There’s a deadline coming up in the wonderful world of Google Shopping. Third Door Media’s paid media reporter Ginny Marvin talked about it back in February, and you might be seeing some warnings on the Diagnostics tab in Merchant Center.
Here’s the deal: If you sell a product that has a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), you need to include that in your feed by May 16, 2016, or else those items will be disapproved.
You’re probably already including some of these, as we’ve required this from 50 brands for more than six months, and many of you have been providing GTINs for most products in your feed for years. But now you need to include it for everything that’s a new brand-name product sold by multiple merchants.
Like all of you, I have complicated emotions when it comes to deadlines. They help get things done, but they can also be a pain in the butt. There’s plenty of other stuff to do, so why is Google (my employer) forcing this change?
Because it makes things better — that’s why. We’ve seen that adding GTINs makes a variety of things better in a variety of ways. Instead of bemoaning that the deadline is approaching, I want to instead highlight why this can be a very good thing for your Shopping ads. The sooner you make this very important update to your feeds, the sooner you can start seeing those benefits yourselves.
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