Google Shopping Updates to GTINs and MPNs
In the world of Google Shopping campaigns, Missing GTINs and MPNs in your product feed used to mean mass product disapprovals in your Google Merchant Center (GMC) account but the rules around these Unique Product Identifiers in GMC have changed.
Find out which countries are affected, the details of the update and how Google’s new rules will impact your shopping campaigns.
What’s the change?
Google Merchant Centre has updated its policy regarding Unique Product Identifiers (UPIs). Common product identifiers include Global Trade International Number (GTIN), Manufacturer Part Number (MPN) and Brand Names are all affected.
How do you fix the “Limited performance due to missing identifiers including MPN, GTIN and brand”?
Google states in its announcement:
“Items missing required UPIs will no longer be disapproved. These items will now be eligible to serve in Shopping ads. However, similar items with correct UPIs will receive higher priority to items that do not have correct UPIs.All items will continue to serve, but the performance of items without correct UPIs may be limited. Make sure to provide the correct UPIs to maximize the performance of your items. Items for which the idenfitier_exists attribute is incorrectly set to “false” and for which there is evidence that a UPI exists will be disapproved.
If the same GTIN is used across multiple different products, the items will be considered ambiguous and will be disapproved.”
For step-by-step instructions on how to troubleshoot this issue go to Google Support.
To offload this task to a highly skilled Product Feed Management company contact Highstreet.io to manage your product feed and GMC issues.
Countries affected
Google Shopping sellers from the following countries will be affected by this update.
- Australia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Canada
- Czechia
- India
- Denmark
- France
- Germany
- Italy
- Japan
- Mexico
- the Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Russia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Turkey
- United Kingdom
- United States
What does this mean?
This is great news for retailers who have trouble sourcing the GTINs or MPNs for the products they sell.
While their Product Listing Ad (PLA) performance may suffer compared to their competitors with the correct GTINs, they won’t be completely locked out of Google Shopping through product disapprovals anymore.
How to Maximize your Product Exposure
The advice from Google on including all your Unique Product Identifiers in your product data is very similar to what it was before their latest update.
Google provided the following guidance on how to maximize your product exposure.
“Be sure to submit correct GTINs, MPNs, and corresponding brands for all new in-stock products. This will improve the richness and relevancy of the ads we show to potential customers. Contact your manufacturer to request the correct UPI for your products.”
Read Google Merchant Centre’s full announcement regarding new shipping rules.
Next Steps
If you need to ask questions or get more information on GMC product identifiers, contact Highstreet.io to get help.
To get more in-depth information on how to optimize your feeds download our Google Shopping Feed Optimization Guide.