Today in Digital Marketing - What’s “Next” for Google Merchant Center

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Wednesday, February 14th. Today, Google is removing Merchant Center and replacing it with a new simplified version. What it means for your marketing campaigns. Also, European influencers walk a dangerous line. The mystery of the spacing button in Google Ads is solved. And the chaos a single zero can make. I'm Todd Maffin. That's Ahead, today in digital marketing.

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Starting point is 00:00:51 Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen.

Starting point is 00:01:29 Google is making some big changes to one of its biggest marketing platforms. And with me to give you the lowdown, our Google Ads correspondent, Jill Saskengales. Jill spent six years at Google and today runs Inside Google Ads, a fantastic Google Ads training program. Jill, so this is we're talking about Google Merchant Center here. Before we get into the changes, can you remind me, what is the difference between Google Merchant Center and Google Ads? Like who would use Merchant Center? Google Merchant Center is for people who sell products.

Starting point is 00:02:02 So if you sell any kind of product, t-shirts, jeans, even software, mostly physical products, though there can be some digital ones as well, Merchant Center is the part of Google that you connect to your website so it can understand, you know, how much your products cost, your shipping information, pictures of them, etc. And then it can share that information with other Google products like Google Ads. So Google Ads is the advertising platform. And in order to run shopping ads or dynamic remarketing, you would need to connect Google Ads to Google Merchant Center. And Google Merchant Center is in turn connected to your website. Gotcha. Okay, so it's essentially your product catalog

Starting point is 00:02:41 that has pipes out the back that can connect to Google Ads and other platforms. Exactly. So typically the person who would use Google Merchant Center is whoever's setting up your website or working on kind of the technical implementation. They would set up your feed, as it's called, that, you know, live repository of information from your website. But about a year ago at GML, Google announced Google Merchant Center Next, kind of a new simplified, snazzier version of Google Merchant Center. And with that, we're now seeing some more features coming into Google Merchant Center that make it useful for marketers and just not for the people who are implementing the feed. I'm always nervous whenever these platforms say that they're coming out with a new version because they want to simplify it. And usually that usually simplify

Starting point is 00:03:28 means take away tools that you were once relying on. But is that what's happening here? What is actually new in this new version of Google Merchant Center? Well, so far, simplify has actually meant that Google Merchant Center next is more user friendly, more simple to understand what you need to do. But the new features that have launched now are exciting because it's giving you a lot more insight about your products and about your category. Like, for example, one of the things you can see in Google Merchant Center now, let's say that you carry products from other brands. I don't know, you're a clothing store and you stock like 100 different brands, it'll tell you if there are popular products that people are searching for on Google from one of the brands you carry, but you just don't stock that specific product. Like a really cool insight that I don't know how you could find anywhere else. Or it'll tell you if your prices are competitive. It'll say, you know, for this item, you know,

Starting point is 00:04:19 your price is $33, but the average price on Google is actually $22. So that could be the reason why you're not selling so much of that. We recommend being more competitive. So lots of little insights all about your industry and products right there in Merchant Center, which is really helpful. It's information you couldn't really get elsewhere. But it's not like going to use AI to change your prices in your catalog without you knowing it or any weird shenanigans like that? No, I mean, I wouldn't rule it out from happening one day. But no, at this point, there's no AI in Google Merchant Center. And they're not making any changes. They're more just surfacing insights. And this feels like an expansion of something that launched about a year ago, maybe a little more than that. The shopping experience scorecard. And that's also something

Starting point is 00:05:05 in Google Merchant Center where it will tell you, you know, your shipping times, how they compare to your industry, your shipping prices, your return policies, but also things like how your browsing experience compares to others in your industry, looking at like the resolution of your images and how many images you have per product. So really trying to help you create a better user experience so that you can make more sales, which again is pretty cool and not something historically that a pretty cut and dry tool like Merchant Center has offered. And that experience tool still exists? then you can get a little badge with your shopping listings called the Top Quality Store Badge. So it's a way for you to stand out in search results. And the way to get that is by having, you know, user-friendly return policies and fast and not expensive or free shipping and nice browsing experience on your website, mobile-friendly, all that good stuff. So then do we have two different versions of Merchant Center now? Do

Starting point is 00:06:05 we have Google Merchant Center and Google Merchant Center Next running simultaneously? We do. And I actually took a peek through my work. I have access to like six or seven different Merchant Center accounts. So I took a peek through them. And right now, six of them are on Google Merchant Center. And one of them is on Google Merchant Center Next. I could not see a rhyme or reason to why that account happened to be Google Merchant Center Next, but Google has been telling us for nearly a year now that Next is the new experience. And comparing them side by side, like similar or same functionality in both, but the user interface in Next is much simpler and more intuitive. So at least in this instance, the simplifying of Google Merchants Center Next means to actually mean simplifying and not deprecating. I see. So this is so this is a this isn't something that marketers will have to decide which version we're going to.

