Create and manage activities for tagged products

YouTube Shopping lets you create a shopping experience that feels right for you and your viewers. With product tagging, you can promote your products on your YouTube channel or, if you're in the affiliate programme, products from other brands too. To help build excitement for tagged products and offer viewers the latest info and deals on products, you can use these activities:

• Promotions and price reduction
• Product drops
• Live Q&A
• Collections

Promotions and price reduction

The promotions and price reduction feature highlights deals on tagged products to viewers. There are three types of promotions and price reductions that can be displayed in the product list or pinned product banner.

1. Merchant Promotion: A deal that may include, but is not limited to:
   1. A percentage off a product that is applied automatically or with a discount code
   2. A tiered or fixed amount of money off a product that is applied automatically or with a discount code
   3. A non-quantified deal, like 'Gift with purchase' or 'Buy X, get Y'
2. Sale price annotation: A discounted price on a product.
3. Price drop: A badge that shows when the current price of a product is lower than the reference price. The reference price is the lowest price listed for the past 30 days.

Creators can trigger the 'Price drop' badge by updating their product's price in their shops. Creators can create and apply Merchant Promotions and sale price annotations using:

1. Shopify or
2. Google Merchant Center (GMC) – only if you have direct access.

YouTube will show deals to viewers based on retailer data. If a tagged product has more than one deal available, YouTube will show the largest one available. Tagged products are only visible to viewers using a mobile device in these countries/regions. If tagged products aren't surfacing for your viewers, make sure that they're using a mobile device and are in an available country/region. Tagged products will only surface if the products are available for delivery to the viewer's country/region.

Eligibility

To use the promotions and price reduction feature, your retailer may need to meet other eligibility requirements depending on the type of deal. While there aren't any other retailer requirements for sale price annotations and price drops, there are more retailer requirements for Merchant Promotions:

• Merchant Promotions (from Shopify):
  • For deals that are applied automatically (automatic discounts), your Shopify shop must be in one of the following countries/regions: AU, BR, CA, DE, ES, FR, IN, IT, JP, KR, NL, UK and US.
  • For deals that are applied with discount codes, your Shopify shop must be in the US.
  • For non-quantified deals, these types of deals are not supported at the moment.
• For Merchant Promotions (from GMC), your supported retailer must be in one of the following countries/regions: AU, BR, CA, DE, ES, FR, IN, IT, JP, NL, KR, UK and US.

Set up and manage promotions and price reduction

There are different ways to set up deals depending on what you want to offer. Once a deal has been reviewed and approved, you can tag the product.

Note: When you tag products, you can't view the deal while you are selecting products. However, the deal will be viewable after being tagged.

 We recommend setting up any promotions at least five days before sharing them to YouTube.

Merchant Promotions

Create or edit a Merchant Promotion through Shopify

You can create Merchant Promotions through Shopify, with an amount-off automatic discount or a discount code. When a viewer buys eligible items, the amount-off automatic discounts are applied automatically at checkout. When you create and share a discount code, viewers must enter the code at checkout to get a discount on eligible items.

Note: Non-quantified deals and £0 delivery promotions are not supported at the moment. Learn more about supported promotion types for Shopify.

To create a Merchant Promotion in Shopify:

1. Go to Discounts  Create discount.
2. In 'Select discount type', choose: 'Amount off products' OR 'Amount off orders'.
3. Under 'METHOD', select the type of discount that you want to offer:
   1. Automatic discount: Discounts are applied automatically at checkout for viewers.
   2. Discount code: Viewers must enter the code at checkout to get the discount.
4. Add the details for your promotion   Save discount.
5. Sync your discount with the Google channel app:
   1. Under Discounts, click the relevant discount.
   2. In the Sales channels section, select the Google channel app.
   3. Click Save.

 Create or edit a Merchant Promotion in Google Merchant Center (GMC)

To create a Merchant Promotion in GMC:

1. Create and submit your promotion using one of the available methods for the relevant products:
   1. Merchant Center promotion builder
   2. Promotions feed
   3. Content API

Merchant Promotions are reviewed and confirmed against Google Merchant Center editorial requirements and promotions policies. If approved, it's set live across Google and YouTube surfaces.

Sale price annotation

When you set your sale price, make sure that it meets all other requirements.

Create or edit a sale price through Shopify

To create a sale price through Shopify:

1. Go to Products   Click the relevant product.
2. Under Pricing, set the Compare-at price to your product's original price.
3. Set the Price of your product to the new sale price.

Create or edit a sale price in GMC

To create a sale price in GMC:

1. Make sure that the original price for your item is listed in the price [price] attribute.
2. Submit the sale price using the optional sale price [sale price] attribute.

Price drop

The 'Price drop' badge will appear when there's a significant drop in what has been a fairly stable price for a product. You can change the price of your product so that Google can show the 'Price drop' badge. To trigger the 'Price drop' badge, update the price of your product in your shop. The new price should be lower than the average price that you've listed in the past. Learn more about how price drop annotations work.

Product drops

With the product drops feature, you can build excitement and maintain the element of surprise when you release a new product during a live stream. A placeholder image with a shopping bag is displayed in your live stream's product list, letting viewers know that your product is dropping soon. Once the product has been revealed on your live stream, viewers can buy it immediately.

Product drops can be set up with or without publish dates, depending on your needs and eligibility.

