The Dark Side of GTINs: How They Can Harm Your Business

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The next part that actually is really important and really dangerous

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at the same time as G T I N, when you're talking about G T N, the way it

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can help you is if you're reselling a product that already has A G T I N, it's

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gonna give you that immediate traffic.

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If you're the manufacturer, it can hurt you.

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But if you don't have a G T I N and the product isn't known to Google

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because they're the manufacturer, and Google's like, I don't know

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what this is, I don't know, G T I.

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I'm gonna ignore it for now.

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The, we've covered the title, we covered the description,

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we covered the product type.

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The next part that actually is really important for and really

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dangerous at the same time is G T I N.

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So for everyone that doesn't know what G T I N I think Stands for, like Global Tag

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Identification number or Global something.

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I forget the exact acronym.

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Lemme actually Google that.

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Someone else is gonna be smart than me.

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Global Trade Item number.

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That's what it was.

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Thank you Anil.

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You're smarter than me here.

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I always say Global Tag isn't just a Google tag, But anyway, the global

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trade item number is the U P C.

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It's a barcode, it's everything.

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It's you put a product in Walgreens, Walmart, cvs, red

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eight, it doesn't matter.

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It's gonna have the same barcode.

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It's the same product, it's the same package.

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It's global.

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It could be sold anywhere in the world.

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Google knows this and it leverages it for you and against

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you, depending upon scenario.

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What I mean by this is if we take a product like a Nike, and we put a

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product at like a Nike shoe inside of a Google Merchant Center, and

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we put the G T I N number in there.

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Google says, oh, , the Nike shoe that 472,000 people looked at yesterday

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across four and seven different platforms on 387 different sites.

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Got it.

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Here's some traffic.

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Now, if we place the Nike shoe on our website, don't put Nike in town.

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Don't give it a G T I n.

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we're not gonna get traffic.

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Google hasn't identified it.

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You put Nike in that title.

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All right.

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Nike shoes.

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You put the G T I N number, you're gonna get the Nike product and descriptor

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search terms cuz Google knows it catalogs a product based on the G T

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I N number and other users previous historical activity to then target.

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That's how Google choose.

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Well, one of the ways that we will choose as audiences.

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The reason why the products kick off so well instead of Google when

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the product's already been on Amazon is because Amazon requires you to

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have a G T I N and Google can see that it knows the product's G T I N.

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So Amazon traffic, looking at a product, you can pretty much jumpstart inside of

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a shopping or performance max campaign because Google knows what that product

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is and it sees the traffic on Amazon.

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Why They have analytics on Amazon.

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They're running Google ads on Amazon for the G T I N product.

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Amazon runs Google ads, they.

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So when you're talking about G T N, the way it can help you is if you're reselling

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a product that already has A G T I N, it's gonna give you that immediate traffic.

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If you're the manufacturer, it can hurt you because if you put the G T

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I N on your product and you're the manufacturer, you bought a US or GS

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one G T I N, and you stuck it on your product, and if other people also wanna

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sell the product, any money that you're spending driving traffic to your.

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is also cataloged as a user that Google can say, well, they

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didn't buy off that website.

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What about you?

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Will they buy that product off of your website?

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And now the traffic you're generating yourself is also being targeted by your

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competitors' distributors, also selling your product with the same G T I N.

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So you're spending hard earned cold cash to generate this demand

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and awareness on a product.

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other people are also now targeting that cold traffic that you've generated.

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So as a manufacturer, you leave yourself open to telling your

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competitors or your shooters, Hey, you're also running product ads on

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the same exact product that I do.

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And with ai, automatic targeting.

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Here's all the people that are interested in my product

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and my website, go after them.

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That's what Google is essentially doing under to have.

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So I'm okay sometimes.

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I think I did this with the t infuser company that we have.

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I don't think they have G tns.

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I'm like, don't add it, just don't put it on there.

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If you start to get bigger and bigger, bigger, then it's something, but

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it's right now, don't necessarily put the G TNS on her just yet.

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It's not gonna do anything for you.

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It's not gonna help you get.

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It will start to help later on as we start to establish more of a brand

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and we start to scale up and spend.

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But it can only hurt at this time.

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It cannot help when you're bigger.

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It can help and, and it can hurt it's a even playing field, fine,

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but it wasn't gonna help the client achieve anything at a lower spend.

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It's just gonna build a catalog for the competitors to scope up later on.

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So G tns aren't good, but what GNS are used for is, again, matching

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audiences to products that could see those audiences are interested to

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online on the Chrome browser, on Amazon competitor sites, if you do have a

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client that sells those products, like the Tungston Marine Company that we

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have, they have a brand name on there.

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The brand is popular, other competitors.

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If we didn't have G TNS on there, we can't take advantage of all the traffic that

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Google already knows that is interested in that G T I N product because we

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haven't told Google, Hey, we also have that product, send traffic our way.

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We would like some, please.

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So that's something that we would say is, a good way to kind of jumpstart

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a campaign if you also have that product that there is competitive

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search traffic for, or you're going up against the manufacturer for placement.

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Any questions there yet?

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so regarding G T I N I see all the time that some of our clients

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don't know what G T I N is.

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Just put s q U in there.

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once we onboard the client, we already have the S Q U in place.

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But my question is this.

