Get the most important digital marketing news each day.

Note: By submitting this form, you agree to Third Door Media's terms. We respect your privacy.

Google Launches Manufacturer Center To Standardize Product Data

Includes analytics to show manufacturers how their products compare on search compared to competing products.

Ginny Marvin on July 21, 2015 at 3:20 pm

Google has announced the launch of Manufacturer Center to help standardize product data across its systems and provide original manufacturers with a more Amazon-like data experience.

In another step towards creating a comprehensive catalog of products people can buy online — and ensure that descriptions, images and price comparisons are accurate on Google Shopping — the new Google Manufacturer Center is a tool for original manufacturers to upload their product data for use in product listing ads across Google.

Before it became a paid platform, Google Shopping was basically the Wild West of product data accuracy and consistency. But Google recognizes that data accuracy is key to competing with Amazon and other marketplaces in product search and discovery, which is why it has been steadily enforcing standardized data for the millions of products to make product search and discovery a more rewarding, less frustrating experience for users.

This new data center puts the control back in the hands of brands and manufacturers and gives Google a central product data repository.

New Product-Level Analytics

In exchange for giving Google product details, a new analytics dashboard in Manufacturer Center provides reporting on product visibility that hasn’t been available before. For example, they’ll learn how many times their products appear on Google within a given time frame and how many times shoppers click on their products versus competing products in their category.

That’s similar to the kind of cross-platform data manufacturers can see in Amazon’s Vendor Central.

The dashboard also provides product data optimization tips for improving visibility.

Reworking manufacturer product descriptions and uploading unique images to stand out from the crowd has been a retail staple for search marketers. We could be getting closer to a time where descriptive differentiation matters much less — at least on the ads side — and retailers will have to differentiate themselves more on price, service and other offers. Or perhaps Google will adopt an internal ID convention similar to Amazon’s ASIN numbers to make it easier for users to find and compare the items they’re searching for across multiple retailers.

Manufacturers can help ensure their products have accurate and complete feature details when listed by Google and other sellers in search ads, by sharing all of this data with Google. If you’re interested in participating in Manufacturer Center, complete the interest form, and Google will follow up with you.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media's Editor-in-Chief, managing day-to-day editorial operations across all of our publications. Ginny writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, she has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.