SPECIAL FREE WEBINAR: Alternative Online Marketing Methods for Small to Mid Sized Online Merchants

Hello eTaildTail community.

It is time again for a helpful FREE monthly webinar by MerchantAdvantage.  It is open to everyone in the e and mobile commerce arena.  The topic is "Alternative Marketing Methods and Options for 2008." 

It might seem like it is early to think about 2008, but we all know that the time to prepare for 2008 is now!

The webinar will be given by MerchantAdvantage's CEO and e-commerce expert, Michael Lambert.  Simply, CLICK HERE to sign up and it is all FREE and I trust you will learn a lot from MerchantAdvantage.

I hope you are having a great week  and if you have any questions about the MerchantAdvantage webinar just email me at chip@eTaildTail.com

-- Chip

CLICK HERE to sign up and it is all FREE.

Tips and Tricks to Maximize Return on Shopping Comparison Sites

In case you missed this, Rob Aronson, over at Avenue A|Razorship, knows what he is talking about in this piece written today.  We all can help each other, right?  So read on.

Here is a background on Rob:

Rob is the founder of Avenue A| Razofish’s search engine optimization department. He serves as the senior search engine optimization expert for the agency, and oversees the agency’s feed management offering. In addition he sets the strategic vision for all organic search technology product development initiatives for Avenue A| Razorfish.

...and here is his piece.

Have a Happy Halloween! (not too much sugar!!!)

-- Chip 

by Rob Aronson, Avenue A|Razorfish

You can see full article by CLICKING HERE

Tips and Tricks to Maximize Return

"There are several things that can be done to improve your ROI in the shopping engines:
Unlike traditional search engines, the shopping engines don’t employ spiders to index content; instead they rely primarily on advertisers to push content to them via an XML feed.  Fill in as much data as possible in the feed: Searchers on shopping engines often search for items with attributes in the query, such as particular sizes, by price, color, etc. The more information you provide in your feed the more likely your listing will appear against these searches. Since these searches are extremely targeted, the conversion rate for these terms tends to be high.

Once a user selects a product they often will sort through the list by price. If possible consider using bulk price or rebate pricing so that your listing will appear higher up.

Opt in to participate in user satisfaction surveys: Merchants have the option of enabling customers from the shopping site to complete a survey rating their experience shopping on the merchant’s site. Merchant ratings/reviews play a significant role in determining where a site will appear on many of the shopping engines. If your site has a high enough rating, it will be considered a trusted store and marked as such next to your listing.

Consider using logos: Many of the engines allow advertisers to include a logo with their listing. This will often lead to a significant increase in click-thru rate as it helps your listing stand out on the page. It should be noted, however, that there is a significant increase in the cost when using a logo, which can sometimes make this ROI-prohibitive.

Map your products to the appropriate engine categories: The shopping engines have their own category taxonomy that typically differs by quite a bit from that of the advertiser. In order to ensure that your categories are properly placed into the right shopping engine you will want to make sure that, in the feed, you are assigning your products to the appropriate category according to the shopping engine. Since every shopping engine uses different categories, this can be a time consuming process.

Take advantage of the shopping engines that offer the ability to bid on a per product basis, (Nextag, Shopping.com and Shopzilla). Currently most engines only allow bidding on a per category basis. It has been my experience that most merchants are not taking advantage of this and therefore there is a real opportunity to bid up your most profitable products.

Caution Flag

One of the major challenges in working with the shopping engines is the lack of a uniform format for their feeds. Currently each of the engines requires different information in unique formats. This, in combination with the difficulty in managing frequent inventory changes, is why most large retailers outsource their feed management to a third party that has the technology to seamlessly manage the building and optimizing of the feeds for the different engines.

“Let the Race Begin”! Happy Shopping."

You can see full article by CLICKING HERE

Pricefor$ure.com Comparison Shopping Site Announces An Advertising "Steal" For The Holidays

So, I love it when I can help small to mid-sized merchants increase sales. I think PriceForSure, a friend of the eTaildTail community, can help with this goal. 

Let me know how it works out and make sure you use analyics when sending any data feed to a shopping comparison site so that you can monitor your return on investment ("ROI") accurately and daily!!!

Here is their latest offer -- check it out!

