Google deals listings help your products stand out when you're running a sale or offering a promotion. These listings appear across the Shopping tab and standard search results, often marked with a distinct badge or a strikethrough price. If you sell products online in the UK, understanding how to trigger these visual cues is a practical way to increase your click-through rate without necessarily increasing your ad spend.

When a shopper searches for a product, Google looks for signals that the item is currently available at a lower price than usual. I've seen many retailers miss out on this extra visibility simply because their data feed wasn't configured to highlight their discounts. It's not enough to just lower the price on your website; you need to communicate that change to Google in a specific format.

What are Google deals listings

Google deals listings are search results that include promotional information, such as "Price drop" badges, "Sale" tags, or specific discount codes. They appear in several places, including the main Search results page, the Shopping tab, and even within Google Images. In the UK, these features are particularly prominent during peak shopping periods like Black Friday or the January sales.

The goal of these listings is to help users find the best value. When your product carries a "15% off" badge or shows a strikethrough of the original price, it draws the eye more effectively than a standard listing. Google uses your product data to determine if a deal is genuine and if it should be highlighted to the user.

How Google identifies a deal

Google doesn't just take your word for it when you say a product is on sale. It uses a few different methods to verify that a price reduction is real. The most common way is by comparing the current price to the historical price you've provided in your Merchant Center feed.

If you've consistently listed an item at £100 for the last 30 days and then drop it to £80, Google will likely trigger a "Price drop" badge. This is automated. You don't have to do anything extra other than update your price attribute. However, for more complex deals like "Buy one get one free" or "£10 off with a code," you'll need to use the Promotions feed.

Using the sale price attribute

The simplest way to get into Google deals listings is by using the sale_price attribute in your product feed. This attribute tells Google exactly what the new price is and how it compares to the original price attribute.

To do this correctly, you must provide both the price (the original, non-sale price) and the sale_price (the discounted amount). I'd start with the Merchant Center "All products" report to see if your sale prices are being pulled in correctly. If Google sees both values, it can display the strikethrough price.

Setting the sale price effective date

You can also use the sale_price_effective_date attribute. This allows you to schedule your sales in advance. It's useful for UK retailers planning a bank holiday sale or a specific weekend promotion. You define the start and end times, and Google will automatically toggle the sale price on your listings during that window.

Accuracy is everything. If the price in your feed doesn't match the price on your landing page, Google will likely disapprove the item. We check the Merchant Center "Diagnostics" tab weekly for our clients to ensure there are no price mismatches.

The Merchant Center Promotions programme

For deals that aren't just a simple price drop, you need to use the Promotions programme within Google Merchant Center. This is where you manage things like "20% off everything" or "Free shipping on orders over £50."

First, you have to opt into the programme in the "Growth" or "Marketing" section of Merchant Center. Once approved, you can create promotions manually or upload a separate promotions feed. These promotions appear as a "Special offer" link on your Shopping ads or free listings. When a user clicks that link, they see the details of the deal and any coupon codes required.

Types of promotions Google accepts

Google is quite specific about what counts as a valid promotion. They generally accept four types:

  • Amount off: A flat discount like £10 off.
  • Percentage off: A discount like 20% off.
  • Free gift: A free item or a gift card with a purchase.
  • Free or discounted shipping.

You can't use promotions for vague offers like "Best prices" or "Sale starts soon." The offer must be specific and redeemable at checkout.

Structured data for deals

If you don't use a Merchant Center feed—perhaps you rely on Google's crawler to find your products—you can still qualify for Google deals listings using schema markup. This involves adding specific code to your product pages that Google's bot can read.

The Offer type in your schema should include the price, priceCurrency, and priceValidUntil properties. When you lower your price on the page and update the schema, Google can detect the change. It's a simple fix. While a feed is more reliable for large inventories, schema is a vital backup for ensuring your organic listings show price drops.

Why your deals might not show up

Sometimes you'll set everything up correctly, but the "Price drop" badge still won't appear. This usually happens because Google's algorithm hasn't established a "base price" for your product yet. Google needs to see a stable price for a period of time before it considers a lower price to be a "deal."

If you're constantly changing your prices, Google might struggle to identify what a normal price looks like for your store. In the UK, Google also looks at the "Recommended Retail Price" (RRP) provided by manufacturers. If your "sale" price is actually just the standard market price, you might not get the badge.

Best practices for UK retailers

When targeting Google deals listings in the UK, you need to be mindful of local regulations and consumer expectations. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has strict rules about how you display savings. You shouldn't claim a discount against a price that was only live for a few days.

Ensure your currency is set to GBP and that your shipping costs are clearly defined. Google often includes shipping in its value calculations. If your "deal" is offset by an unusually high shipping cost, it might not perform well in the Shopping tab rankings.

Optimising for the Shopping tab

The Shopping tab has a specific "Deals" filter that users can click. To appear here, your products must have a high "deal score," which Google calculates based on the size of the discount and the popularity of the product. I've found that discounts of 15% or more are much more likely to trigger the dedicated deals UI than smaller 5% tweaks.

Tracking your performance

To see if your efforts are working, you should monitor your performance in Google Search Console and Merchant Center. Search Console has a "Shopping tab listings" report that shows how many of your products are appearing and if there are any issues with your structured data.

In Merchant Center, you can see how many clicks your promotions are generating. This data is invaluable for deciding which types of sales to run in the future. Data drives the display. If you see that "Percentage off" promotions get more clicks than "Amount off" deals for your specific audience, you can adjust your strategy accordingly.

Summary of steps

If you want to get your products into Google deals listings, follow this checklist:

  1. Ensure your Merchant Center feed includes both price and sale_price.
  2. Check that your landing page price matches your feed price exactly.
  3. Opt into the Promotions programme for more complex offers.
  4. Update your on-page schema markup to include priceValidUntil.
  5. Monitor the Diagnostics tab in Merchant Center for any errors.

Getting these listings isn't about gaming the system; it's about providing Google with the clear, accurate data it needs to show your offers to the right people. Start by auditing your current feed to see if you're already providing the sale_price attribute. If not, that's your first task.