Marketing methods (previously known as Destinations) refer to how and where your products are shown on Google to potential customers. After your product data is uploaded to Merchant Center, you can use marketing methods to control how your products can be shown to customers across Google or shared with other Google platforms.
The marketing methods are grouped into 3 broad categories:
- For online store:
- For physical stores:
- Others
- Cloud Retail
- Local Cloud Retail
In different sections across your Merchant Center account, you can view and manage how your products can be shown using different marketing methods. You can also filter the list of products by marketing method in the “All products” tab or “Needs attention” tab.
On this page
- How to enable and disable marketing methods
- Choose how you want Google to show your products by selecting marketing methods
- Manage marketing methods
- Filter and view your marketing methods
How to enable and disable marketing methods
Some marketing methods, like free listings and Shopping ads are enabled on your account during onboarding. You can enable the other add-ons by navigating to the “Add-ons” section from the Settings & tools icon in Merchant Center.
Marketing methods can be disabled on your account by removing them from the “Your add-ons” tab on the “Add-ons“ section. In case of free listings and Shopping ads, go to their dedicated pages in your account to disable them.
Choose how you want Google to show your products by selecting marketing methods
When you are creating a new product data source, you can select the marketing methods for the products of that data source, regardless of the type of data source (file, API, autofeed, or manually uploaded products). Products inherit marketing methods from the data source that creates them.
You can also select the marketing methods for the products that you are adding one by one manually in Merchant Center.
After you have selected marketing methods for your products, some marketing methods (for example, Shopping ads) require you to set up campaigns so that your products show on Google. Other marketing methods like free listings will start showing for products without further actions after marketing methods are selected for those products and product review is done.
Manage marketing methods for your products
There are 3 ways to modify marketing methods for your products to change how your products are shown on Google.
- By editing marketing methods in data source settings in Merchant Center
In your Merchant Center account, click on the Settings & tools icon
.
Select Data sources.
Under the “Product sources” tab, select a product data source.
Select Your setup tab and click on the pencil icon
across the “Marketing methods” field.
Select which marketing method you’d like to add or remove for products of a selected data source.
Click Save. Products of updated feed are now able to show products according to the saved marketing methods.
- By including or excluding a marketing method for a particular product
If you'd like to exclude some marketing method for a particular product, you can use the excluded destination
[excluded_destination] attribute to hide it on a product level. You may also choose to specifically include certain products that would otherwise be excluded based on your data source settings by using the included destination [included_destination] attribute.
- By editing in Merchant Center products added earlier one by one
Filter and view your marketing methods
Filter products using the product list
In the left navigation menu of your Merchant Center account, select Products.
Under the “All products” tab, click on the filter icon
above the table.
Choose Marketing methods filter.
Select which marketing method you’d like to filter your products for.
Click Apply. You are now able to view the products showing according to the marketing methods.
Filter products on the “Needs attention” page
In the left navigation menu of your Merchant Center account, select Products.
Under the “Needs attention” tab, click on the “Marketing methods” filter.
Select which marketing method you’d like to filter your products for.
Click Apply. You are now able to view the products showing according to the marketing methods.
View marketing methods from “Product details” page
In the left navigation menu of your Merchant Center account, select Products.
Under the “All products” tab, select a product.
Under the “Product details” tab, you can view the marketing methods that product is intended for.