Starting point is 00:06:57 This is sort of if I understand it right, more akin to the Google Analytics change, which we were all on UA. There was a GA4 version and Google would just move you over. It's not like you had to pick which one you wanted to go with and both operated at the same time independently. Right. Although with Google Analytics, you could choose to move to GA4 early and you still had to set up your property. Whereas with Google Merchant Center Next, you'll just be migrated at some point if you haven't already. And I guess unlike the Google Analytics change, there doesn't seem to be a huge drop off in functionality when you do move over to Next. And no changes to code, pixels, website, URL, data, tracking, any of that nonsense?

Starting point is 00:07:42 There doesn't appear to be at this time, no. So on the one hand, Google is bringing more insights about your feed into Google Ads itself. That's another relatively new feature where in Google Ads, without having to go to Google Merchant Center, you can see if there's some issues with your feed that are affecting performance. And then at the same time, they're making Google Merchant Center more accessible, more user friendly, adding more insights. Really seems like trying to make it a destination for marketers in a way that it wasn't before. Right. I see. I assume you'll be talking about this with your students at length. Absolutely. This is one of the many topics we cover in my training program inside Google Ads and on my new podcast inside Google Ads as well. A podcast which you will hear on this very podcast next week. More about that later. Jill, thank you so much. Thank you. Jill Saskengales is our Google Ads correspondent.

Starting point is 00:08:27 She's here every second Wednesday. You can learn more about her Google Ads training program at our affiliate link at b.link slash g-a-training. You can also watch our full unedited interview. There is a link to it in today's newsletter, which you can sign up to for free by tapping the link in the show notes or going to today in digital.com slash newsletter. Hashtags are on their way out. That's really the only inference you can make from the changes in

Starting point is 00:08:57 our industry in the last year or so. As machine learning gets better, social platforms don't need to rely on manual tagging to understand what content should be grouped together. You don't need to tag hashtag media buying if you're talking about running campaigns on Google's platform, for instance. The site will know that's the topic. So it wasn't a huge surprise when Meta made big changes to the hashtag on threads, its Twitter competitor. For one thing, the actual hashtag, the pound sign, is gone. You can use it to indicate you are typing a hashtag, but it disappears and then just turns into what looks like a hyperlink. And, perhaps more telling, you can only use one on Thread's posts.

Starting point is 00:09:37 Well now, Meta's thinking about extending that new use to Instagram. Reports say Instagram is testing a limit of five hashtags per post. If you're in this test and you try to post more than five, you'll get a little error message prompt. This honestly is a good thing for the internet as a whole. Really too much space of a social media manager's brain is taken up with which hashtags to use and how many. It also means posts won't look quite as spammy. Most brands have settled on two or three hashtags per post. So honestly, this probably won't affect the majority of accounts. In a sweeping investigation, nearly all social media influencers in Europe have been found bending the rules.

Starting point is 00:10:22 The study was conducted for the European Commission. It looked at the posts of 576 influencers on popular social media platforms. The study found that while almost all of them were sharing commercial content, only one in five disclosed that their content was actually advertising. Quoting Adweek, this has caught the attention of European regulators, particularly in Belgium, where there's a strong push for stricter oversight. Authorities have now flagged 358 influencers for further scrutiny, signaling a broader crackdown in deceptive online marketing practices. Despite the influencers' significant, well, influence projected to drive a $24 billion industry this year, their reluctance to declare commercial ties undermines consumer trust, unquote. This is also an issue for marketers who buy the services of influencers to promote their products.