• Product drops with publish dates: have strict requirements to prevent leaks and require setup further in advance. Creators with direct access to their Shopify shop or to the Google Merchant Center (GMC) for their connected shop can use publish dates.
• Product drops without publish dates: are set up when you tag products to your live stream. These drops stop your product from surfacing on YouTube ahead of time, but viewers may find your product elsewhere. To help prevent leaks, you can unlist your product page until the drop. Creators in the affiliate programme or creators with connected shops can use this feature.

Once you've set up your product drop, you can schedule your live stream, add your product drop to the stream and do the big reveal.

Set up product drops without publish dates

To set up your product drop without publish dates, you must:

• Be in the YouTube Shopping affiliate programme or
• Have connected an eligible shop to YouTube

Make sure that you've added the product to your shop so that it can be reviewed for compliance with our policies and Google Merchant Center policies. This process typically takes a few working days. Once approved, your products will show up in YouTube Studio for you to add to your live stream.

Set up product drops with publish dates

To set up your product drop with publish dates, you need direct access to:

• The Google Merchant Center (GMC) for your connected shop or
• The admin page for your Shopify shop

As a best practice, set up your product drop a minimum of one week before your live stream. Once you've set up your product drop, you can schedule your live stream and add your product to the live stream for the reveal.

Set up a product drop with publish dates through Shopify

If you've connected your Shopify shop to YouTube, set up your product drop in Shopify:

1. Upload the product drop offer to Shopify.
2. Schedule the same date and time for the Google channel app and Shopify's online shop:

   • Online shop: In the Products section, schedule the date and time for your online shop availability. This date and time is when your offer will be visible and shoppable on Shopify.

   • Google channel app: Under the Sales channel and apps section, schedule the date and time for Google. This date and time is when your offer will be visible to and shoppable by YouTube viewers.

   • Check that the product drop date and time (including the UTC time zone) are the same in the Google channel app and Shopify's online shop.
3. Your product will be reviewed for compliance with our policies and Google Merchant Center policies. This process typically takes a few working days. Once approved, your product will show up in YouTube Studio.

Set up a product drop with publish dates through Google Merchant Center

If you have direct access to the Google Merchant Center (GMC) for your connected shop, you can set up your product drop with publish dates:

1. Use a primary feed or supplemental feed to submit your product drop's product data, with the 'disclosure_date' attribute.
2. Check that the product drop date and time (including the UTC time zone) are set correctly.
3. Your product will be reviewed for compliance with our policies and Google Merchant Center policies. This process typically takes a few working days. Once approved, your products will show up in YouTube Studio.

Add a product drop to your live stream

Once you've set up your product drop, schedule your live stream and tag the product drop to your live stream:

1. In YouTube Studio, schedule your live stream.
2. In the Live Control Room, tag the product drop and any other relevant products to the live stream video. 

• If you used publish dates: your product drop will have a 'Product drop' badge next to it, with the date that it's available. Check that the product drop date and time (including the UTC time zone) are set correctly. 
  • Note: The product drop date and time should be the same in the Live Control Room, GMC or Shopify as on your product drop's landing page. The landing page must be available (listed and searchable) by the time of the product drop. Otherwise, viewers will get an error message.
• If you didn't use publish dates: click 'Create product drop'  next to the product. Your product will be hidden until you're ready to drop it.

3. If you want your product drop to surface as the first item in your product shelf when it is released, rearrange your products.
4. Click SAVE. 

Tagging tips: If your product has variants (e.g. the product is available in different sizes or colours), each variant can be tagged separately. 

• If your product doesn't have many variants, you can tag all of them. 
• If your product has numerous variants, you can tag variants that are different prices. 
• Update the name of each tagged product so that the difference between the variants is clear. 

When viewers select the variant that they like, they're taken to your website with the variant details pre-selected. If they want, they can then choose a different variant on your website.

You can pin your product to your live stream before its release to feature it more prominently. Prior to the release date, a 'Dropping soon' banner will pop up. An hour before your product is released, a countdown timer will pop up next to the banner. Once your product has been released, the countdown timer will automatically change to a regular product pin and the product will be visible across Google and YouTube.

Manage your product drop

Tips to prevent product drop leaks 

Be mindful of where your product's landing page and image URLs are linked to ahead of the product drop. For extra security, creators with direct access to their Shopify shop or to the Google Merchant Center (GMC) for their connected shop can:

1. Wait until the live stream to publish your product's page 
2. Submit your product drop using publish dates at least one week in advance

Change the time of your product drop

You can update your scheduled drop time the same way that you scheduled it. It takes around one hour for the new scheduled time to take effect. To view the updated time, you must reload YouTube Studio. You also have to retag the product with the desired updated time.

If your live stream is running late and you don't want the product drop to surface early, remove it from the product list. When you're ready to announce it on your live stream, you can tag it again in the Live Control Room for the reveal.

Note: If you remove a product drop from your live stream, it will not surface in your live stream's product shelf. But it will still surface on other YouTube surfaces at the scheduled time.

Drop your new product during your live stream

On the Shopping tab of the Live Control Room, you can decide if you want to have a countdown timer or drop your product immediately: 

1. Next to your product drop, select the timer . If you used publish dates for your product drop, you can select the timer once the publish date and time have passed.
2. Choose whether you want to do a one-minute countdown or an instant drop. 
3. Click APPLY. 
4. If you selected the countdown, click START  when you're ready to start the countdown. You can't change or pause the countdown once you've clicked start, so make sure that you're ready to drop the product.