GTINs are a crucial part of eCommerce, but using them incorrectly can have serious consequences for your business. In this quick guide on using Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) in Google Shopping, John dives into the dark side of GTINs and shows you how to avoid the common pitfalls.

He also explains how using the same GTIN on Amazon and Google Shopping can benefit your business and when using SKUs instead is better.

Whether you're a business owner or a Google Ads agency owner, this episode can give you the knowledge you need to use GTINs effectively.

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🛒 Learn About GTINs for Google Ads With Shane Morris of GS1 US: https://youtu.be/j67Xq4GUnjM

0:00 Intro | The Dark Side of GTINs: How They Can Harm Your Business

0:32 Guide to Using GTINs in Google Shopping

4:18 When not to use GTINs

8:22 Benefits of using SKUs

12:33 Using the same GTIN on Amazon and Google Shopping

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The next part that actually is really important and really dangerous

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

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

gonna give you that immediate traffic.

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

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

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

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

I'm gonna ignore it for now.

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

we covered the product type.

The next part that actually is really important for and really

dangerous at the same time is G T I N.

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

Identification number or Global something.

I forget the exact acronym.

Lemme actually Google that.

Someone else is gonna be smart than me.

Global Trade Item number.

That's what it was.

Thank you Anil.

You're smarter than me here.

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

trade item number is the U P C.

It's a barcode, it's everything.

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

eight, it doesn't matter.

It's gonna have the same barcode.

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

It's global.

It could be sold anywhere in the world.

Google knows this and it leverages it for you and against

you, depending upon scenario.

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

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

we put the G T I N number in there.

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

across four and seven different platforms on 387 different sites.

Got it.

Here's some traffic.

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

Don't give it a G T I n.

we're not gonna get traffic.

Google hasn't identified it.

You put Nike in that title.

All right.

Nike shoes.

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

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

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

That's how Google choose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

is and it sees the traffic on Amazon.

Why They have analytics on Amazon.

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

Amazon runs Google ads, they.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

didn't buy off that website.

What about you?

Will they buy that product off of your website?

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

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

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

and awareness on a product.

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

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

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

the same exact product that I do.

And with ai, automatic targeting.

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

and my website, go after them.

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

So I'm okay sometimes.

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

I don't think they have G tns.

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

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

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

It's not gonna do anything for you.

It's not gonna help you get.

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

and we start to scale up and spend.

But it can only hurt at this time.

It cannot help when you're bigger.

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

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

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

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

audiences to products that could see those audiences are interested to

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

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

have, they have a brand name on there.

The brand is popular, other competitors.

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

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

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

We would like some, please.

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

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

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

Any questions there yet?

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

don't know what G T I N is.

Just put s q U in there.

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

But my question is this.

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

has been some certain scenarios that.

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

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

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

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

No.

Good.

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

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

The Nike Air Jordan model 70.

. Got it.

What's the g t n of that?

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

No, it's 5 6 2 invalid.

G T n disapproved.

It's blank.

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

able to match some more people to you.

Okay.

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

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

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

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

GS one to the global number for that?

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

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

No.

Will it hurt you if anybody else pops up?

Also resell the same item?

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

they're gonna steal some of your traffic.

They'll just.

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

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

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

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

All right.

Thank you so much Sorry.

I don't have a question.

Actually.

I want to share something.

Just what you just said, like instead.

IDs like the Shopify underscore us.

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

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

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

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

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

many advantages, but yeah.

Yeah.

Big covers.

The cover shop file, all the good stuff.

Yep.

you're a hundred percent right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh.

, what does that look like at feed?

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

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

But yeah, I would agree.

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

worth of Shopify US data.

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

tool, import a change all the titles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

removed or changed the product.

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

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

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

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

default is not use that sku.

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

remember the ID has to be your sku.

And hopefully you don't get fired.

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

so it's a little bit riskier.

Mm-hmm.

I think it's better.

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

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

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

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

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

that gets told anything happened.

Yeah.

it might be a little bit challenging.

Mm-hmm.

. we have to count for that.

Hundred percent agree.

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

changes a hundred percent, yeah.

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

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

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

Okay.

Carmen has the question.

Can we hold the question?

Oh, no.

Wait, wait.

Oh, I got it.

Carmen now wouldn't need to Unless that private label

also wants to sell on Amazon.

And in that case, yes.

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

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

I also like to get a shop.

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

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

They have to go buy one.

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

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