-- Chip

From PriceFor$ure:

"If you are tired of fluctuating costs for advertising, get a hold on this special package offer. PriceforSure.com, a leading Comparison Shopping Site , which on average gets 8 million visitors monthly and already has over 4000 merchants in three months now has a Christmas special for those merchants who haven't hopped on board just yet. The next 50 merchants who sign-up between  now and November 3, 2007 will pay only $ 100 / mth regardless of the traffic cost that exceeds this amount whether  you sign up for PPC or PPA. The average merchant click through as per their CEO ranges from 2000 to 5000 per month. If the total payment amount does not equal the amount of the traffic cost, the remainder is credited to another month, but the cost never goes up. Visit their Merchant Area to Sign-Up.

[And if you are not a client yet of PriceForSure -- call their Head Account Executive Kevin Towns at (404) 496-4862 or email him at KevinT@priceforsure.com and tell him Chip Arndt sent you from eTaildTail to get some "special treatment" -- also if you sign up with PriceForSure using MerchantAdvantage to help manage all of your data feeds you get an even better deal and more deals with other shopping comparison sites, check out this link at MerchantAdvantage for that deal and many more from shopping comparison sites]

About Pricefor$ure.com

PriceforSure is a Social Comparison Shopping Engine and has been around for three months. It now has over 4000 merchants on board, over 12 million products and 8 million visitors monthly."

5 more Comparison Shopping Engines: Check Back Entries Under "Comparison Engines" Category for Others.

I am listing over 50 sites the next few weeks in reverse alphabetical order -- I know of over 150, so if you want more suggestions please feel to contact me.

You can always find a pretty complete list over at www.MerchantAdvantage.com and click under "Resources" and then "Channels." -- Chip

Here are my next 5 -- please see prior posts, as we are up to 25!

-- Chip

mySimon.com (still one of the best and most well known)
A CNet owned company, mySimon is a robust and sophisticated shopping destination site that features shopping comparison and research of products and services. When the shopper clicks on a recommended product, the shopper is redirected to the site selling the product. mySimon researches thousands of product categories and millions of products and then identifies those merchants selling the product allowing the shopper to compare product offerings before making a purchase from an online merchant.

MyCoupons.com (new approach to online shopping world and very effective)
MyCoupons is a pioneer of on-line coupon distribution. Since its inception in 1994, MyCoupons has led the way with innovations to help merchants reach their target markets in a cost-effective fashion. The latest innovations are the cost per redeem(tm) coupon code distribution system and the Couparison shopping(tm) engine.

Cost per redeem provides merchants a lower cost method of distributing coupon codes. No set up costs and listing to MyCoupons is always FREE.

Couparison shopping provides consumers with an easy way to locate a coupon code for a specific product they are seeking and allows merchants to more finally tune their offers by linking them to specific products or product categories.

The fees are low, flat and they only apply when the coupon is actually used. There are never any per-click charges and merchants have complete freedom over the structure of their coupon code offer.

MSN Live Search (hard not to list products here....as it is FREE!)
Manage all your offers in organized catalog form. Create new, delete or update catalogs easily. Stay up to date about your catalog by subscribing to the email and RSS notification features. All absolutely FREE!  This is all good for SEO marketing, branding and, of course, sales...which all costs you nothing but some time to set up your feed.

mPoria (mobile commerce and an excellent new site to try that is very cost effective and thet are very professional)

mPoria's flagship product - GoMobile!(TM)- allows merchants to launch their own branded mobile shopping site accessible by over 60 million consumers on all major carrier networks (AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint).

GoMobile! is an easy-to-use, cost-effective platform available through a monthly subscription service after a one time set-up fee of $70. With mPoria, retailers are able to extend their e-commerce web site to the mobile channel, giving consumers the convenience of researching, price comparing, and purchasing their favorite brand name products directly from the palm of their hand. mPoria offers a suite of advanced features for retailers such as mobile coupons with bar codes, catalog promotions through SMS, location services (for brick and mortar stores), real-time inventory and product information, as well as online order form integration.

Like.com (new player to the marketplace...worth giving them a call and seeing if they can help...visual shopping is always fun!)

Like.com is the first true visual shopping engine that combines the fun and enjoyment of discovering products offline with the efficiency of comparison shopping online. With Like.com, users can search for products by color, shape, or pattern with the simple click of a mouse on an image. For Merchants, our Like Listings program allow you to easily bring your inventory to Like.com and our partners and to start driving qualified traffic that will convert to your site immediately.

