Google Merchant Center Promotions: Black Friday Setup

What are Google Merchant Center promotions?

Google Merchant Center promotions are offers, such as "15% off" or "free shipping", that Google attaches to your products as a special offer link. Promotions is an add-on for Shopping ads, local inventory ads and free listings, and the offers can show on Google Search, the Shopping tab, Chrome, Google Wallet and Safari (Get started with Promotions). In the US, promotions that can show on Search also put your products on Google's deals page, with nothing extra to do.

A promotion is not a price change. The product page keeps the full price, and the discount appears in the cart or at checkout. That rule decides how you build a Black Friday sale.

Merchant Center promotion

• Offer link on the listing, such as "20% off"
• Product page shows the full price
• Discount appears in the cart or at checkout
• Two Google reviews, one at the start time

Sale price (sale_price)

• The lower price is the listing's current price
• Product page shows both prices
• Checkout shows only the sale price
• Sent in product data, so it skips the promotion review

Take a $100 pair of shoes (illustrative numbers). With a promotion, the page shows $100 and a code brings it to $80 in the cart. With a sale price, the page shows both $100 and $80. If the page already shows $80 and your promotion says "20% off", Google finds no extra discount and rejects it.

Promotion assets are a third, separate thing: they live in Google Ads and show below Search and YouTube ads. Our Black Friday Google Ads checklist covers those, sale prices, budgets and tracking.

What is the last safe date to submit a promotion for Black Friday?

The last safe date is Friday, November 20, 2026, for a promotion that must show when Black Friday opens at 12:00 am on November 27. Set its effective start no later than 12:00 am on Tuesday, November 24. Monday, November 23 is the hard stop, and it leaves no room for a rejection.

The date comes from three rules on Merchant Center Help, as of November 2026:

• Up to 72 hours from the start. Approval typically comes within 24 hours of the effective start time and can take up to 72 hours (approval process).
• 24 hours of lead time. Submit at least 24 hours before the effective start, or the promotion may be delayed by 24 hours. Product mapping should be complete by then too (status FAQs).
• Weekdays only. Google says to submit in business hours, Monday to Friday.

Count back from November 27: 72 hours lands on Tuesday, November 24, and 24 more lands on 12:00 am Monday, November 23. The last business hours before that are on Friday, November 20.

Fri, Nov 20Last safe day to submit and finish mapping

Mon, Nov 23Hard stop; time to fix a policy rejection

Tue, Nov 24Effective start at 12:00 am; SKU review can begin

Fri, Nov 2772 hours later: live when Black Friday opens

Missed November 20? Here is what each later day buys you:

The same math for other start dates, at 12:00 am in the time zone set on the promotion:

Why can a November 27 start date miss Black Friday?

A promotion with a November 27 start cannot be approved before November 27, because Google's final check only runs at the start time. A 24-hour check puts the offer live as Black Friday ends. A 72-hour check puts it live as Cyber Monday opens. Older guides that quote "12 to 24 hours" miss this.

Every promotion passes two reviews:

1. Policy review. Google checks the title and terms against its rules, shortly after you submit, in weekday business hours.
2. SKU review. Google testers check that the offer works on your site. This runs at the effective start time.

So the status stays Under review until the start time passes, and a long wait before that date is normal (promotion status).

The fix is to start the promotion before you need it:

• Start the sale on November 24. This is the plain route for the promotion builder and the Shopify sync. Your offer must work on your site from that moment.
• Test early with a promotions data source. Set promotion_effective_dates to start on November 24 and promotion_display_dates to start on November 27. Google tests from the first date and shows the offer from the second. This works only with a data source, and the two end dates must match (data source FAQs).

The early test still needs a working offer. In our view, a redemption code is the quiet way: the code works from November 24, and you announce it on November 27.

Which countries and offers qualify for promotions?

As of November 2026, promotions work in 13 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and the US. You need an active Merchant Center account with at least one active product and one claimed URL, and no marketplace connection unless the marketplace is in Google's closed beta. No account yet? Start with the Merchant Center setup guide.

