The Google Readiness tab

Readiness is a tab inside the Google app that lists, in one place, everything Brainerce could check about your Google setup right now: your Merchant Center account, your Google Ads account, your shipping data, and whether your storefront's return policy page can actually be reached. It replaces having to open Merchant Center, Ads, and the setup wizard separately to piece together what's missing.

Where to find it

Open Apps → Google, pick your sales channel, and open the Readiness tab (next to Overview, Merchant Center, Google Ads, Analytics, and Settings). The Overview tab also lists the checks that need action, with a Review button that jumps straight to that check here.

The tab is one board, so you see every check at once. The checks are grouped into cards: Merchant Center, Google Ads, Store setup, Customer Reviews and Cart transfer. Each row has a status icon and the check's name, and checks that need attention sit at the top of their card in bold. A row does not show its explanation on the board: click a row and its details open in the panel beside the board (under the row, on a phone). The details show the status, what the check means, where the information came from and when it was last checked, plus the button or checkbox that fixes it.

Above the board, the filter buttons (All and Passed always, plus Action needed, Unknown, Not set up and Permission needed only while at least one check has that status) fade every row that does not match, so you can find one kind of check quickly. They do not hide or change anything. Click Refresh to re-run every check right now instead of waiting.

What each status means

Five statuses appear on this tab. Only one of them, Passed, means the check actually succeeded with a good result. The other four all mean something still needs your attention, even though two of them can look deceptively calm at a glance.

• Passed: the check ran and found no problem. Nothing to do.
• Action needed: the check ran and found something to fix, a missing setting, a Merchant Center issue, an unconfirmed checkbox. The row tells you what and gives you a button to fix it, either in Brainerce or on Google's own site.
• Unknown: Brainerce could not get an answer, one way or the other. This is not a softer version of "Passed." It usually means the connector could not reach Google for that particular check right now (a timeout, a Google Ads account not fully connected yet, an account still finishing setup on Google's side). A row stuck on "Unknown" is worth clicking Refresh on later; if it never resolves, something about that connection needs attention even though Brainerce can't yet say exactly what.
• Permission needed: Brainerce reached Google, but Google refused the request because the connected account doesn't currently have the access that specific check needs. This is different from "Unknown": Brainerce got a real, specific answer, and the answer was "not allowed." Reconnecting the channel, or granting the extra permission Google is asking for, usually clears it.
• Not set up: there's nothing to check yet because you haven't configured that piece. For example, the storefront reachability check shows "Not set up" until you type in a return policy page URL; it isn't judging your page, because it hasn't looked at one yet.

Do not treat "Unknown" or "Permission needed" as "probably fine." A brand-new Google Ads connection with no purchase history yet will show several rows as "Unknown" because Google genuinely has nothing to report back, and that's expected while the account is new. But an "Unknown" or "Permission needed" row on an account that's been running for a while means Brainerce is not actually able to confirm the thing that row is about, which is exactly the situation this tab exists to surface instead of hide.

What the checks cover

• Merchant Center: account-level issues Google has flagged (a single account issue can suppress your whole catalog, and the row shows its severity), and whether a return policy is configured on your Google account.
• Google Ads: whether conversion tracking is set up correctly (auto-tagging, a primary purchase goal, the risk of counting one order twice, and whether a Google Analytics 4 import exists), whether Brainerce can safely upload sales directly to Google Ads ("Direct conversion upload"), and how many purchases Google Ads can actually see, from the one purchase action Brainerce treats as primary, not a raw count of every conversion action on the account. These rows are about measuring sales. They do not check that a campaign is running.
• Shipping: whether your store has active shipping zones with countries and handling times, read from your own shipping settings.
• Your storefront: whether the return policy page URL you provide is actually reachable over HTTPS.
• Business details: your store name and logo, shown here as a preview of what's already set in Settings → Branding.
• Setup wizard confirmations: the two checkboxes from the Google setup wizard (refund policy & Terms of Service published, a contact method listed) now show up here too, and you can tick them directly on this tab instead of reopening the wizard.
• Google Customer Reviews: two separate rows, and they check two different things. One shows whether you've confirmed the opt-in for Google Customer Reviews, Google's own verified-buyer survey, not the same thing as your store's product reviews. The other checks whether the survey component has actually been added to your storefront's order-confirmation page, by looking for it directly on that page. Confirming the opt-in here does not make the survey appear on your storefront by itself; that second row is what tells you whether it actually did.
• Cart transfer: a group of rows that start with "Cart transfer:". They check the setup described in Google cart transfer: that your sales channel has a storefront address, that a sandbox key exists, that the sales channel is live (only needed for a production key), that the profile page on your own domain can be reached and is valid, that a real test cart can be built (it needs at least one published product that is in stock), and that currency, product ids and prices match what Google was told in your product feed. If the checks cannot run at all, one row says so and asks you to try again in a moment. Brainerce cannot see what you selected in Merchant Center, so it cannot confirm that part.

Every check by name

The names below are the row titles on the tab. A row also shows its source (for example Brainerce shipping, Brainerce store settings, the Brainerce setup wizard, or Google itself) and when it was last refreshed. A row can carry a button: Manage in Google opens the Google screen where the fix lives, Open settings opens the Brainerce setting, and a checkbox row can be ticked in place.

What Brainerce does not do here

• The return policy check does not read or write your policy for you. Google is the source of truth for your return policy: this tab only reads what's already configured in your Merchant Center account and links you straight to the Google screen where you manage it. Brainerce does not keep its own copy.
• The storefront reachability check is an HTTP check only. It confirms your return policy page loads over HTTPS. It is not a legal review of what the page says, and it is not Google's own approval of your policy. A "Passed" here says the page is reachable, nothing more.
• A "Passed" checkmark on this tab is never manufactured. If Brainerce could not actually perform a check or confirm an action, the row says "Unknown" or "Permission needed," never "Passed." If you ever see an action described as done that clearly didn't happen, that's a bug: contact support.

What's next?

• Get found on Google: the Merchant Center connection most of these checks read from.
• Run Google Ads campaigns: the campaign wizard's own one-time conversion tracking checks, run before you turn a campaign on.
• Shipping zones and rates: where the shipping data on this tab comes from.
• Google Customer Reviews: what the survey opt-in and embed-detection rows on this tab are actually checking, and how to add the survey to an existing store.