You’ve been invited to a new Google Merchant Center Next (GMC Next) account, or you’ve created a new one. So now what? What are the first things you should look at within your GMC Next account?
There are four things you should look at when you first get access to the account:
- Product Alerts
- Product Protection
- Business Info
- Who Else Has Access
1. Product Alerts
You can find Product Alerts under Personal Preferences in the Settings Gear in the upper right corner. Product Alerts will send you an email if there’s been a change in the number of SKUs in your feed.
2. Product Protection
The next thing to look for is Product Protection, which is also found under the Gear but under the General Account Options. Product Protection is a way for you to prevent items from being accidentally removed from your GMC feed if they exceed the percentage that you set. The default is 40%, but I change it to 20% for most of my clients.
Here’s an example of why you would want it on: I have a client whose feed about every two weeks only has about a tenth of their products in it. Their developer cannot figure out why this happens. It’s sporadic and sometimes clears up on the next feed submission or sometimes takes a day or two. If I did not have Product Protection turned on, more than 12,000 SKUs would disappear from the feed, which would cause major issues for our Shopping and Performance Max (PMax) campaigns on both Google and Microsoft (as we use the GMC import function to bring the feed into Microsoft).
If you turn on Product Protection and have an instance where you really did want to remove the items because you discontinued a large amount or you are removing a brand, for example, Google lets you manually remove those items.
3. Business Info
In the left-hand navigation, you’ll see Business Info. This is where you go to verify and claim a website. It’s also important to add business details like your address and customer service contacts, as well as logos and approved colors, which helps with shopping ads and the knowledge panel.
The hardest thing to do here is add logos. Google is very particular about the sizes and types of logos here. For the square logo, it’s recommended to use the Favicon in a 1:1 ratio with a minimum of 500×500 to a max of 2000×2000 in PNG, SVG, or WEBP formats.
The rectangle is a 2:1 ratio, with a minimum of 1000×500 to a maximum of 2000×1000 PNG, SVG, or WEBP formats.
And this is also where you can also add the ability for people to BUY NOW while in the free listings by adding a link to your cart or checkout page. You’ll add that under the Checkout section.
4. Who Else Has Access
Lastly, it pays to check and see who still has access to the GMC Next account if you’ve been added by someone else to an existing account. That’s found under the Gear at People and Access. I can’t tell you how many accounts I still have access to that I no longer manage because no one has removed me.
Going through these four steps should not take that long and is good account hygiene when you’re just starting a GMC Next account or have been added to one that you’ll now be responsible for. You may never receive a Product Alert email or have Product Protection kick in, but you’ll be glad it’s there if you need it. Checking your business info and who else has access can improve your results and protect your account.
