Request an advanced account set up

As an admin user of a standalone Merchant Center account, you can request an advanced account setup. This is recommended for businesses that manage multiple sellers and domains at scale, such as marketplaces and multi-country retailers. Most customers don’t need an advanced account to get the most out of Merchant Center.

With this type of set-up, a single user or company can manage one or more Merchant Center accounts.

These sub-accounts will be nested under the advanced set-up structure, called multi-client account (MCA). The sub-accounts can for example have distinct names, unique website URLs and data sources.

On this page

• Businesses eligible for advanced account setup
• Convert to an advanced account setup
• What to expect after requesting the conversion
• Multi-client account online store(s) verification and claim

Businesses eligible for advanced account setup

• Store builders: These platforms allow merchants to set up an online store to list and sell products
• Marketplaces: An online platform that provides a place for multiple individual merchants to sell their products.
• Merchants that own multiple brands: These merchants own multiple brands and sell products in physical stores or online on multiple domains.
• International retailers: These retailers sell products from one brand internationally, on multiple domains, online or in physical stores.
• Advertising agencies: These agencies provide SEO consulting services to merchants and sometimes set up advertising campaigns on their behalf.
• Channel partners: These partners allow merchants to list their product offers on different channels (like marketplaces and comparison shopping services), and typically also provide related services.

Convert to an advanced account setup

Requirements

• You must be an account admin.
• Your account cannot be a multi-client account (MCA), or a sub-account in an existing MCA.
• You cannot have an existing account-level policy violation.

Recommendations

• Avoid having multiple websites that contain similar content: this could lead to account disapproval. Learn more about duplicate content in the abuse of network policy
• If you plan to upload a large number of products and feeds or make frequent changes to your product data, we recommend you upload this directly using the Content API.
• If you’re working with a third party platform to show, promote or sell your products across Google, you can link your Merchant Center to a third party application.

Instructions

1. In your Merchant Center account, click the Settings & Tools menu .
2. Click General account options.
3. On the “Advanced account setup” section click Request Conversion.
4. Make sure to select the options that best describe your business.
5. Click Request.

What to expect after requesting the conversion

• You can check the status of your request by visiting the “Account settings” page.
• Requests may take a few days to process. You will receive an email once this process is complete.
• If you successfully convert to an advanced account setup, you will receive a new MCA, and your current Merchant Center account will become a sub-account of this new MCA. You can verify and claim websites under your multi-client account by following the steps below.

Multi-client account online store(s) verification and claim

MCA owners can verify and claim an online store URL(s) with the parent account login email of the MCA. Typically, the parent MCA will need to verify and claim the top-level domain.