Analytics to Measure Shopping Engines: Critical for ALL Small to Mid Sized Online Merchants to Manage ROI

I finished doing some reading over at www.ComparisonEngines.com, where Brian Smith, a friend of the eTaildTail community, has some wonderful commentary on online shopping, trends, and using shopping destination sites.

Here is a comment about how important analytics are for everyone to use.  Please read it and then click on over to read what other insights Brian has for you. 

As I say, it is wonderful to have experts and Brian certainly knows his stuff and please make sure that you have the proper analytics package included in your data feed management solution!!!

-- Chip

-- the below quoted from Brian Smith, please CLICK HERE to read his full commentary for October 27 titled --  Shopping Search Engines Questions and Answers

"Q: What is your opinion of the value to retailers of being on second-tier comparison shopping engines as well as, or instead of, the major comparison engines?

A:The most important piece of advice I can give any merchant is to use an analytics program to track results. Once a merchant has this in place, I’d definitely recommend starting out on some of the main shopping engines, but also testing a couple of the second tier engines. The shopping engines get their traffic from a variety of sources and a merchant might find that Smarter or Become outperforms Shopping.com or PriceGrabber. Most of the world has categorized the engines by traffic - first-tier engines being the highly trafficked ones, second-tier engines being the lesser trafficked ones. However, traffic isn’t the only thing that matters to a merchant. The quality of the traffic matters, too. So if a merchant is properly tracking clicks, costs, and sales, that merchant might find through testing that some of the second-tier engines perform much better than the first-tier engines."

-- the above is quoted from Brian Smith, please CLICK HERE to read his full commentary for October 27 titled --  Shopping Search Engines Questions and Answers

Marketing Automation Solutions for Startups and Small to Midsized Online Merchants: Part 2 (continued from Friday October 26 -- Please see prior blog for the first part of the story)

eTaildTail fiends and community are expanding across the globe and providing wonderful insights to help small to mid sized online merchants.  Here is the second part of the 2 part series that speaks to issues small to mid sized merchants have all of the time with marketing solutions and implementation therein.   

I recommend reading it carefully, as it really can help.  I participated in helping write the article but rather than summarize it, I feel it is important to post it here for you all to process on your own time.

Chip

Part 2 -- continued from Friday, October 26

by By Andrew K. Burger -- syndicated columnist at e-commerce Times and friend to eTaildTail

"Just how important is marketing to the aspiring e-tailer? "Critical. Automated marketing for startups and SMBs is the price of admission. Understanding and improving the customer experience is how to stand out from the crowd," commented Eric Feige, general manager at Usability Sciences.

There is a wealth of options out there for startup online retailers looking to craft and manage all-important marketing  campaigns and programs, as Part 1 of this series notes.

While e-tail technology and support continues to get cheaper and become more ubiquitous, the barriers to commercial success are also growing. Larger and more established retailers continue to invest their resources and get better at using the online channel, while the ranks of new and small and medium-sized business  (SMB) market entrants swell. These factors are several reasons why e-tail startups are learning from the experiences of others and tapping as many avenues of support and advice as they can, particularly when it comes to e-marketing and automating the marketing function to the greatest degree possible.

Just how important is marketing to the aspiring e-tailer? "Critical. Automated marketing for startups and SMBs is the price of admission. Understanding and improving the customer experience is how to stand out from the crowd," commented Eric Feige, general manager at Usability Sciences.

E-Marketing Challenges

The main challenges facing startups include ensuring they employ people with a keen understanding of marketing, specialize in the e-tailers' particular line of business and have the technical acuity required to manage campaigns, according to Affect Strategies' President Sandra Fathi.

"When e-tailers outsource or assign to 'experts' SEM (search engine marketing) or SEO (search engine optimization), often the person is an expert on how to perform the task but not the topic or store they are performing it for," Fathi told the E-Commerce Times. "This can create very expensive problems. Thousands of dollars could be spent optimizing the site for the wrong keywords or creating Google AdWords campaigns that attract the wrong search customer."

To avoid this pitfall, startups "must be sure they understand exactly what type of services they are buying and understand how to evaluate and measure their marketing campaigns. Online marketing is fluid and constantly changing. E-tailers need to monitor their campaigns closely to make sure they are continuously performing," she said.

Leveraging Data

Companies such as MerchantAdvantage offer products and services that startups can use to automate online marketing processes and move up the e-marketing learning curve quickly. The company's Channalytics data analysis and data feed management software offers the means whereby startups can automate the time-consuming processes of collecting, organizing and analyzing e-tail site data and using it to create and manage online marketing campaigns and programs.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL STORY>>> Please click over to read all of it at e-commerce Times -- it is really helpful and no obligations if you click over -- Promise! Just lots of helpful advice.