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Let's say we have this client that used S Q U instead of G T N and there

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has been some certain scenarios that.

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I wish I had the option to change product ID because I've been repeatedly

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told do not change the product ID that all the past data lies within.

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It will Google store that product data Al also in that fake G T I N.

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I'm just gonna put it on course because it's not an actual G T N.

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No.

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Good.

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I'm actually surprised that they haven't actually gotten more disapprovals.

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What Google will do is saying, what is your product?

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The Nike Air Jordan model 70.

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. Got it.

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What's the g t n of that?

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It better be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

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No, it's 5 6 2 invalid.

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G T n disapproved.

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It's blank.

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You're missing out on performance because if you put it in there, I'm

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able to match some more people to you.

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Okay.

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But if you don't have a G T N and the product isn't known to Google

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because they're the manufacturer and goes like, I don't know what this is.

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I don't know, G t I n, I'm gonna ignore it for.

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. So when you update that GTA and Google's gonna recheck, say, is there

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GS one to the global number for that?

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And if that is matched, then that is what catalogs it again.

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Does it help you if you're the manufacturer just starting out?

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No.

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Will it hurt you if anybody else pops up?

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Also resell the same item?

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You should already have a kind of a relationship with 'em anyway, so yeah,

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they're gonna steal some of your traffic.

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They'll just.

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. So it, it allows 'em to steal more if they do decide, start signing up distributors.

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But if there's a fake number in there and they never actually purchased

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a GS one and they're, it's a, product that's not known by Google.

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Google's like, ah, I just ignored, they don't really help or hurt.

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All right.

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Thank you so much Sorry.

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I don't have a question.

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Actually.

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I want to share something.

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Just what you just said, like instead.

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IDs like the Shopify underscore us.

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I think we should use SKU because I read somewhere, let's say a client

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wants to move from like big commerce to Shopify, then all of our item IDs

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will get changed because it'll go from like item IDs to like Shopify inco us.

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So if we are using SQ use instead of like those IDs, then our data will be.

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So, right, we can easily move to another platform There are

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many advantages, but yeah.

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Yeah.

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Big covers.

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The cover shop file, all the good stuff.

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Yep.

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you're a hundred percent right.

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I've had clients that were like, Hey, I'd like to move from here to here.

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It's like, okay, we need data feed Watch first.

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Cause we need to import what the feed's gonna look like on your beta site.

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We're gonna change all the item IDs so that this way when it

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gets live inside the feed instead of Google to inside of Google.

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All of my e-com product IDs aren't marketing at different product that is no

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longer on on your site because it's like, all right, let's remarket Shopify US 1 23.

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Oh.

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, what does that look like at feed?

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Actually that's now 27 60 as a skew like, well, that doesn't match.

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And so all of your dynamic remarking goes out the window.

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But yeah, I would agree.

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I hate taking on clients that are already had like a year's

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worth of Shopify US data.

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It's like the only way to fix that is you have to take down dfw, another feed twice

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tool, import a change all the titles.

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Then you can push the GM C cuz now they match.

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Do, do you think uh, whenever, right now, let's say if we are creating a

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new feed for a new account, should we make an s o p to go with like sqs?

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Yeah, the only thing I would say is, a little issue there is the client's.

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Activities on the site or other people that they may not have

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brought this up to speed activities on the site could change that.

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They're like, oh yeah, it changed this in a new product.

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Well now, it's a Shopify us, it's no longer a skew.

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It's the default one that Shopify gave them when they added it

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removed or changed the product.

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So those things like it, it takes as much time, effort, and energy

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to monitor to make sure they're not screwing it up on their end as it

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does to also teach them to not do that or to teach them the right way to.

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because what Shopify or Big Recovery is gonna try to do by

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default is not use that sku.

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So we have say, if you ever change, edit, remove any product, just

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remember the ID has to be your sku.

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And hopefully you don't get fired.

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And I have to teach the next person that comes here.

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so it's a little bit riskier.

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Mm-hmm.

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I think it's better.

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but where now the onus is on us if it fails.

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And that's what I don't like at scale.

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So if we wanted to have like an s o p to also check that there's no

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new excuse coming in or no, no item IDs coming in that the client hasn't

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told us about, which we're always the last person on the checklist

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that gets told anything happened.

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Yeah.

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it might be a little bit challenging.

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Mm-hmm.

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. we have to count for that.

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Hundred percent agree.

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If we, in a perfect world where, where they didn't make

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changes a hundred percent, yeah.

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It gives 'em such a big freedom because Shopify's not gonna be around forever.

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There's gonna be someone that comes in, eat their lunch.

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It might be five years from now, but that day's gonna happen.

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Okay.

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Carmen has the question.

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Can we hold the question?

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Oh, no.

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Wait, wait.

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Oh, I got it.

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Carmen now wouldn't need to Unless that private label

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also wants to sell on Amazon.

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And in that case, yes.

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So if they say, Hey, I manufactured my own product.

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Do you have a GT N no, I have my own product.

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I also like to get a shop.

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Or I get on Amazon, and then they try to go on Amazon.

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Amazon says, you are not allowed here without a G T I N period.

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They have to go buy one.

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If they buy one and they use it on Amazon, then we use it on our

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site because now we're gonna share organic traffic from Amazon in