotion is eligible for curbside pickup, the promotion URL page should clearly state that the promotion is redeemed online for curbside pickup.
Follow combined promotions policies
Some promotions that are not permissible as standalones can become permissible when combined with another promotion that provides additional value for customers.
| Example Title | Allowed |
|---|---|
| 10% off on all products with free shipping | Yes - Allowed with or without a shipping redemption code |
| $50 mail-in or email rebate and $25 instant discount for $300+ purchase | Yes - Rebate promotion combined with instant discount promotion is considered an added value promotion |
| $50 mail-in or email rebate plus free shipping sitewide | Yes - If promotion contains valid shipping redemption code
No - If promotion is missing shipping redemption code |
| Free camera lens + 2% rewards | Yes - Rewards promotion combined with a free gift is considered an added value |
| 20% off + Buy one get one free | Yes - If 20% discount is reflected in checkout page
No - If 20% discount is given in product landing page already and the checkout page price is same as product landing page price |
In some cases of repeated policy violations, you'll receive a warning notification email. If you don't respond to the email or continue to violate Google’s policies, the promotions feature will be deactivated from your Merchant Center account. Any promotions in the deactivated account won't longer display, and you will not be able to submit new data.