Loyalty is an add-on feature available in the Merchant Center for merchants who already have an existing loyalty program and are interested in showcasing their benefits on Google. You can submit a range of loyalty benefits, such as free shipping, redeemable points, and loyalty pricing in the Merchant Center. You can also show your loyalty program benefits in your free listings and Shopping ads across different Google properties, including Google Search, the Shopping tab, and Wallet. Note that experiences may differ on desktop and mobile devices. You don't need to incur any additional fee to set up the program in the Merchant Center.
On this page
- Benefits
- How it works
- How to implement merchant loyalty program
- About loyalty benefits on crawled offers
- Understand loyalty program performance
Benefits
- Engage and retain existing customers: A view into the benefits of your loyalty program during a shopping experience on Google can enhance the customer’s association with your brand. They'll be able to indicate their status as a member of your loyalty program to enjoy a personalized shopping experience on Google.
- Attract new customers: Customers who aren’t members of your program will be exposed to your loyalty program benefits such as member exclusive price, helping you attract new loyalty program members.
How it works
Google will show your most valuable loyalty program benefits to potential new customers to encourage them to purchase your products and sign up for your loyalty program. Google will also use your loyalty benefit data to highlight your program benefits to your existing loyalty members, driving them to shop more with your business, and reminding them why being part of your loyalty program is so valuable.
To view members-only shipping benefits and points, customers will have to declare their membership status. They can do so by confirming loyalty tier association when prompted on Google Search. Then, product listings will show the appropriate perks based on your loyalty program settings. In the future, you'll be able to use Customer Match in Google ads to highlight member-only shipping and pricing benefits on Shopping ads to your existing customers (currently in pilot).
Types of loyalty programs
- Free to join: Available for everyone. No membership fees or credit card sign ups are needed.
- Spending amount: Available only to customers who have spent a certain amount on purchase in the past year.
- Membership Fee: Available only to customers who pay for a subscription to your program.
- Loyalty credit card: Available only for holders of merchant-branded credit cards.
Note:
- Google supports merchant loyalty program, which provides members with perks based on membership tier. In line with our current policies, these perks should be available regardless of purchase location (web, app, or in-store).
- If a customer needs to sign up as a business or a professional, this is only supported in the US.
Types of perks
- Free shipping or delivery: Members enjoy free shipping either with every purchase or on a minimum purchase. You also have the option to add free same-day shipping as a member benefit. Learn more about Configure shipping settings of your loyalty program.
- Redeemable points: Members gain points on their purchase, which they can redeem later.
- Loyalty pricing: Members enjoy specific pricing. This will display alongside the non-member pricing to give shoppers an idea of the benefits of joining your program.
Note:
- Only national loyalty pricing is supported.
- Google will only showcase member pricing in ads when the member discount is >=5% and >=$2 of regular price or sale price (when available).
- When there is an unconditional merchant promotion for the product (for example, site-wide promotion with no minimum spending or audience type), promotion will show instead of member pricing.
Where and how loyalty benefits are displayed
Member benefits could be displayed in several ways. Below are examples of how loyalty benefits could be shown to users on different surfaces. Note that experience availability may differ by country.
Ads (mobile)
- Member pricing when user’s member status is unknown (US, AU)
- Member pricing for known member (US)
- Member shipping for known member (US)
- Member shipping and price for known member (US)
Free listings
- Member pricing on free listing (US, AU | UK - pilot)
- Member shipping on free listings for known members (US)
- Member points on free listings for known members (US)
How to implement merchant loyalty program
Step 1 of 3: Activate the loyalty program card
- In your Merchant Center account, click the Settings & tools icon
and click Add-ons.
- Activate the loyalty add-on and get started.
Step 2 of 3: Add details of your loyalty program
- Add the following details under “Program overview”:
- Program name: Customers will find this on Google.
- Program label: It can be the same as the program name but can’t include spaces. You can use underscores instead. The input for this field can be used as the program label
[program_label]attribute when feed changes are made. After you submit your loyalty program label, you won’t be able to edit the program label. - Program description: A brief description highlighting the key benefits of your loyalty program. We encourage you to highlight your key loyalty benefit here.
