If you use a partner who can provide your order tracking history data, you have the option to link your Merchant Center account directly to your partner account, which will allow Google to use that data to calculate shipping speeds for you that vary with a user’s location and which of your items they’re considering. Learn more about Order tracking signals.
When you begin providing order tracking history, you’ll be opted into “automatic shipping improvements,” a feature that allows Google AI to calculate shipping speeds for all of your offers across eligible countries and listing types. If our shipping models verify that your product could ship more quickly to a given user than what you have configured within Merchant Center or your feeds, we’ll show the improved shipping speed.
On this page
- Benefits
- How it works
- Eligibility
- How Google uses the data
- Link a partner directly from your partner’s website
Benefits
- Clarity and accuracy: Manually configured shipping speeds are often overly conservative because they typically take the most remote locations into account, resulting in a wide range of delivery times, for example, 3 to 10 days. In general, Google-calculated shipping speeds are determined by the customer's location, like postal code or state, often making them more precise, for example, 3 to 5 days). More accurate delivery times, especially when faster, typically lead to better conversion rates.
- Shipping annotation: This data can be used to validate your shipping settings, which qualifies you for the “fast and free” badge and similar shipping annotations.
How it works
After you link your Merchant Center account with a partner, Google will be able to calculate shipping speeds on your behalf. Through your linked account, Google will pull historical order tracking data for your existing offers to calculate customized shipping speeds specific to your business. If we predict a shorter delivery speed, we’ll show that to your customers instead of what you've configured in Merchant Center or your feeds.
Eligibility
To link your partner, you need to:
- Ship to US customers.
- Use ShipStation partner.
Note: If you’re a partner and would like to be added to our list, complete this interest form.
How Google uses the data
Order tracking history data includes:
- Order information, including order ID, order creation time, delivery postal code, and region code
- Shipping cost charged to the buyer
- Shipping information, including the carrier, tracking number, origin, destination, and shipping times for each shipment associated with the order
- Order line item information, including the products in the order
Not all of the information listed above is required. In addition, we won’t be retrieving customer names or exact addresses. You will have the best results if the order tracking history data that you or your partner submits includes all orders from your website (for example, the site that Google directs your traffic to). It is ok to include a mix of different user-selected service levels like "free shipping" and "overnight". Google will attempt to separate those in its modeling. However, avoid including order sources that are not representative of your website, for example, marketplaces that require 2-day shipping on most orders. If, on your partner’s platform, you do not have control over which order sources you send to Google, it is likely that Google and your partner have already worked together to resolve any issues.
Note that the data you submit will also be used to make Google’s proprietary machine learning models better for all retailers, including your business. But we will never share your data with any other retailer, outside of aggregated, anonymized benchmarks. Learn more about Google’s privacy policy.
Link a partner directly from your partner’s website
Learn more on how to initiate the process from supported partner:
After you initiate the account linking process from your partner’s website, you will be redirected to Merchant Center. Sign in if not already and proceed to connect your Merchant Center account to the shipping partner. You’ll be redirected to the partner’s website to complete the linking process. Once the account is linked, you would see your partner’s name appear as connected within the Apps tab under “Settings and tools” menu in Merchant Center