Why UPC Codes are Crucial for Google Smart Shopping
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- What is Smart Shopping?
- The Power of Smart Shopping
- The Importance of UPC Codes
- What are UPC Codes?
- How Google Uses UPC Codes
- Creating UPC Codes for Your Products
- Best Practices for UPC Codes
- Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Conclusion
The Power of Smart Shopping and the Importance of UPC Codes
If you're an ecommerce store owner, you've probably heard of Smart Shopping. It's the single most powerful tool for e-commerce marketing and digital marketing in general. Smart Shopping is an AI engine built by Google that uses machine learning to find people who are likely to purchase your product and push your advertising in front of them. It's an incredibly effective way to advertise your products, but there's a critical prerequisite you need to take care of before you start running Smart Shopping: UPC codes.
What is Smart Shopping?
Smart Shopping is a tool that allows you to advertise your products on Google's search engine, Google Shopping, and the Google Display Network. It uses machine learning to find people who are likely to purchase your product and push your advertising in front of them. Smart Shopping is incredibly effective because it uses 70 million demographic and psychographic profiling factors on every single human being on the planet, coupled with all the conversion data that Google has currently on your website, to figure out who's buying, why they're buying, and when they're buying. It then goes out and finds more people to replicate those successes.
The Power of Smart Shopping
Smart Shopping is the most effective digital advertising tool I've ever seen. It's interesting because someday Smart Shopping is going to put me out of a job. What Google has done is they've built an AI engine that will go out and find people that are likely to purchase your product and push your advertising in front of them. They're using 70 million demographic and psychographic profiling factors on every single human being on the planet, coupled with all the conversion data that they have currently on your website, in order to figure out who's buying, why they're buying, when they're buying, and then go find more people to replicate those successes. It's unbelievable, and a little scary, but it's also incredibly effective.
The Importance of UPC Codes
Before you start running Smart Shopping, you need to have UPC codes, also known as GTIN codes, for every single product in your e-commerce catalog. UPC codes are the critical prerequisite to running Smart Shopping. They're not just a small little check-the-box thing; they're the way that Google is cataloging products. Google is using UPC codes to build a web, in the background, and identify consistencies between products across all of their e-commerce marketing campaigns.
What are UPC Codes?
UPC codes are unique product identifiers that are used to identify products in the retail industry. They're also known as GTIN codes, which stands for Global Trade Item Number. UPC codes are a series of numbers that are assigned to a product and are used to identify it in the retail industry. They're the common denominator, think of it as like the social security number for each individual product.
How Google Uses UPC Codes
Google is cataloging products according to UPC codes. Google's AI engine uses UPC codes to identify all the common denominators between products. Google is still reading things like product text description titles, etc., but it's using the UPC codes in order to build a web and identify consistencies between products across all of their e-commerce marketing campaigns. If somebody else is marketing a product similar to yours and they're using the UPC code that you're using, which should be the case incidentally because UPC codes are common across products, then Google's going to know how to treat that product.
Creating UPC Codes for Your Products
You need a UPC code for every single individual product because Google is cataloging products according to UPC code. You also need a different UPC code for different variations or bundles. If you have a brand new custom product, you can create your own UPC codes, but the cautionary tale that I want to give you is don't create new UPC codes or GTIN codes if one already exists for your product. It actually doesn't help you to be unique in this instance; it hurts you. You don't want to put yourself at a disadvantage.
Best Practices for UPC Codes
Best practices dictate that every single product with every single variation has its own independent code. These codes are available publicly, and you can find them inside of a publicly accessible database. There's a site that I really like to use just because it's easy and fast, and it's called instantupccodes.com. There's also gs1.org, which will actually give you the opportunity to search for existing UPC codes. This is really expensive, and it can actually get a little overwhelming to be honest with a little confusing, but it's worth the time to invest in figuring out what my barcode is and how it applies.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
The most common mistake that people make is not having a UPC or GTIN code. This is actually going to throw an error in Google Merchant Center, and you're not going to be able to run Smart Shopping effectively. Even if you're able to run, you'll notice that the expansion that you receive is very limited. Another mistake is creating new UPC codes or GTIN codes if one already exists for your product. It actually doesn't help you to be unique in this instance; it hurts you.
Conclusion
In conclusion, UPC codes are the critical prerequisite to running Smart Shopping. They're not just a small little check-the-box thing; they're the way that Google is cataloging products. You need a UPC code for every single individual product because Google is cataloging products according to UPC code. You also need a different UPC code for different variations or bundles. Best practices dictate that every single product with every single variation has its own independent code. Invest the time in doing this, and it's going to really pay off significantly.