Starting point is 00:11:15 Consumer legislation around the world is still finding its legs, and it's not clear that brands who hire influencers are absolved of disclosure responsibility either. In other words, if you work with a creator, make darn sure they're following the rules, or you might face trouble too. Slack has introduced new AI features for its users, but not all users, just the ones who are paying the enterprise tier rates. It can now provide a summary of a conversation you may have missed or give you a recap of what's been happening in channels. You can also receive summaries of unread messages or messages from a specific time period. The AI tool can answer questions about projects or workspace policies mentioned in Slack.

Starting point is 00:12:01 It can also integrate with other apps like Notion and Box to provide additional information. Slack says it is still working on more tools to summarize information, a digest feature for highlights from chosen channels, and a native integration of their AI chatbot, which they call Einstein Chatbot. Slack says users' data remains private and won't be used for training the AI models. Currently, this is only available in US English and UK English, but support for other languages is coming soon. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters.

Starting point is 00:12:51 Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten and it's not just clothing and shoes you can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics holiday travel home decor and more it's super easy and before you buy anything always go to Rakuten first join free at rakutenca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Racketan app or join at Racketan.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N.ca. Some marketers this week started talking on social media about a new button they noticed

Starting point is 00:13:39 in their Google Ads interface. The button was labeled spacing. There wasn't much in the way of an announcement. What could this mean? Is this a new way to space ads out within a specific frequency, or take a budget range and distribute ads evenly on a rotating schedule, or perhaps some sort of AI control over the white space around your ad unit? No, no, and no. Turns out it's literally just the line spacing in the Google Ads Manager UI. And if you dig through Google's labyrinth of help documents, you will indeed find a new entry reading, quote, The menus take up space. We understand you need ample screen real estate to take in and act on your data, and the navigation takes up some of that space. This is in part due to the increased font size

Starting point is 00:14:25 and spacing around navigation items, which we need to ensure the accessibility for all our advertisers, unquote. So in case you've wondered where that button came from and what it does, mystery solved. Instagram is working on letting brands and creators post carousels within its vertical reels format. And yes, this too is a direct ripoff from TikTok, which has long had this.

Starting point is 00:14:50 On that app, it shows up like a vertical video, but it's a still image and you can swipe to see more photos just like you might on Instagram's feed. Carousel posts are known for performing really well, gives brands more space to tell a story, provides some opportunities for some unique creative. My favorite is when the creative is actually one long image that's broken up between frames, so people have to keep swiping to see the end of the content. Reels is Meta's fastest growing content, so if you are in the current test group for this, it might be worth trying out. And finally, what is that chirping sound anyway? Many Facebook users say they keep hearing the app chirp as they scroll through their feed.

Starting point is 00:15:35 Now we have an answer. It's a bird. No, sorry. It's a bug. Meta says they're aware of it and they're trying to fix it. And if it really, really pisses you off, you can go to settings and privacy, then settings, then media, and look for the in-app sounds section. There's a place there to toggle them all off. As bugs go, this one's pretty basic. Not like the one last year that sent friend requests to profiles that users just looked at, or the one that accidentally amplified misinformation on Facebook instead of deprioritizing it. And certainly not nearly as bad as the mistake made yesterday by the ride-sharing company Lyft. It reported financials showing their profit margin should

Starting point is 00:16:15 expand by about 500 basis points in 2024. That would be a 5% jump, amounting to about $14 billion in their case. Wall Street, of course, was elated, and the stock jumped to more than 60% in after-hours trading. Except one problem. Someone accidentally just added an extra zero. It was a typo. They meant 50 basis points, not 500.

Starting point is 00:16:41 In other words, half of 1%. After Lyft corrected its typo, the stock dropped back a little bit, though it's still up by a healthy amount today compared to earlier in the week. A handful of you came by yesterday to my live stream while I was making my miniature. This is my new hobby. I figured out why it's so darn frustrating, by the way. I found I found the reason. And the most frustrating part is trying to figure out how to put like a tiny, like a quarter drop of glue on the tiniest little scrap of paper. And I was wondering, like, like 1 divided by 32, 1.32, I guess, scale. And that's really, really tiny. And I think I meant 1.24 or 1.12, which is what most model builders do when they are trying it out. I picked the scale that is like the hardest. So if you want to hang out, listen to some 80s music or some yacht rock, which I've been playing alongside of the building of the model, just head to my Twitch channel. It is twitch.tv slash low effort

Starting point is 00:17:50 dad. See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - What’s “Next” for Google Merchant Center

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