- Sign-up URL: A valid URL for customers to join your loyalty program. You can customize this URL with UTM parameters to track engagement data. Learn more About URL customization.
- Add program tiers. If you have multiple program tiers, start with the most basic tier as your first and then add the more advanced tiers in an order as you add more tiers. Enter all the tiers for your loyalty program, each one will need a unique name and label.
- Add tier name, tier label (can’t be edited after submitting) and tier URL (Optional), and select one of the tier requirements – Free to join spending amount, or branded card. Learn more about Types of loyalty programs.
- If your loyalty program has multiple tiers of membership, click + Add another tier to add additional tiers.
- Ensure to add the tiers in the order of "barrier to entry". Your loyalty tier with the lowest barrier to entry should come first, and the highest should be last. For example, if you have 3 loyalty tiers - a free tier, a tier that costs $100 per year, and a tier that costs $500 per year; the order should be:
- Free tier
- $100/year tier
- $500/year tier
- Credit card tiers should be added last.
- Ensure to add the tiers in the order of "barrier to entry". Your loyalty tier with the lowest barrier to entry should come first, and the highest should be last. For example, if you have 3 loyalty tiers - a free tier, a tier that costs $100 per year, and a tier that costs $500 per year; the order should be:
- Select the benefits you want to add to the program.
- Set up Loyalty pricing directly in your feed using loyalty program
[loyalty_program]attribute. - Select Loyalty points.
- Select one of the shipping benefits at the tier level: Free shipping on all orders, Free shipping on orders over $, Free express on all orders, and Free express shipping on orders over $.
Note: To display shipping benefits at the offer level, you need to make feed and shipping service changes. Learn more about Configuring shipping settings of your loyalty program.
- If you offer any other loyalty benefits, you can configure them as "Other" benefit type. For example, "Member-exclusive shopping events", "Member-exclusive price", "Free gift on your birthday" and more. Ensure that benefits communicated here match the benefits listed on your website.
Note: Submit at least one benefit for each tier. You can also add loyalty pricing in “other benefits” in case this is the only loyalty benefit available.
- Set up Loyalty pricing directly in your feed using loyalty program
- Send for approval.
Google takes up to 48 hours to review your loyalty program, its associated tiers, and associated benefits before surfacing them across Google properties. You can check the status in the loyalty programs tab from the left navigation panel. If the program submission is disapproved, an email with the details will be sent to the admins of your Merchant Center account. Learn more about Editorial and participation criteria guidelines for merchant loyalty program.
Step 3 of 3: Set up member shipping, member pricing, or points for specific offers (Optional)
To display member shipping, member pricing, or number of points a customer can earn for purchasing a specific product, use the loyalty program [loyalty_program] group attribute.
- To display member shipping, you need to create a member shipping policy and annotate the products using loyalty program
[loyalty_program]group attribute. Learn more about Configuring shipping setting of your loyalty program. - To display member pricing, you need to specify the price within the loyalty program
[loyalty_program]group attribute. Always-on member pricing and limited-time member pricing event are both supported. - The point earning ratio added when setting up level benefits automatically applies to all products. If you want to override the default ratio, make feed changes as outlined in loyalty program
[loyalty_program].
About loyalty benefits on crawled offers
In addition to showcasing your loyalty program benefits on your listings from the feeds in your Merchant Center account, Google will also showcase these benefits on your crawled offers. These are offers Google has found on your website that aren’t submitted via the feeds in your Merchant Center account. In an effort to increase customer engagement and personalize the shopping experience, Google may use data from Gmail. The data helps Google understand customers' loyalty relationship status and promotion availability. If you want to opt out of displaying loyalty benefits on crawled offers or loyalty Gmail data sync, contact our support team.
Understand loyalty program performance
Loyalty performance report will help you better understand the performance of your loyalty program and gain insights on how to improve it. Learn more about Loyalty program performance report.