May 09, 2016 Industry news
All new branded products must include the manufacturer’s GTIN - where it already exists - for Google Shopping ads
If your Google Shopping listings are for brand-name products, sold by multiple merchants, you need to check the manufacturer’s GTIN has been included in the product data feed in your merchant centre account.
This applies if your ads target the UK, Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, or the US.
So if you sell new, brand-name products sold by multiple merchants – you almost certainly are going to be impacted.
What happens on 16 May?
On 16 May Google is going to start enforcing the requirement for GTINs on Product Listing Ads (PLA). This means that if your listings aren’t up to scratch, they’ll start to be disapproved and no longer feature in the Google Shopping results.
How do you know which products require a GTIN?
When you login to your merchant centre account, in the diagnostics tab if you see a ‘Missing GTIN’ or ‘Invalid GTIN’ message you should make sure you update these products with the product’s correct GTIN.
What if I don’t see a warning message?
If you sell used, custom, handmade, or vintage products, this change won't impact you. But your ad’s performance can still be improved by adding GTINs to your product data where they're available.
If you do sell branded products, you may want to check with your supplier (or your product's packaging) to see if it has a GTIN. Google has stated that this requirement is for products that already have GTINs.
Important: Do not make up a GTIN as a placeholder or use the same one for multiple products that are different. Google’s systems will detect this and disapprove your offers.
Read more about this on the Google Merchant Center Help website
Related
Five reasons why GTIN should be your new favourite Google Shopping acronym
Deep dive on Google Shopping’s bigger, richer more accurate ad listings