Some routes reach fewer countries:

An offer must meet these criteria:

• Redeemable at checkout or by the time of purchase
• At least 5% or $5 off, whichever is lower; free gifts are exempt
• Ends within 183 days of its start
• Open to anyone who shops on Google; free loyalty programs are the exception
• Inside your account's promotion quota, which Google's quota page does not put a number on

Allowed offers include money or percent off, tiers, buy one get one, named free gifts and, since January 2026, subscription fee discounts (change log). Trade-ins, sweepstakes and discounts of 100% or more are not allowed.

How do you create a promotion in Merchant Center?

Use the promotion builder if you have only a few promotions. Google recommends it for small numbers and says its structured data makes reviews faster (best practices).

1. Turn on the add-on. Go to Settings, then Add-ons, and select Add on the Promotions card. Skip this if Promotions already shows under Marketing.
2. Start a promotion. Select Promotions under Marketing, then Add promotion, then Create promotion.
3. Set the offer. Choose the country, language, category, type and details.
4. Add products and dates. Add the products, title, ID, any code, and the start and end dates. Titles can run to 60 characters and IDs to 50 (data specification).
5. Check the preview and save. The Preview panel shows Search only.

Name the product in the title: Google prefers "20% off on baby sneakers only" over "20% off on select products". It may also rewrite titles for clarity.

How do you set up a promotions feed?

A promotions feed, now called a promotions data source, suits a high volume of promotions and is the only route with an early test date. Open Promotions, select Add promotion, then Add promotion source, and enter the country, language, name and input method (Step 2: Create a promotion).

An illustrative row for a store selling running shoes, tested from November 24 and shown from November 27, US Eastern:

You can map products three ways: all products, a filter on product ID, product type, brand or item group, or a promotion_id on each product in your product data. Map only products truly in the offer, because one excluded product gets the whole promotion rejected.

How do you sync Shopify discounts to Merchant Center?

Install the Google & YouTube app, create the discount in Shopify, and make it available on that channel. Merchant Center then treats it as a promotion (Google's third-party page). For a discount code, Shopify's steps are:

1. Open the discount. In your Shopify admin, go to Discounts and select the code.
2. Allow the channel. In Sales channel access, select Allow discount to be featured on selected channels.
3. Pick Google. Click Sales channels, select Google & YouTube, and click Done.

Automatic discounts apply on every sales channel you have set up, apart from Point of Sale, and only US ones reach Merchant Center. Our Google Ads for Shopify guide covers the wider setup.

These do not sync:

• Any free shipping promotion
• Buy X get Y promotions
• Discounts on collections
• Local in-store discounts
• Discounts aimed at specific people
• Discounts with no end date, or with a start date older than 6 months

Set an end date on every sale discount. The sync also fails if your account has no active US offers, whatever country the promotion targets.

Anything the sync cannot carry goes through the builder or a data source. Google notes that Shopify cannot add attributes to your product data, so you cannot send promotion_id from it. Use All products or a filter, or the promotion comes back as Unmapped.

Google describes the early test only for data sources, so we treat a synced discount as having one start date: start it on November 24. To keep a code quiet until November 27, leave it off the Google channel and submit it through a data source.

Why do Merchant Center promotions get rejected?

Promotions get rejected for two kinds of reasons: text problems at policy review, and offer problems when Google's testers try the discount. The common ones, from Google's disapproval list and editorial requirements:

To see the reason, open Promotions and select See review status. Fix the cause and resubmit. An edit does not need a new promotion ID, but the review starts again, so a late rejection means waiting through it twice.

What can you change after a promotion is approved?

You can change the end time or remove a destination without a new review, as long as the total duration stays under 180 days. The start time, promotion ID, country, language and currency are locked. Any other edit sends the promotion back through review (edit a promotion).

To run a Black Friday promotion through Cyber Monday, move the end time. Do not end it and build a new one, because an ended promotion cannot be restarted.

Before you lock the discount, run it through the ROAS calculator, because a deeper discount raises the ROAS you need to break even. Then put November 20 in your calendar.

If promotions keep failing or products keep getting disapproved, our Merchant Center team can take over the setup. A free Google Ads audit is a diagnosis: we tell you whether we found what is causing the problem. We are independent and not affiliated with Google.