Google is piloting Local Coupons, a Search ad that puts a nearby store's discount into a shopper's mobile wallet. According to reporting on the pilot, retailers pay Google only when that coupon is redeemed at the register.
Google has not announced the pilot on any of its own pages. Selin Song, Google's vice president of Customer Solutions, described it in a LinkedIn post with a video on 8 October. The mechanics and pricing below come from a trade-press account of that post.
Google has published no help page, eligibility rules or pricing for Local Coupons, so nothing here is confirmed by Google itself. One of the two point-of-sale partners has documented it, though: Lightspeed's Retail (X-Series) help centre carries a setup article for Google Local Coupons, and the billing and eligibility detail below is sourced to that page rather than to the trade press.
How Local Coupons Works
A shopper searching on their phone for a specific product sees a discount from a retailer nearby. They save the coupon to their phone's mobile wallet and show it at the till, where it carries a unique promo code.
The cashier scans the coupon's barcode through the store's point-of-sale system. The code is checked straight away, so the same coupon cannot be used twice. The reporting names Clover and Lightspeed as point-of-sale systems that connect to it.
For the shopper, Song said, there is nothing to print and no email to find.
Paying for the Sale, Not the Click
The pricing is the part advertisers will act on. Retailers reportedly pay Google only when a customer uses the coupon at checkout, so the billable event is a shopper standing at the register rather than a click or an impression. Lightspeed's setup article puts terms around that: the retailer sets a bid, which is the most it is willing to pay for one in-store redemption, and a monthly spending cap it cannot be charged past, so a month with no redemptions bills $0. Google invoices the retailer monthly, and Lightspeed charges nothing for launching or running the campaign.
That changes what a retailer can measure. Google Ads already offers store visit measurement, which counts visits rather than purchases. A redeemed coupon ties one Search ad to one purchase at the till, and the retailer's spend to the sales it produced.
Song framed the pilot the same way, describing it as turning online interest into store visits and clicks into customers.
The Third Offer Format in a Year
Local Coupons is the latest step in Google's push to put retailer offers inside its ads. In September 2025, Google added local offers to Demand Gen, letting retailers show in-store offers to nearby shoppers. It paired them with omnichannel bidding that optimises for total sales online, in-app and in-store.
In January 2026, Google launched Direct Offers, a Google Ads pilot that shows exclusive discounts in AI Mode under a "Sponsored deal" label. Petco, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Samsonite, Rugs USA and Shopify merchants were the first brands shaping it, and The Keyword covered the Direct Offers pilot at launch.
The same day, Google released the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that lets AI shopping agents work with retailers and payment providers. In May, at Google Marketing Live, it announced UCP checkout for Direct Offers, so shoppers could buy on the spot.
Local offersDirect OffersLocal CouponsThe reporting places Local Coupons inside the Direct Offers programme and Google's wider agentic commerce work. No Google page confirms that link. The January announcement does not mention coupons, mobile wallets or point-of-sale systems.
What Google Has Not Said
The size of the pilot, the retailers taking part and a date for a wider rollout have not been published. The scope has: Lightspeed describes the integration as a closed early pilot available to select accounts in the United States, in United States English only, and lists one prerequisite Google has not published anywhere itself, a verified Google Business Profile whose address and business details match those held in the retailer's point-of-sale account.
Until Google documents Local Coupons on its own pages, advertisers have a description of the billing model but not its terms.
Recap
What is Google Local Coupons?
Local Coupons is a Google Search ads pilot that shows nearby shoppers a discount from a local retailer. Selin Song, Google's vice president of Customer Solutions, described it in a LinkedIn post on 8 October 2026. Google has not yet published a page about it.
How does a shopper use a Local Coupon?
According to reporting on the pilot, the shopper saves the coupon to their phone's mobile wallet and shows it at the register. The cashier scans its barcode through a point-of-sale system such as Clover or Lightspeed, which checks it so it cannot be reused.
What does Local Coupons change for retailers?
Retailers reportedly pay only when a customer redeems the coupon at checkout. That ties the ad cost to a completed in-store purchase rather than a click or a store visit, though Google has not published the price per redemption.