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Adding checkout to your

free listings on Google
Setup & customer experience recommendations
Google Shopping
June 2023
01
Overview of checkout for
free listings on Google
 01 – Overview

Checkout
All qualifying free listings on Google can have a
checkout link in addition to the existing visit site
link that takes customers directly to your site’s
cart or checkout experience.

The checkout button typically appears on product

focus states across Google.

Free Listing Pro Tip

Make sure to provide high-quality
product data information so that
customers can click through to your site
from Google with confidence and have a Visit site goes to your Product Detail
positive experience. Learn more. Page and is unchanged
02
How to enable checkout for
free listings on Google
02 – Setup

Enablement Option 1 Settings

Enable checkout for Screenshots of Merchant Center

all your free listings
If your website supports a single dynamic checkout
URL for all items, you can add one dynamic URL
template for your entire store (shown here).

Log in to Merchant Center, go to Settings >

Checkout and add your checkout landing page link
where shoppers will land.
This URL should land customers in your cart or
checkout with the item ready for purchase
02 – Setup

Enablement Option 1

Account level checkout URL For example, if your feed has the following attributes:

template formatting Title ID Size Color

The following placeholder parameter is required: Blue Shirt 12345 M Blue

● ID (required): The ID attribute associated with the product.

Red Shirt 67890 S Red
Your checkout URL template must contain the {id}
parameter.

Your URL template may look like this:

https://www.mystore.com/checkout?item_id={id}

How to format your checkout URL template:

https://www.mystore.com/ checkout?item_id= {id}

Your base domain GET URL path to checkout Unique item identifier that will be added
to the cart/checkout. Google will populate
with your unique item IDs
02 – Setup

Enablement Option 2

Enable checkout for select free New checkout URL attribute

listings via Feeds For example, your feed attributes can look like this per product:

If you want to enable checkout for select items only or if you use a
parameter other than ID as your unique product identifier, you can Title ID Size Color checkout_URL_template
add a unique GET URL per product.

Log in to Merchant Center, go to Products > Feeds and upload Blue Shirt 12345 M Blue https://www.mystore.com/checkout?item_id=12345
or sync product data with a unique checkout URL in the
checkout_url_template field. Red Shirt 67890 S Red https://www.mystore.com/checkout?item_id=67890

If you are using Content API to upload your products you can add
Puffer Coat 78907 L White
a custom attribute (example below):
"customAttributes": [
"name": "checkout_link_template",
"value": "https://www.mystore.com/checkout?item_id=12345”] The Blue Shirt and the Red Shirt offers would receive a checkout URL while the Puffer Coat would not.

The URL should land customers in your cart or checkout with the item ready for purchase.
03
Customer experience recommendations
Optimize the value of checkout traffic by ensuring that your purchase flow is tuned for customers
coming directly from Google, in order to give them the best end-to-end experience.

*The content in this section are suggestions, and are not required for your listings to show a
checkout button on Google.
 03 – Recommendations
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Support a smooth transition for checkout traffic

Traditional free listings flow Checkout traffic flow

Typically, customers visiting your site from Google experience the full shopping Checkout traffic from Google gets an expedited experience. Customers can
flow, and have multiple opportunities to validate your store’s name, branding, benefit from visibility to certain store & product information directly on the
product info, and price, before they reach checkout. Once in checkout, many landing page.
merchants remove these elements to improve checkout conversion.

Google Shopping Merchant Checkout

Google Shopping Merchant Product Page Cart Checkout

Did I land on the

right merchant?

Do I have the right

product in my order?

Is it the right price?

03 – Recommendations
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Your brand
This helps your customers verify
that they’re in the right place.

Clearly communicate Product info

Include all relevant details such as

your brand & thorough image, quantity, price, and product

variants like color & size.

order details Inform users of required product

disclosures such as Prop 65 or of
any purchase restrictions they
should be aware of.
It’s important that your customers can verify
both who they’re purchasing from, as well as
what they’re purchasing and how much they’ll
pay for it.

Price
Cost breakdowns give users
confidence that they’re paying the
right price.
The end