Editorial and participation criteria guidelines for merchant loyalty program

While activating your loyalty program in Merchant Center, ensure that the program meets the editorial and participation criteria guidelines.

On this page

• Editorial guidelines
• Participation criteria guidelines
• How it works
• Approval process

Editorial guidelines

Guidelines for program details

Program name

• A limit of 25 characters
• Must match the name of your program on your website
• Start with capital letter
• Use correct grammar and spelling
• Use proper spacing
• Use appropriate punctuation and symbols
• Don’t use offensive language
• Trademark symbol (™) is supported

Program label

Use the program label to specify the loyalty program label for product feed or Content API.

• A limit of 25 characters
• To separate 2 words, use “_”
• List of characters not supported: space
• Supported delimiter: “_”

Program description

• A limit of 39 characters
• Start with capital letter
• Highlight the most attractive perk applying to all your loyalty tiers (mandatory)
• Use correct grammar and spelling
• Use proper spacing
• Use appropriate punctuation and symbols
• Don’t use offensive language

Program URL

• Your landing page must display all the details of your loyalty program
• You can include URL parameters for the purpose of tracking traffic
• Make sure your landing page is live
• Use a landing page, not a file or email
• Only link to the domain from your Merchant Center account
• Include an easy to find CTA for shoppers to join your program

Number of tiers

• The number of tiers submitted in Merchant Center should match the number of tiers on your website

Guidelines for tier benefits

Tier name

• A limit of 25 characters
• Must match the name of your program tier on your website
• Start with capital letter
• Use correct grammar and spelling
• Use proper spacing
• Use appropriate punctuation and symbols
• Don’t use offensive language

Tier label

• Limit to 25 characters
• Use correct grammar and spelling
• Use “_” for spacing
• Use appropriate punctuation and symbols
• Don’t use offensive language

Tier URL

• This is an optional field
• Landing page should display details of your loyalty program
• Make sure your landing page is live
• Use a landing page, and not a file or email
• Only link to the domain from your Merchant Center account

Tier requirement

• Make sure the joining criteria matches the information on your website

Tier benefits

• For each tier, you may select multiple benefits
• Each tier benefit should match the information on your website

Participation criteria guidelines

Google supports structured merchant loyalty programs that provide members with perks based on membership tier. The perks should be available regardless of purchase location such as web, app, or in-store.

Programs not considered as loyalty programs

• The following aren’t eligible as merchant loyalty programs:
  • Newsletters sign ups
  • Mobile (SMS) subscriptions

Member pricing

• Member pricing can be expressed as any of the following:
  • Flat discount across retailer’s inventory
  • A discounted amount on select products
  • Time-bound sales event
• Doesn't include:
  • One time, new user discounts: New shoppers get a discounted price for their first purchase. This should be submitted as a new user promotion (in pilot).
  • One time, credit card sign up incentives: Shoppers get a discount on their first purchase if they sign up for a credit card.
  • Subscribe and save: Shoppers get discounted prices if they subscribe to repeated product purchases.
  • App-only prices: Shoppers pay a lower price if they make purchases through the merchant’s app.
  • Local-only prices: Shoppers pay lower prices for in-store purchase and pickup.
• Ensure the lowest possible price for members is provided in the feed. If there's a seasonal promotion that can be applied to the evergreen member pricing, provide the post-promotion price in the loyalty program [loyalty_program] price sub-attribute as the final member pricing.
• Member pricing submitted in the feed needs to match what is shown on the website. Google periodically checks products that have member prices to ensure the price submitted to Google matches what’s showcased on your website. When such mismatch is found, we may temporarily pause your loyalty program. When the issue is resolved, you can contact the support team for re-review.

How it works

After you activate your loyalty program in Merchant Center, the submission goes through the following sequence.

Google takes up to 48 hours to review your loyalty program, its associated tiers, and associated benefits before surfacing them across Google properties.

Approval process

Policy review: After you submit details on the loyalty program and its benefits, Google reviews them during business hours to check if they follow editorial requirements.

Note: You’ll receive an email if the submission doesn't meet our guidelines. Review the email and our editorial requirements, and then edit and resubmit the details. If you’re unsure about the reason for rejection, you can contact the support team.

Related links

• About merchant loyalty program
• Loyalty program [loyalty_program]
• Configure shipping settings of your loyalty program