Step 3: Choose products for your promotions

If you’re looking for information about choosing products for your promotions in Merchant Center Next, click here.

This article provides details about how you can apply promotions and map them to products in your feed.

Once you create a promotion, apply it to all of your products or specific products. It’s important to tell Google which products are eligible for your promotions. This step helps you make sure shoppers see the correct promotions for your products.

All products

If your promotion applies to all products that you sell, use all_products as the value for the product applicability [product_applicability] attribute in your promotions feed.

You only need to create one promotion ID [promotion_id] for a promotion that applies to all_products (for example, one entry for the set).

Specific products

If your promotion applies to specific products that you sell, use specific_products as the value for the product applicability [product_applicability] attribute in your promotions feed.

How to resubmit a promotion disapproved for mapping issues

If your promotion ID [promotion_id] is not mapped to any items in your products feed, Google rejects your promotion. Once you map your promotion ID [promotion_id] and upload your products feed again, resubmit your promotion in the Merchant Center.

Note:

• After you request a re-test, Google reviews the promotion within a couple of hours of the promotion start time. If you haven't associated an item ID [item_id] with a promotion ID [promotion_id], then no products will be mapped and your promotion will be rejected. You can use a filter to map the promotions to the items matching the filter.
• If you don't request a re-test, the promotion remains as “disapproved” and won’t show in search results.

To resubmit your promotion, follow the steps below:

1. Sign in to your Merchant Center account.
2. Click Marketing in the navigation menu, then click Promotions.
3. Create a new promotion and resubmit after updating the promotion rules or settings to comply with our Policy and SKU requirements. After your updates are complete, click the Submit button.

How to create a promotion for specific products via the products feed

When multiple promotions apply to specific products, you can create promotions by selecting “Apply promotion to products that meet these conditions” in the promotions builder tool, or mapping them to the promotion ID [promotion_id] of items in your feed. To map the promotion ID [promotion_id] to all eligible products in the products feed, follow the steps below according to your setup.

Option 1

Text (spreadsheet) or tab-delimited files

1. Add the promotion ID [promotion_id] attribute to your products feed as a new column.
2. Find your promotion’s promotion ID [promotion_id] attribute in your promotions feed.
3. Add the ID to the promotion ID [promotion_id] attribute for each product the promotion applies to in your products feed. Map multiple promotions to an item by separating each promotion ID [promotion_id] in the cell with a comma.
4. Upload your products feed to Merchant Center.

Learn more about using Google Sheets as feeds or view an example tab-delimited feed.

Only add the promotion ID [promotion_id] attribute to products that are definitely included in the promotion. If your promotion is tied to a product that is excluded, Google rejects the entire promotion.

Avoid excessive or duplicate promotions. You can group promotions by discount amount, titles, etc. You do not need to create a separate promotion for each item. Grouping your promotions optimizes your feed and eases the mapping process through the use of the promotion ID [promotion_id] attribute.

Option 2

XML files or API

Feed type	Instructions	Content
XML	Insert the content to the right within an item entry. To add multiple promotion ID [promotion_id] attributes to an item, insert multiple lines. Replace promotion_id with the actual promotion ID [promotion_id] value.	<g:promotion_id>PROMOTION_ID</g:promotion_id>
API	Insert the content to the right within an item entry. To add multiple promotion ID [promotion_id] attributes to an item, insert multiple lines. Replace promotion_id with the actual promotion ID [promotion_id] value.	<sc:attribute name="promotion_id">PROMOTION_ID</sc:attribute>

You can share and manage existing promotions data with Google using the Content API. The Content API is available to merchants in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Languages supported by this feature are English, French, and German.

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