Marketing Automation Solutions for Startups and Small to Midsized Online Merchants: Part 1

eTaildTail friends and community are expanding across the globe and providing wonderful insights to help small to mid sized online merchants.  Here is the first part of a wonderful 2 part series that speaks to issues small to mid sized merchants have all of the time with marketing solutions and implementation therein. 

I recommend reading it carefully over the weekend, as it really can help.  I participated in helping write the article but rather than summarize it, I feel it is important to post it here for you all to process on your own time.

Enjoy...Part 2 will be posted Monday.

Have a great weekend!

Chip

PS Don't forget to root for the Red Sox! LOL

by By Andrew K. Burger -- syndicated columnist at e-commerce news and friend to eTaildTail

"Most small e-tailers do not have extensive marketing departments, said Affect Strategies' President Sandra Fathi. "They cannot hire a seasoned expert for every task, nor should they. However, there a plenty of tools and programs that help automate processes to make their marketing programs more efficient and their employees more productive."

Designing effective marketing  campaigns and finding the right marketing mix are primary concerns for any online retailer. They are especially important for startups and small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) competing with larger and better established e-tailers, as well as the rapidly growing number of their SMB peers.

Creating marketing campaigns and finding the right channels is a process of continual experimentation and refinement. It also entails building up an expert's store of knowledge about your customers, products, markets and suppliers, as well as how to make use of analytical tools and data feeds to capitalize on them.

This in turn means that startup e-tailers need to roll up their sleeves and get close and personal with all the raw data that an online retail business  generates and the various data collection, analysis and automated marketing tools and methods on offer.

Automating Marketing: The Basics

Efforts aimed at automating marketing, according to MerchantAdvantage's Michael Lambert, can basically be divided into two categories: automating marketing efforts while maintaining control and responsibility for them, and hiring a third-party to manage and handle various marketing efforts on an e-tailer's behalf."...continued"

CLICK HERE FOR FULL STORY>>> Please click over to read all of it at e-commerce Times -- it is really helpful and no obligations if you click over -- Promise! Just lots of helpful advice.

Analytics: Get the right ones, own them, use them!

So, I was in Europe the past two weeks and online merchants kept asking me how best to use analytics.  There are several answers , and I will be writing about the myriad of uses of anayltics, albeit for monitoring marketing campaigns, email campaigns, onsite traffic etc....but this article today from Internet Retailer sums up nicely why any online merchant should ensure that they begin, if you have not already done so, why analytics are critical to increasing your ROI and managing your online business better.

Have a great weekend and I will be on my regular daily blog schedule next week.

Go Red Sox!!!

[Okay I am from New England -- indulge me!]

Chip

Web analytics lead to a 50% boost in sales at BestBuyEyeGlasses.com

CLICK HERE FOR FULL STORY

A web site makeover correcting problems found by an analytics program has resulted in a 50% boost in conversion rates and online sales at BestBuyEyeGlasses.com, says Daniel Kandler, president.

“We’re absolutely thrilled with the results, which far exceeded our expectations,” Kandler says.

BestBuyEyeGlasses, also known as BBE, hired Reditus Web Strategy Consulting to enhance its high-end eyewear shopping site to attract more visitors and convert a higher percentage of sales. After analyzing the site, Reditus concluded that the retailer would benefit from a more powerful and efficient shopping cart solution.

Reditus also found problems with BBE’s on-site search engine, which left a percentage of visitors unable to locate products that were available on the site. BBE then upgraded its search component with the dtSearch Text Retrieval Engine, which can index over a terabyte of text in a single index. DtSearch also can create and simultaneously search an unlimited number of indexes, typically in less than a second.

“The dtSearch component alone is invaluable to our business,” Kandler says. “It helps us ensure customers are finding our products. And, in the event we don’t have what they’re looking for, we can act on it and add desired products to our catalogs. It benefits our bottom line, promotes customer satisfaction, and helps keep our customers coming back.”

