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Set Up Reserve with Google for Listings

Who does this article apply to?

  • Enterprise, Partner, and Small Business accounts.
  • Accounts in all regions.

Prerequisites: To use Reserve with Google, you must have:

  • Live Google listings synced with Yext
  • Reserve with Google licenses available in your Yext account

To launch your listings in Yext, see the Launch Your Listings in Yext guide. If you're unsure about what licenses you have available, contact your Yext Account Manager.

Reserve with Google helps to boost conversions by displaying CTAs on Google listings for users to interact with your business. Users can quickly take action to book appointments, make reservations, or order online, without leaving the Google listing — saving them clicks and making your business even easier to interact with.

The Yext integration with Reserve with Google enables you to add Book Appointment CTAs to your listings that are managed in Yext.

In this guide, you will:

  • Submit a request to create your brand as a Yext partner with Google
  • Review your entity types and categories in Yext Content
  • Enable the Yext account features necessary to set up Reserve with Google
  • Set up Google conversion tracking
  • Create Services ECLs in Yext to display your available services
  • Link your ECLs to your entities
  • Go live by assigning Reserve with Google licenses to your location entities

Step 1: Google Requirements

To use Reserve with Google on your listings in Yext, your brand needs to be configured in Google as a Yext partner. You'll also need to ensure that you have location-specific services pages created.

Request Brand Creation in Google

To request your brand creation in Google, file a ticket with Yext Support with the following information:

  • Your website domain for your bookings
  • An image file of your business logo. Your logo must meet these requirements:
    • Format: PNG
    • Max file size: 1024KB
    • Total logo size: 512x512 pixels
    • The central artwork or design of your logo should fit within a 384x384 pixel square, with a 128 pixel margin of empty background space
    • Color space: sRGB
    • The background should not be transparent
    • The background color should take up the entire 512x512 px square
    • There should not be any shadow on the logo

See Google's documentation for full details on Google's logo requirements and an example logo.

Location-Specific Services Pages

You should already have location-specific pages created that your users will be directed to when they click a Reserve with Google CTA on your listing.

Your services pages should reflect the specified service and the professional or location that corresponds with the listing. For example, if you want to add a Book Online CTA to your listings, the CTA should bring the user directly to an online appointment booking page for the specific location that the listing corresponds to (as opposed to a generic homepage).

Later in this guide, you'll also set up Google conversion tracking for your services pages.

Step 2: Yext Requirements

In order to use Reserve with Google on your listings in Yext, you'll need to make sure that you're using eligible entity types and categories, that your entities have the Reservation URL field populated, and that your listings are live on Yext.

Entity Types and Categories

Reserve with Google can be used with Yext for any live listings that are synced with Location or Professional entity types. This can include Locations, Restaurants, Healthcare Facilities, Healthcare Professionals, Financial Professionals, and other types.

Entities must also have a Google-approved primary category assigned. Categories can be assigned to entities in Yext Content. For more on categories, see the Categories training unit or Categories reference.

Reservation URLs

Each entity that is synced with a listing where you want to use Reserve with Google must have the Reservation URL field populated. This is the URL that the user will be brought to when they click the Reserve with Google CTA on the Google listing. This URL should be specific to the location.

To check whether this field is populated, navigate to Content > Entities. Click on one of your entities and locate the Reservation URL field (you can use the Search Field pill at the top of the entity to do this).

If this field is not populated, you should fill this out for your entities now. This can be done individually, or in bulk using a File Upload connector.

Live Listings

Your listings should be live on Yext and syncing to Google. To launch your listings in Yext, see the Launch Your Listings in Yext guide.

Step 3: Enable Account Features

Ensure these two Yext account features are enabled: Products and Services and GBP: Sync Products & Services Lists.

To enable these features:

  1. Click the account icon in the lower left corner of the navigation in Yext, and select Account Settings from the menu.
  2. Click the Account Features tile.
  3. Find the Products and Services feature. Click to expand the configuration settings.
  4. Toggle the feature to On and click Save.
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the GBP: Sync Products & Services Lists feature.

If you don't see these features available in your account, contact your Yext Account Manager.

Step 4: Set Up Conversion Tracking on Services Pages

Next, set up conversion tracking for the services pages that your Reserve with Google buttons will direct users to. To complete this step, you'll need developer support from your engineering, IT, or web development team.

Conversion Tracking Setup

Follow the steps in Google's Conversion Tracking resource to set up conversion tracking for your services pages. Conversion tracking should be implemented on the checkout page of your site. This will trigger whenever a user completes a transaction via the client's webpage. Note that this should be implemented for pages on both web and mobile apps.

Merchant ID

The setup instructions refer to merchant information, or the merchant_id. The merchant_id is any internal identifier you use to identify your locations (merchants). It is not required to send the merchant_id back when performing conversion tracking, however, we recommend storing the merchant_id so you can identify if the merchant changed when the booking was completed.

To do this, you can use the Yext Partner ID, which would have been provided to you by your Yext Account Manager. If you do not have this ID, reach out to your Account Manager.

Step 5: Set Up Services ECLs in Yext

In Yext, enhanced content lists (ECLs) are used to display additional information specific to entities, such as menu items, available services and products, or professional bios. Reserve with Google uses Products & Services ECLs to populate the available services that users can interact with on your Google listings.

You will need to create one Products & Services ECL for each location entity where you want Reserve with Google options to appear on listings. The ECLs can contain the same services information. You can create ECLs individually or in bulk, via spreadsheet upload.

