Get started with local inventory ads

In addition to online stores, merchants can upload product data for local stores. The Content API for Shopping now allows merchants to link a Merchant Center account with the appropriate Business Profile and configure additional settings needed to serve products for Local Inventory Ads (LIA). Here, we walk through the onboarding process in setting up LIA information for your Merchant Center account.

Before you begin

This guide assumes that you already have a Merchant Center account and a Business Profile and that you are already familiar with the basics of the Content API for Shopping. For more information on creating a Business Profile, see Sign up for a Business Profile.

For the rest of this guide, we use the following example account information:

• Merchant Center

  • Managing account (the merchantId parameter in method calls): 12345
  • Account to contain local products (the accountId parameter in method calls): 67890
  Note: Here, we use a multi-client account and a sub-account, but you can use this process for standalone accounts as well. For standalone accounts, the managing account will be the same as the account that contains local products, so you'll use the same Merchant Center ID for both parameters.

• Business Profiles

  • Administrative account, [e-mail], has access to:
    • All business accounts (both those listed below and others not listed)
    • 82 store locations in total
  • Business accounts:
    • Golden-State, 20 locations, managed by [e-mail]
    • Sunshine-State, 15 locations, managed by [e-mail]
    • Empire-State, 25 locations, managed by [e-mail]

• Other information needed for the LIA onboarding process

  • Inventory verification contact for English-speaking locations in the US: Inventory Manager <[e-mail]>

The examples in this guide are REST HTTP requests with JSON content as the body when needed. Responses are only included for GET methods. Also, JSON object fields may be omitted in responses when they are unrelated to the current topic, so actual responses from the Content API may contain more information. You can try out the steps in this guide using the Try-It sections for the appropriate methods in the reference documentation or use one of our client libraries to develop your solution in your preferred programming language.

Once you're ready to begin, continue with the other sections of this guide:

• Configure Target Countries for LIA
• Link Your Business Profile
• Verify Your Inventory

Note: These sections can and should be performed in parallel, as most sections can be done independently. We will explicitly note steps within a section that require other sections to be completed first.