In addition, Reditus has integrated a tool to allow BBE to monitor search trends and manage custom content displays. “The eyewear industry is incredibly competitive, which made it especially important to let analysis and hard data tell the story rather than speculation,” says Yuval Karjevski, principal web consultant at Reditus. “Even the smallest miscalculation could put our client several steps behind their competitors.”

eTaildTail Community Updates

Hey all -- thanks for reading and sorry for the lack of posts the past week.  I have been on the road and in Europe gathering "intel" for us all and will be posting new insights end of week and into next week.

In the meantime, please click on the catgeory of interest to you on the left hand side of this blog, as I am sure that there is some helpful information for you there to read in between posts.

London is beautiful in October, though it is expensive for us Americans...where oh where did the value of the dollar go?

Tah,

Chip

Confused About CSEs, Marketplaces and Pay Per Click and Pay Per Performance Marketing?

Some great technical advice from our technical friends at MerchantAdvantage, thanks Scott! - Chip

"Many online merchants are confused about are trying to understand the differences between marketplaces and comparison shopping engines. There are certainly differences in marketing strategies, financial differences, philosophical differences and many others when using either. So to make things easier here are some technical thoughts to help in regard to working with either of these type of marketing efforts..

In one simple phrase, CSEs are easy, and Marketplaces are hard. But why? You ask?

Well, the issue revolves around the fact that CSEs simply send leads to your storefront and you do the rest – which can be good and/or bad. However, to do this, a merchant must typically send a CSE their product SKU, name, description, page URL, image URL and price…or something like that. A marketplace, i.e. a Pay Per Performance site, must completely close the sale. To do that, they need all of the product information required to close a consumer sale.

Typically with a marketplace the difficulty revolves around one of two areas – Taxonomy (categories) or Options. Although ARTS (Association for Retail Technology Standards) has a document model describing one standard way to "communicate" most of this information, too few people are moving too slowly adopting this standard. But even more important than the file format and document model is the actual product content as it currently exists within a merchants’ storefront. All too often a merchant has made up information that perhaps takes advantage of their storefronts features or in some what fits the merchants’ immediate needs, but that same content could then be rendered useless when sent to external sources, such as marketplaces.

A marketplace ALWAYS has stringent data requirements, and merchants (with a few exceptions) need to be prepared to get dirty with data conversion if they wish to reap the benefits of working with marketplaces. Don’t get me wrong, our merchants do well on both CSEs and marketplaces once they work out any kinks, and I’m sure they all feel it is well worth it once they get going, as they continue to use these methods.

OK…just what kind of dirty work are we talking about? Well, it’s more than simply converting a word or phrase here and there, as Channel Management can automate that in seconds. It has more to do with prices, and SKUs changing when options are introduced. As an example, if you have a shirt that you sell, and it comes in S, M and L sizes, as well as White, Blue and Green colors, that’s not too bad. But, what if there is a different sku for each color and size? Well that actually takes our scenario from one product with options in the merchants storefront to 9 products in the marketplace(S-White, S-Blue, S-Green, M-White etc…) Hmmmm. And now what if the product also has to adjust pricing for each or any of the sizes? How can we correctly communicate that to a marketplace? Well, not at all, if your content is not accurate and categorized correctly within your own existing storefront systems.

To further complicate the matter, in some marketplaces, their document model changes based on your type of product (Apparel, sports, jewelry etc…)…creating a moving target for those online retailers that sell "everything".

Unfortunately this subject is MUCH too complex and diverse to solve in a simple blog entry, but I hope my brief remarks makes merchants aware that there are requirements that fall to the merchant which will allow a merchant to reap the rewards of the various marketplaces and CSEs.

Keep your data as organized and standardized as you can without sacrificing storefront functionalities. When you can’t, understand that there will be some dirty data conversion that will have to take place down the road, regardless of how large or small an online retailer you are."

Connected Consumers Love Web 2.0, But Not On Mobile -- I disagree -- They Will Soon

I was surprised to find the article below, which I have inserted in its entirety, leave out the one main reason why consumers using emobile devices have yet to embrace Web 2.0 fully.  This main reason is that "the mobile devices" we use today, but for the iPhone, are worthy of distbuting the various new communicatin methods in a use frienfly way that you can engage with on a screen that is big enough to enjoy viewing. 

I have been traveling quite a bit lately and I have asked folks if they would like to enage in media in the myriad of ways the author below, Tameka Kee, outlines that they engage in media on their computers. The resounding answer was "of course."

Now my "focus group" is no where near as scientific as a Avenue A|RazorFish study, and included about 50 folks most under the age of 30, but I find it very hard to believe that once the mobile device companies catch up with the behavior patterns we see people interacting with media on their computers that mobile commerce, e commerce and all other forms of engagement will not only increase but will become a way of life.

