How Brands Benefit with Google Manufacturer Center

In case you hadn’t noticed, Google is going all-in on capturing as much of the online retailing business as it can. It’s leveraging the vast powers of its search tools to more directly benefit sellers, direct-to-consumer manufacturers and brands, as a way to increase its own brand loyalty. Google Manufacturing Center is its latest foray.

Google Manufacturer Center (GMfC) is a recently introduced free tool that helps brand manufacturers control and manage the presentation of their brand image and products on Google Shopping, Search, and other Google services.

GMfC is seen as a solution to poor-quality product content. Once registered with GMfC, brand owners and manufacturers can govern their own online brand images and identity. It allows them censorship control over any information used in their retail partners’ Shopping ads to avoid misinformation being distributed about their products.

 

 

 

Chasing Amazon’s marketplace dominance

 

GMfC is following a similar path to Amazon with its Seller Central vs Vendor Central programs, though there are differences in privileges granted. The most significant of these is that brands control their product listings and descriptions with GMfC, whereas it’s the opposite in Amazon’s Vendor Central.

Amazon has also begun messing with brands recently, creating more overall uncertainty for them in general. As Google ramps up its competition with Amazon for retail domination, this new offering gives brands another reason to consider making the leap.

 

 

 

What GMC enables for brands

 

More control over product content

It used to be the retailers who controlled how products were presented on Google. GMfC now gives brands the opportunity to create their own impressions of both their brand and its various products.

Product content submitted to Manufacturer Center is used to enrich Google’s product catalog. This data takes priority as the master source of truth over whatever was previously uploaded in Merchant Center, meaning brand manufacturers can leverage Manufacturer Center as a repository for accurate and reliable product content.

 

Decision-making tools and insights

Brands gain access through GMfC to product-level analytics and performance reports like impressions, CTR, and keywords that can help shape future product strategies.

Brands can provide detailed product information to GMfC with the keywords and bullet points they know to be most relevant. Not only will existing Shopping ads be matched to more shopper queries, but you’ll also be able to highlight the product features most sought after by customers, directly in product detail pages on Google.

 

Better conversion opportunities

More accurate and reliable product content means products are easier to discover, and ads are more relevant. Bumping up the performance of these features, Manufacturer Center can help increase overall conversion rates.

 

Improved brand loyalty

Consistent, enriched product content that can be found across all of Google’s many touchpoints means better awareness, increased trust, and improved, “top-of-mind” loyalty to the brand.

 

 

 

Impressive results so far

International home furnishings company Safavieh saw a 46% increase in impressions and a 35% increase in clicks after its initial trial period with GMfC. Consumer products maker Johnson & Johnson realized increases of 22% in impressions, and 27% in clicks. Similar double-digit improvements were seen with other early adopter brands.

 

 

 

Where Google Manufacturer Center services are available

Manufacturer Center is available for brand manufacturers of products distributed in 90+ countries around the world. Find the full list of countries here. NOTE: The requirements and functionality of Google Manufacturer Center may differ between countries.

Shoppingfeed has added Google Manufacturer Center to its list of data feed syndication partners, so if your brand is one of our clients and you’re registered in GMfC, your product data will automatically be fed correctly into GMfC ,and your brand can immediately start enjoying all of those benefits.