Google Manufacturer Center is a free-to-use platform from Google that allows you to upload and manage detailed product information about branded products you own or license. This richly detailed product information can include high-quality images, titles, descriptions, and even YouTube videos. The information you share and manage in Manufacturer Center helps to improve the likelihood that someone searching for your products will find them.
But, you may ask, isn’t that similar to what you can do in Google Merchant Center?
Manufacturer Center vs. Merchant Center Feeds
A Merchant Center feed is primarily used to help a merchant specify details that aid in the sale of the product and may contain information specific to retailers. This information includes sale price, availability, product type, color, shipping information, etc. Merchant Center accounts are available to any retailer who would like to use Google to advertise the products that they sell.
A Manufacturer Center feed is primarily used by brand manufacturers to share detailed and rich product information such as product titles, descriptions, images, key features, YouTube videos, as well as other data that are not captured in a Merchant Center feed. The information submitted to Manufacturer Center is used to enrich Google’s overall product catalog.
**It is important to note that Manufacturer Center is only available to manufacturers, brand owners, and brand licensors, regardless of whether or not they sell directly to consumers.**
While it is possible for a manufacturer to participate in both Merchant Center and Manufacturer Center, the information provided via Manufacturer Center will not affect the listed retailers or the sale price of products advertised on Google via Merchant Center. If a manufacturer would like to advertise their products for sale, they can do so via their Merchant Center feed.
Details provided through Manufacturer Center help Google better understand the listed product and its defining attributes. Google uses this data to enhance the information that is available to consumers and to increase the quality of the Shopping Ads that are shown to users based on their search queries across the Google ecosystem.
Google may display the Manufacturer Center information directly to users on Google.com, the Google Shopping tab, Google Now cards, or Google Express. In addition, brands that invest in their structured data through Manufacturer Center have seen improvements in purchase conversions.
Benefits of setting up a Google Manufacturer Center:
- Receive comprehensive analytics: Review impressions, clicks, and other performance metrics against category benchmarks, and compare the impact of your products and brands on Shopping ads.
- Improve your presence on Google: Boost the prominence and discoverability of your products and their ability to attract customer interest.
- Highlight your products: Accurate and rich product content makes your products stand out on Google Search and the Shopping tab. Pictures and descriptive information are generally preferred over those provided by sellers, and a “From the Manufacturer” section can be added to enhance your product’s Google Shopping page.
Google Merchant Center and Manufacturer Center go hand-in-hand. Using both will help you to make sure that the most up-to-date and authoritative product information is loaded into Google, making it available to potential customers. Having such robust data available for your products will help drive sales and expand your brand’s reach whenever shoppers are searching and buying.
