There are many ways Google highlights products when their prices change - specifically lower. The Sale badge and Special Offer annotation (aka Merchant Promotion) do a great job showcasing temporary price cuts on items.
But there’s another badge that can show up to alert consumers of a good deal. A Price Drop badge will show on the image, and in the price section of the PLA Google will explain what the drop is.
Google’s official documentation is a little vague about the qualifications - “show only when there has been a significant drop to what has been a fairly stable price for a product.”
Previously, Google had called out when prices dropped x% below its 90-day average when you hovered over the PLA but they’ve since simplified the annotation and removed any clarification around the number of days average price, etc.
Price drop visibility
While there’s nothing to proactively do within the feed to trigger this Price Drop badge/annotation to show, you are able to see what products are eligible for it within your GMC account:
- Visit the Products section in the navigation menu.
- Select All products.
- In the table, use the filter icon, choose Price drop badge, and choose Yes in the pop-up.
You may notice it’s quite possible that products would be eligible for both your Merchant Promotion Special Offer annotation AND the Price Drop badge/annotation. However, Google is only going to show 1 badge on the PLA and will choose the one most likely to get the click.