Google has rolled out an update to the excluded destination attribute in Google Merchant Center, allowing advertisers greater control over where their products appear. This update introduces two new exclusion options for YouTube: YouTube Affiliate and YouTube Merchandise.
What is the Excluded Destination Attribute?
The excluded destination attribute enables advertisers to prevent their products from being displayed on specific channels within Google’s advertising ecosystem. This feature is helpful for businesses that need to comply with industry regulations or wish to fine-tune their product visibility across Google’s various advertising platforms.
Advertisers can apply exclusions using:
- At source in the primary feed
- Feed rules
- Supplemental feeds
By leveraging these tools, businesses can exclude specific channels such as:
- Free Listings Free_listings
- Shopping Ads Shopping_ads
- Display Ads Display_ads
- Local Inventory Ads Local_inventory_ads
- Free Local Listings Free_local_listings
- Cloud Retail cloud_retail
- Local Cloud Retail local_cloud_retail
This feature is handy for businesses selling healthcare-related products, as Google does not allow display remarketing. Advertisers can ensure compliance with Google’s policies by excluding the display ads channel.
What’s New in the Update?
Google has introduced two new values to the excluded destination attribute:
- YouTube Affiliate youtube_affiliate
- YouTube Merchandise youtube_merchandise
These options allow merchants to prevent their products from appearing in YouTube’s affiliate and merchandise-related listings. If you do not want specific products displayed on YouTube under these categories, you can exclude them with these new attributes.
How to Apply the New Exclusions
To implement these exclusions in Google Merchant Center, you can:
- Use Feed Rules: Modify your primary feed settings to exclude specific destinations.
- Create a Supplemental Feed: Add an extra data feed with exclusion values for the relevant products.
Adding these new values to your product feed allows you to control better where your products appear across Google’s advertising platforms.