Enhancing Google Cloud Marketplace private offers for speed and scale

Google Cloud partners who offer their services through the Google Cloud Marketplace know that the marketplace model delivers a lot of benefits to their customers. Specifically, transacting using the Google Cloud Marketplace allows organizations to take advantage of flexible billing models and counts towards Google Cloud committed spend. All spend on solutions purchased from Google Cloud Marketplace are added into customers’ existing Google Cloud invoice, so they receive just one bill from Google.

Google Cloud Marketplace also supports private offers, which allow partners to transact privately negotiated deals with customers. Today, we are excited to announce updates to private offers that provide a more user-friendly and efficient configuration experience, with new features for creating and managing private offers that are more flexible than ever.

Private offer redesign

The private offers experience for partners has a new look and feel that simplifies configuration.

It is now easier for partners to create new offers and progressively update them as a deal matures. Key changes to deals are reflected in the new right-hand summary and sectional cards, which use clear iconography to denote completion status for each section of the offer, and provide a single-page view for visibility of all aspects of the offer using a card-based layout. The interconnected, card-based single-page layout provides an intuitive view of all aspects of the offer, replacing the previous step-by-step version. This new design retains support for existing features like subscriptions and installments and will make deal negotiations more streamlined for everyone involved in the deal process.

Deal negotiations commonly require extensive back and forth communication between partners, customers and internal communication with their respective teams. With the newly redesigned offers and enhanced features, we are simplifying this process. In addition to the enhanced flexibility of the card-based view, partners can now fill in information in any order, facilitating on-the-go collaboration with customers versus pre-collecting all details. These updates provide a more efficient experience for creating and managing private deals, allowing for improved customization of deal mechanisms.

Seven new features

Beyond the updates to the configuration experience, we’re announcing seven new features to help make private offers more flexible for your organization and your customers:

1. 5 years billed annually: We now offer 5-year contracts with the flexibility to choose annual or less frequent billing cycles. This extended contract duration allows for better financial planning and management by providing a longer-term view of your organization's expenses.

2. Commitment rollover and free credits: When authoring private offers, you can now configure whether unused commitments can roll over between installments or expire at the end of each installment. Additionally, you have the ability to provide bonus credits to customers free of charge. This feature empowers your organization to define commitment rollover policies and reward your customers with additional benefits.

3. Metric discounts: During the offer creation process, you can set discounts to individual metrics of your product, enabling you to negotiate more precisely on specific deal parameters.

4. Scheduled purchases: We now offer the ability to schedule offers to start on a future date. This feature allows you to negotiate deals at a more flexible time, ensuring that the timing aligns with your organization's requirements and strategies.

5. Key events widget: As the number of participants and stakeholders in Marketplace transactions continues to grow, it is crucial to have traceability and transparency in the purchase decision-making process. The ‘key events widget’ provides stakeholders with visibility into state changes and the actions taken by different individuals, such as editing, amending, approving, canceling, archiving, or publishing a URL for a private offer — further enhancing collaboration and accountability within your organization.

6. PDF downloads: You can now download a complete copy of a private offer, including EULA and the notes sections. The downloaded PDF makes it easy to share private offer details between Google Cloud and your teams. This feature aims to help partners obtain approvals and document purchases for audit and revenue recognition purposes, while also helping customers swiftly accept legal terms and reconcile their purchases.

7. Notifications: To ensure that customers stay informed throughout their subscription, we’ve implemented a purchase lifecycle notification system. Customers will now receive emails for important events such as purchase confirmation, enabling or disabling auto-renewal, and approaching subscription expiration. They will also receive timely reminders one day, 30, or 60 days before their subscription ends or their order is renewed. These notifications enhance the customer experience and facilitate smoother subscription management.

Stay tuned

With redesigned configuration flows, expanded deal flexibility, and new collaboration features, private offers on Google Cloud Marketplace are now more powerful than ever. Organizations can craft customized deals, align to their business needs, and simplify purchase workflows. The transparency, notifications, and seamless billing also create a frictionless experience for customers.

If you're ready to unlock the advantages of private offers, visit the Google Cloud Marketplace to get started today. Configure customized deals, attract new customers, and grow revenue on one unified platform and partner with Google Cloud Marketplace to transform your go-to-market motion. Here are some short videos to get you started with the new private offer interface discussed above:

• Accepting and Managing Private Offers
• Reviewing and Accepting Amended Private Offers