Advertisers can now further optimize their product titles in Google Merchant Center.
Google recently added a new optional attribute to Merchant Center called “short title”. This update makes your products more concise and clear.
Where will the short title attribute appear?
The short title attribute is optional compared to the required “title” attribute.
The main differences between the title and short title properties are as follows:
- title attribute: More accurately match product landing pages as well as customer searches.
- short title attribute: a brief description of your product
Since the short title attribute is an optional feature, it won’t always show up on all networks.
Currently, the short title attribute will appear in places where users typically do a lot of browsing, including discovery activities and Shopping ads in Gmail.
What are the minimum requirements for short titles?
The current character limit for this property is 1-150 characters. However, Google recommends keeping the character count between 5-65 characters.
Google warns that they won’t approve your product if you don’t follow the minimum requirements. Some of the main requirements include:
- Use professional and grammatically correct language.
- Do not use foreign language words unless they are well understood.
- More specifically, don’t use foreign characters for attractive purposes.
- Don’t include promotions in short titles.
- Avoid excessive capitalization.
Another requirement for using a short title is to describe the product on the landing page. While it doesn’t need to exactly match the title on the landing page, it should at least refer to the same product.
Regarding the use of capital letters in short titles, it still applies to abbreviations, phone numbers, countries and currencies.
Best Practices for Short Title Attribute Use
There are several ways to optimize short titles in your product feed. Key tips for short title optimization include:
- no more than 65 characters
- List the most important details first
- Add a brand name (if it’s a differentiator)
Character limits are very important in more browsing contexts. Because users are more likely to scroll in these contexts (such as discovery and Gmail ads), it’s better to keep your short headlines to a minimum. After 65 characters, your title may be truncated, making the user experience less engaging.
generalize
On more scrolling networks like the Discover tab or Gmail, less is more when it comes to showing your ad.
By providing more concise titles, you have the opportunity to capture users faster.
It pays to test with short headlines in your product feed and compare the traffic lift on these metrics. It’s important to follow Google’s minimum guidelines and best practices to prevent your ad from being disapproved in the process.
resource: Google Merchant Center Help
Featured image: Screenshot from google.com/merchants, February 2022.
