/
Google Promotions

Google Promotions

Owned by Dorin Mirulescu
Last updated: Dec 05, 2023

Google Promotions program help you list the special offer link along with your products on Google Shopping. (See Fig. 23.1)

Read Google's program requirements to see if your store can participate in this program.

Google promotions are configured along with a Google Shopping products feed. If you don't already have a products feed, follow set up Google Shopping guide and come back to this page.

Fig. 23.1. Special offer Ad

Configure the feed

  1. Add promotion_id column to you products feed.

 Edit your Google Shopping feed and set a new column under Columns Map called promotion_id. (See Fig. 23.2)

Fig. 23.2. Adding promotion_id column

  1. Configure the Google Promotions tab.

Open the Google Promotions tab under the Google Shopping feed and complete the following:
Set Enable Google Promotions = Yes
Select the Include checkbox for the cart promotions you may want to send to google. Please read the program policies to make informed decisions on which promotion rules to include.
Edit the Promotion Title and From/To dates for the enabled promotions to match google's editorial requirements. (See Fig. 23.3)

Fig. 23.3 Adjusting included promotions

Submit promotions feed to Google

  1. Register the feed with Merchant Center.

Navigate to Marketing > Promotions under merchant center and select "Promotion feeds" link, then [+] and follow the steps to register it:

Target country - should match the one used to submit the Google Shopping Feed.

Feed name - can be anything, but for consistency, name it the same way as you did in magento. (See Fig 23.4)

Fig 23.4 Register new promotions feed

Input method = Regular Uploads

Promotions feed will be uploaded at the same time with your products feed, check your feed Schedule if you need to adjust when it would happen.

File to be uploaded = promotion_<id>.txt (See Fig 23.5)

Replace the <id> with the feed ID in magento, as it can be seen in the feed management screen.

Fig 23.5 Upload settings

 

  1. Generate the feed

The same way as you have uploaded the products feed, promotions feed will generate right after the products feed, and will be uploaded to you merchnat center. 
Click the Run Now button in the feed feed management screen, and wait for the feed to complete. This will generate the feed file and also upload it to your Merchant Center.

Once the feed is completed, check the status of your feed under your Merchnat Account. If it says it has been uploaded, check under Promotions tab to see your promotions listings.

Fig 23.6 Promotion feed status

Submit promotions changes

Once a promotion feed is submitted to google, it would not pick up updates automatically due to google policies. When you add new shopping cart rules, you would also have to edit the feed Promotions tab to include them in your feed. Mark the checkboxes of those new rules and make necessary rule detail edits.  

Next you'll need to instruct feed generator to submit a new promotions feed containing changes. This is done by clicking the Submit as new promotion button. (See Fig. 23.7)

Don't forget to Save Page, then regenerate the feed.

Fig 23.7 Increment Promotion IDs

Troubleshooting

  1. Feed does not generate.
    Check feed's log and see if there's a permission error and fix it. 
    Check if cron is running. 

  2. Feed is completed but not uploaded. 
    Check the feed error log, and look for a line that looks like:

    INFO (1): START GOOGLE_PROMOTIONS FEED #26

    The next line under this should be specifying why feed is not uploaded:

    INFO (2): No changes | in /var/www/magento_210/pub/media/feeds/promo_26.txt

    Promotions feed has no changes from last generation, and as a result feed is not uploaded. If you need to submit it as a new promotion, you'll have to edit the feed configuration, under Google Promotions tab, and click the button Submit as new promotion. After that hit Save Page and regenerate the feed. (See Fig. 2.7)

    Next generation feed would re-upload ad a new promotion, having new promotion ids. Log entry should look like:

    INFO (2): Added 4 lines | in /var/www/magento_210/pub/media/feeds/promo_26.txt

    This log entry indicates that promotion file has been generated and it has 4 promotion lines.