Each ECL must have the following fields:

  • Section (i.e., the type of service)
  • Description
  • Name
  • URL
  • ID code
  • Price (if applicable)
    • If your booking experience or website displays a price for the service, you must include the Price field on the ECL. Price can be formatted as a range (e.g., "$15-20"), a minimum price (e.g., "starting at $20"), or a specific amount.

Other available fields on the Services ECL are not used for Reserve with Google, however, they may be sent to other publishers that accept Services ECLs.

For full steps on creating your Product & Services ECLs, see the Create an Enhanced Content List help article.

Step 6: Link Your ECLs to Locations

After your ECLs are created in Yext, you'll need to link them to your location entities in Yext. There are three ways to do this:

  • Using a file upload connector (to link ECLs to entities in bulk)
  • From the ECL (individually)
  • From the entity (individually)

Link ECLs to Entities in Bulk

To do this, you'll need to export your ECL information, export your entity information, and then re-upload a spreadsheet containing your ECL and entity IDs.

Export ECL IDs

  1. Navigate to Content > Products and Services to view ECLs you've created.
  2. Select the checkbox next to the relevant ECLs (or choose Select All at the top of the page).
  3. Click the Select Action pill at the bottom of the page and choose Export. This will download a spreadsheet containing the ECLs and their IDs.
  4. Open the downloaded file. The only column you will need is the ProductListID column. This is what you will use to associate your location entities with the ECL.

Export Entity IDs

  1. You will also need to export the relevant location entities. The easiest way to do this will be to use the saved filter you created in Step 7 of this guide to assign your Reserve with Google licenses. Navigate to Content > Configuration and click on the Saved Filters tile to view all your saved filters.
  2. Click the saved filter you created in Step 7. You will be brought to the Entities screen and the entities in your selected saved filter will be displayed.
  3. Click the checkbox at the top of the entities list to select all the entities in your saved filter. Then, click the More Actions pill and select Export Entities.
  4. You'll be brought to the first step of the Export Entities flow (Basic Info). Click Continue in the bottom right of the screen.
  5. In the Export Scheme step, make sure the Entity ID field is included in your export. If desired, you can remove the Yext ID field. Add any other fields that you may need to identify your location entities (Name, etc.)
  6. After adding your fields, click Continue to download your entities file. If you want to save this export configuration for later (to easily export again), you can do so now. Otherwise, click Done to exit the Export flow.

Combine and Upload ECL and Entity Data

See this video for steps on creating a file upload connector once you have exported your ECL and entity information: https://player.vimeo.com/video/1052425466?h=b7a203ce6d

  1. Combine your ECL export file and your entities export file so that you have one spreadsheet with the following columns:
    • ProductListID (from the ECL export)
    • Entity ID (from the entity export)
    • Any other identifying fields from your entity export, if desired
  2. Navigate to Content > Connectors and click Add Connector in the top-right of the screen.
  3. Select File Upload as your data source.
  4. Select Upload File and choose your file with the combined ECL and entity information. Keep the File Settings as-is.
  5. You do not need to add any selectors on the Specify Selectors screen. Click Add Default Selectors and then click Continue in the bottom right.
  6. On the Destination screen, select Content.
  7. On the Map Fields screen, select the relevant entity type from the dropdown. This should match the entity type of the entities you exported earlier.
  8. Ensure the columns in your spreadsheet are mapped to the proper entity fields. This should be automatically detected.
    • The Entity ID column should map to the Entity ID field.
    • The ProductListID column should map to the Product Lists > Ids field.
  9. Click Save in the lower right. In the modal that appears, enter a name for your connector and click Save and Run Now.
  10. Select Run in Default Mode, and then click Save and Run Connector. Your data will begin processing immediately, and you can monitor the status of the connector run on the Connector Summary screen.

Link ECLs to Entities Individually

If you want to link ECLs to individual entities, follow these steps.

Link from the ECL

  1. In the navigation bar, go to Content > Products & Services.
  2. Click on your desired ECL.
  3. Locate the gray box in the upper right of the screen containing the information about the ECL. On the Entities item, click Change.
  4. In the modal that appears, select the location entity you want to link that ECL to.
  5. Click Apply and then Save.

See this video for steps: https://player.vimeo.com/video/1052424987?h=c778d7bb70

Link from a Location Entity

  1. In Content, click on the location entity that you want to link an ECL to.
  2. Locate the Product Lists field on the entity. You can use the Search Field pill at the top of the entity to do this.
  3. Click into the Product Lists field and select Add.
  4. Type the name or ID of the ECL you want to add to the entity and select it from the dropdown.
  5. Click Save.

See this video for steps: https://player.vimeo.com/video/1052424553?h=063393b44e

Step 7: Assign Reserve with Google Licenses and Go Live

Note: In order to assign Reserve with Google licenses and go live with the Reserve with Google integration, your brand must have been successfully created as a Yext partner brand in Google (via the request you submitted in Step 1). You should wait until you have received confirmation that your brand has been created in Google before continuing.

The final step is to assign Reserve with Google licenses to any entities in Yext Content where you want to display Reserve with Google options on listings.

You can assign licenses to a group of entities by creating a saved filter. This will allow you to set criteria for any location entities that should have Reserve with Google licenses assigned. Any location entity meeting the criteria you set will automatically have a license assigned.

You likely have already created a filter with your desired locations during the Listings launch process. However, we recommend creating unique saved filters for each type of license (e.g., Listings, Reviews, Reserve with Google, etc.) in order to avoid any accidental license assignment or removal.

For full instructions on how to assign licenses with saved filters, see the Automatically Assign Licenses to Entities with a Saved Filter help article.