All you have to do is see the enagagment numbers of media on mobile devices outside of the United States, which are way higher, the interaction of our youth (ages 15-25) and the introduction of easier to navigate and "liquid" screens on mobile devices to see that engagement numbers will dramatically increase. 

I have predicted 1st Q 2008 for such increases because the mobile device makers will introduce new prodcuts that basically make it fun to enagege in all of the this new media.

So if you are a online merchant looking for new marketing aveneus of engagement and sales, prepare now and give mPoria and mShopper a call to get up on the learning curve of how consumers will, not might, interact with you via their mobile devices.

-- Chip 

Connected Consumers Love Web 2.0, But Not On Mobile

by Tameka Kee, Wednesday, Oct 3, 2007 6:00 AM ET

Read below or CLICK HERE for full story

"FINDINGS FROM A NEW AVENUE A|Razorfish study confirm that brands and advertisers aiming to reach "connected consumers" need to focus on targeting their niche with easily distributed, customizable, socially charged content--but not necessarily on their mobile phones.

This July, the creative division of Microsoft's aQuantive polled nearly 500 "connected consumers"--or online users over age 20 who had broadband access, visited socially oriented sites like MySpace or YouTube, and spent at least $200 online in the last calendar year.

The agency broke down the users into four age groups, ensured that they were geographically and economically diverse, and then asked them roughly 30 situational questions with the goal of understanding how they really used the tools and features of Web 2.0.

"One of our clients kept using the phrase 'Web 2.0' compliant--and we wanted to define what that meant," said Garrick Schmitt, editor of the report and vice president for user experience, Avenue A|Razorfish. "We do a lot of work on a site-by-site, case-by-case basis, but this is the first study we've done to see how consumers use these things in aggregate."

Not surprisingly, online video scored high, as an overwhelming majority of respondents (95%) had watched a video online within the past three months. Connected consumers watched both TV shows (72%) and movie trailers (85%) online--with some 36% saying that they watched a trailer online before going to the theater "most" or "all of the time." And nearly half (49%) of respondents added to the online video pool by uploading clips or movies.

The study also found that connected consumers were regular bloggers and blog readers. Some 70% of respondents read blogs on a regular basis, with weekly and daily readers (32% and 29%, respectively), as the top frequencies. Nearly half (46%) of all respondents read four or more blogs regularly, while 41% actually wrote or posted frequently to blogs.

Connected consumers also relied on peer influence for online shopping purposes--with some 55% saying that they relied on user reviews "the most" when it came to purchase decisions. In contrast, just over 20% said the same about expert reviews or product comparison charts.

Personalized recommendations also drove online sales, with 62% of users purchasing a product that a company like Amazon.com suggested based on past purchases. Some 72% of respondents found these recommendations helpful--and two-thirds said that they were not concerned about privacy when it came to receiving them.

Customization of content and interface is key, as some 60% of connected consumers choose to personalize their start pages with "specific content feeds, scheduled updates or other features," and 56% subscribe to an RSS feed with some regularity. More than a third (35%) of consumers used Google as their start page, with about a quarter (24%) choosing to start at Yahoo, and 10% using either AOL or MSN.

Mobile multimedia usage was the one area that lacked strong penetration--even with connected consumers--as the majority (64%) said they never used their mobile phone to "check weather, news or sports headlines." Similarly, 76% never used mobile to watch video, 68% said the same for listening to music, and 58% had never used their phone to check email. Some 53% of connected consumers, however, had used their phones to take photos and then share them on the Web. "

Pay Per Click versus Pay Per Performance Marketing

I am back after a 300 mile bike ride from Gettysburg to New York City to raise money for those living with HIV/AIDS.  If you would like to learn more about what I do in in my spare time for philanthropy please CLICK HERE and thank you MerchantAdvantage for sponsoring me in these efforts. 

I hope that in tmy brief absenses you all have clicked on some past posts to help you with your online business.

Okay, now back to business. 

Below are my thoughts on Pay Per Click versus Pay Per Performance marketing using shopping destination sites.  I have posted much of here and encourage you to read it all -- I think it is worth it -- click the link at the end for the rest of it.

