In recent years, Google has made a push to highlight both loyalty programs and standalone promotions being offered by eCommerce stores.
From an SEO perspective, there is plenty of benefit to be had from stores that are able to capitalize on the increased visibility of these offerings, ranging from higher conversion rates to increased overall sales from the organic channel when used correctly.
Within this article, we will explore the two core Google Merchant Center Next tabs: ‘Loyalty programs’ and ‘Promotions’, their use-cases for organic search, along with new features that Google has introduced that assist with priortization.
To start, here is an outline of the features in question, along with where you can find them within your GMC Next dashboard.
Loyalty Programs
The loyalty programs section in GMC Next is currently only relevant to the US, the UK, Germany, France, and Australia. The add-on itself (managed within Settings & tools > Add ons) can be enabled as a feature for stores that have an existing loyalty program.
The settings within the add-on can be used to submit a range of benefits, such as free shipping, redeemable points, and loyalty pricing (showing at a discounted rate) for specific product groups. Here’s what this looks like within the dashboard:
The benefits of making this information more visible for stores are focused on engaging and retaining existing customers, along with attracting new customers through having more competitive pricing. There are 4 types of loyalty programs within the setup: free to join, spending amount, membership fee, and loyalty credit card.
Promotions are another add-on feature in GMC Next that can be used for free listings. The feature allows stores to distribute special offers to increase the appeal of products, often utilizing coupon codes for direct tracking attribution.
Currently, the ‘Promotions’ feature shows more broadly than ‘Loyalty programs’, applying to Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK, and the US. The Promotions tab can be found in Settings & tools > Add-ons to enable.
Within the dashboard, promotions can be filtered to see both old and currently live promotions. Promotions can be added in 3 different ways: added individually within the promotion builder tool, by submitting a promotion data source, along with using the Content API.
The benefit of using the Promotions feature for SEO is that your promotions can apply to just the free listings surface. This also impacts your ‘store quality’ report in terms of the ‘promotions rejection rate’ metric, with there being an advantage here to having long-standing promotions (6 months is the max duration) as a contributor to your Top Quality Store rating.
Relevant Google free listing features
There are currently 4 different relevant surfaces for SEO where either your loyalty program information or promotions can appear. Here are the surfaces of relevance, which will be updated over time to reflect to current forms for each.
The ‘Brand Profile’ tab (beta)
For some clients, I have access to the new ‘Brand’ tab within GMC Next. Having access to this tab isn’t crucial to be able to make the most of the promotions and loyalty program features, but it certainly streamlines the process and allows more direct control over the appearance.
As you can see in the preview below, the ‘Brand’ tab will be showing for your GMC Next account under the ‘Marketing’ section of your dashboard if you have access to it. It allows you to manage your business information in search results when logged into the account, similar to the overlay that appears when logged into Google Search Console or Google Ads.
Not only does this section allow you to manage your promotional information, but it also allows stores to have control over features such as your images and videos, the business description, social profiles, and more. Keep an eye out for access if it hasn’t been enabled yet.
Merchant knowledge panels
Having your promotions and loyalty program information appearing within your merchant knowledge panel is likely the most visible section of your Google Search appearance that you can have it, being predominantly shown for branded search queries.
For loyalty program information, Google is currently testing out making this information appear for the tiers being offered within its own prominent section within the merchant knowledge panel. Here’s what this looks like for Walmart, for instance:
Each of the sections for the loyalty programs links directly to the page on the website (based on how they’re inputted in GMC Next), which will result in a substantial increase in clicks and impressions for brand queries for Walmart. Here’s what this same feature can look like on mobile devices, with the promotions being accessible through the ‘deals’ tab:
If there are multiple deals appearing for a merchant knowledge panel, then it allows users to view them all together, positioned at the top of the knowledge panel. The loyalty program information is shown more vibrantly on mobile devices when it appears, with the heart icon showing (the same as the icon from GMC Next), with the coloured badges highlighting the benefits.
Out of all surfaces, it is within the merchant knowledge panel that businesses will want this information to be appearing within. If a store doesn’t have a merchant knowledge panel, this can best be influenced through Organization structured data and ensuring that your GMC Next ‘Business info’ has been filled out extensively.
Free listing product details
Within the various types of free product list grid results, there is the ability to have your loyalty program and promotional coupon codes appear for individual products. Here’s what this looks like for two stores within Australian search results, with the formatting of each appearing differently:
The coupon codes have the benefit of being able to be copied directly from Google’s search results and can then be applied at checkout. When clicking on the 3 vertical dots beside the free listing result within the grid from the product with the coupon code, you can see that it shows more prominently, being another search appearance that is common within Search.
As mentioned already, these coupons can be applied only to free listing surfaces (with ads being excluded) if it is something that a store would like to first trial out before distributing the coupon code more broadly across the website and within ads.
‘Shop deals’ & Chrome discounts
For holiday periods, Google will often introduce special search results that are geared toward shoppers who are on the lookout for deals. Using the promotional coupon code extension within your free listings means that your products then qualify to appear within these promotional surfaces for increased visibility. The query to look out for within your GSC performance report is often the “shop deals” query, which is the search result format that Google will push users to through various means.
Similar applies to Chrome, where when users open a tab on desktop, it allows users to have a dashboard for when stores are actively running promotions that have been browsed within the past. In general, Google is constantly experimenting with how promotional insights can appear within Chrome, which will likely become more of a focus for Google in the future.
Structured data for loyalty programs
For loyalty program information, there is an additional tool for stores to apply this information more broadly within the structured data that appears within Organization. This is based on MemberProgram structured data, with feature ability extending to Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, the UK, and the US.
Here’s what an example script looks like based on Google’s documentation, focusing on the program name, tiers, points earned, and more.
About Us
It is important to note that while you can use both structured data and GMC Next to markup your loyalty program information, it is the information provided within GMC Next that Google will use in search results. In my experience, this tends to be the rule of thumb when it comes to Shopping features, with GMC Next information (feeds in particular) being the one that is most influential for the information that you see in search results.
Tracking performance
Within GMC Next, there are two different reporting views for organic surfaces that specifically show performance within promotions and loyalty program search appearances.
For promotions, there is a dedicated tab for this reporting within the Analytics > Products report. By filtering by organic appearances and selecting only promotions, you’re then able to see clicks, impressions, and CTR for free listing results where the promotion has been shown.
There is also a separate tab within Analytics > Products under the ‘Loyalty programs’ tab where you’re able to see how often your loyalty program information is appearing. At this time, Google has only introduced filtering for ‘Ads’ (not organic), so you’re only able to estimate relative traffic for loyalty program appearances at this time.
Final thoughts
Now that Google has introduced various features within Search for loyalty programs and promotions, there is a clear benefit to stores in ensuring that each component is being utilized effectively.
Both components have clear benefits to free listing surfaces, with the reporting within GMC Next for each respective attribute being improved over time, showing from Google’s standpoint that these features are here to stay.
If you work with an eCommerce store that cares about its free listings performance, it is a no-brainer to include promotions and loyalty programs within your workflow to not only capture more traffic but also facilitate repeat purchases.
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