Google is rolling out a Merchant Center update that will automatically pull content from your marketing emails and use it to populate placements across Search, Shopping, and other surfaces. Promotions, new product announcements, even social links from your email blasts. If it’s in your emails, Google might use it.

Here’s the kicker: you’re opted in by default. Unless you go into your Merchant Center settings and manually opt out, Google will assume you’re cool with this. And while Google’s pitching this as a helpful way to save time, for most brands, this has “bad idea” written all over it.

What’s Happening

Google’s adding a new feature in Merchant Center called “Marketing Content Usage,” which allows them to extract info directly from your promotional emails. That content can then show up in product listings, Google Shopping results, and more.

Here’s a quick breakdown:

• Goes live April 3, 2025
  
• You’ll be automatically opted in unless you change your settings.
  
• Google will pull from your marketing emails, this includes:
  
  • Sales and promo offers.
    
  • Product launch announcements.
    
  • Social media links.
    
  • Potentially other content in those emails.
    
• Anything pulled will be treated as standard “Content” under existing Merchant Center terms, no new contracts, no extra review, and you can opt out at any time.
  

On paper, it’s pitched as a way to “streamline content updates.” But in reality, this gives Google a lot of control over your messaging, and not a lot of oversight.

How This Affects Your Campaigns

Let’s cut to it: this is probably more trouble than it’s worth. Here’s why we’re not thrilled:

• You lose control over your messaging. Google decides what gets pulled and where it shows up, not you.
  
• Expired promos might resurface. If that discount code from two weeks ago is still in your last email blast, it might show up again long after it’s valid.
  
• It might look messy. Emails aren’t built for Google Shopping. Pulling content out of context could mean bad formatting, half-finished headlines, or social links showing up where they don’t belong.
  
• Subscriber-only content might get exposed. Got a private pre-sale or exclusive offer for your list? It could now be shown to everyone.
  

Could it save you time? Maybe. But it’s not worth sacrificing control over your brand experience.

What You Should Do Next

If you want to keep tight control over what shows up in your Google placements, here’s your move:

1. Go to your Merchant Center account and opt out ASAP. Do this before April 3 to avoid getting auto-enrolled.
   
2. Manually upload promo content. Add product launches, sales, and offers yourself so you control how it shows up, when it appears, and how it’s formatted.
   
3. Set a review process for email content. Make sure everything you’re sending out via email is something you’d be okay with showing up on Google—just in case.
   

This update gives Google a fast track to scrape and surface content you’ve worked hard to curate for a specific audience. And while automation sounds good on paper, this kind of shortcut rarely results in clean, accurate, or on-brand listings.

If you want help managing your Merchant Center settings—or just need a better plan for how to handle sales and promo visibility, let’s chat. We’ll make sure your brand shows up exactly the way you want it to.