So.....you have an online storefront and you have some customers coming to your storefront but you want more. The first thing most online merchants do is jump on the "adword/keyword search" band wagon to get more traffic using search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com, LookSmart and others. Not a bad idea, since millions of visitors search these sites everyday looking for help. The only problem with this method of marketing is, as an online merchant selling product, you are in the mix with hundreds of thousands of searches that relate to the "keyword" you purchase that may have nothing to do with the actual product search on the product you are trying to sell. Such examples include the history of your product, articles about a product, etc…To get around this, you can always bid higher for a given "keyword" on these search engines to guarantee you are listed on page one, or better yet, you come up at the very top – if you pay enough.

A more effective, or complimentary marketing method, may be to focus on the search engines that only focus on marketing retail products that online merchants sell and also bring in millions of potential customers each day. These are affectionately known as shopping destination sites and include:

Marketplaces, such as Amazon.com, Shop.com, JellyFish.com, and Underbid.com

Comparison Shopping Engines, such as Pronto.com, PriceRunner.com, PriceGrabber.com, Shopping.com, Smarter.com, Shopzilla.com, Yahoo! Shopping, and over 100 others. For a complete list please CLICK HERE

Mobile Commerce Engines, such as mPoria.com and mShopper.com

Couparison Shopping Engines, such as MyCoupons.com and CouponMountain.com

Product Review Sites, such as PowerReviews.com and Buzzillions.com, and

Hybrid Sites, such as GroupGain.com, NetHaggler.com and other sites, where online shopping occurs but revenue models vary.

These types of sites can be very beneficial to an online merchant, as millions of people come to them everyday looking for products to buy, review, and compare. As with general search engines, these sites do not guarantee sales, but for the most part, when managed correctly, can really help lead potential buyers to your online storefront, which can lead to sales and definitely leads to good branding.

Using Shopping Destination Sites: Choice

Every online merchant should first ask the same question:

Which shopping destination site will lead to the most sales?

While an excellent question, it is nearly impossible to say which of over 100 shopping destination sites might work best for your product catalog and lead to the most sales. Everyone usually tries out Amazon, Yahoo! Shopping, Shopping.com, PriceGrabber.com, and Shopzilla.com as they are the best known and have built trust in the marketplace for the customers buying products and the merchants listing products. But these are not your only choices. And, remember, new shopping destination sites with unique business models are popping up every month which can also lead to new sales and branding opportunities.

There are many shopping destination sites from which to choose, including review sites and COUParison (Coupon Comparison Shopping) sites that can also act as a conduit to possible sales. Thus, MerchantAdvantage encourages every online merchant to test a few sites to find out which marketing channels work best for them and leads to the best return on investment ("ROI").

When testing these sites, the online merchant should clearly understand what they are paying for and how they are being charged for leads from a shopping destination site, i.e. Pay Per Click --commissions on leads or Pay Per Performance, commissions on sales, or some other commission/revenue model.

Pay Per Click ("PPC") Definition and Process Flow

Definition:
PPC is the acronym for Pay Per Click, and, as that implies, a merchant will pay for each consumer that clicks on a merchant's product from a marketing Channel – typically Comparison Shopping Engines and Review sites such as PowerReviews.com or Buzzillions.com. These costs would typically be allocated as marketing fees in the accounting world.

Process Flow:
Comparison Shopping Engines or Review sites typically charge a merchant a nominal fee each time a consumer clicks on a product and then is redirected back to your online storefront whether a purchase occurs, or not.

Pay Per Performance ("PPP") Definition and Process Flow

Definition:
PPP is the acronym for Pay Per Performance. This is synonymous with paying commissions. Payment is only made to the marketing entity when a sale occurs.

Process Flow:
These sites charge fees for products sold based on a percentage of the sale. Sometimes the full sales transaction takes place on their site (Amazon and Underbid), sometimes the sales transaction takes place on their site but payment is processed on your site (Shop.com), and sometimes the full sales transaction takes place on your site (JellyFish.com).

Exceptions to the PPC or PPP Rule:
For the sake of this newsletter, we will not address companies in group 5 or 6 above (Product Review and Hybrid Sites). While they act as shopping destination sites -- and can be very effective to build sales -- their business models are not a traditional PPC or PPP model – which may be a good thing, as they are unique. These companies and business models will be addressed in future newsletters.

Pros and Cons of PPC and PPP

Obviously, pros and cons are different based on your perspective, your needs,and your goals. But there are a few pros and cons that should at least be considered when discussing PPP and PPC.

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-- Chip