Best Practices to Working with Comparison Shopping Engines

eTaildTail likes to give tips and ticks to online merchants to help them better use comparison shopping engines.  Here is some guest advice from Michael Lambert, CEO of MerchantAdvantage.

Chip Arndt

Best Practices to Working with Comparison Shopping Engines

"Timing is everything. Although it is very important to feed your most current product information to Comparison Shopping Engines, they typically "Index" them before consumers view the information.It is best to be sure and upload your product data just before the CSE sweeps, or imports their data, and this typically happens a few times a day at varied times depending on the CSE.

But, when possible, it is good to allow a day or so between feeds to allow proper indexing within the CSE, and particularly Google Base. So, if your product information has not changed, wait until it has (up to a few days) before feeding again. This will allow your products to be properly categorized and indexed, and help your performance within that CSE.

And as always:

1. Feed to any FREE comparison shopping engines -- as your conversions can't be bad -- this includes free sites as, Google Product Search, Microsoft Cashback, Microsoft LIve Search, and theFind.com

2. <<<CLICK HERE>>> to read full article.

Michael Lambert
CEO, MerchantAdvantage

Everest Software Names MerchantAdvantage Top Data Feed Management Software Tool

I just wanted to thank Ryan Brown, Everest Software, for the accolade and recommendation from the recent Internet Retailer 2008 show in Chicago to utilize MerchantAdvantage and our cost-effective, Channel Management with Chanalytics Professional and Lite products.

We work hard at MerchantAdvatage to provide the best value for small to mid-sized businesses to manage their product catalog data feeds to ecommerce and mobile commerce comparison shopping engines, affiliate sites -- as Commission Junction and LinkShare -- and over 150 other shopping destination sites and marketplaces -- as Amazon, Become.com, buySAFE bonded shopping network, eBay!, FindGifts.com, Gifts.com, Google Product Search, JellyFish, Like.com, Microsoft Cashback, myCoupons.com, mPoria.com, mShopper.com, Pricegrabber, Pronto, Shop.com, Shopzilla, Smarter, SortPrice, theFind.com, Underbid, Yahoo!Shopping, and many, many others -- without charging any listing, set up or transaction fees or revenue share.

Here is the full review of MerchantAdvantage and other recommendations from Ryan Brown and Everest Software.

"MerchantAdvantage facilitates the marketing of your products through online shopping sites, coupon sites and mobile commerce sites..."

Chip Arndt
Co-Founder|EVP
MerchantAdvantage, LLC

Increase Conversion Rates When Using Comparison Shopping Engines

Emails have come into eTaildTail recently in reference to my recent commentary titled: Why Online Merchants Should List Their Product Catalog on Comparison Shopping Engines.

Most of those emails ask questions related to Return on Add Spend ("ROAS"), when using comparison shopping engines and shopping destination sites, and how best to increase this very important business metric.

I defer to an excellent read over at Channel Advisor with Mark Vandegrift, who summarizes The Importance of Conversion Rate when using comparison shopping engines and shopping destination sites.

Channel Advisor is indeed in the same business that I am and my company MerchantAdvantage, and, while some might consider them a competitor, I prefer to see them as colleagues in helping online retailers around the globe gain more success when executing their ecommerce and mobile commerce strategies.

The Importance of Conversion Rate is a nice complimentary commentary to my prior blog. Here is the beginning of that commentary:

"How can I improve the return I get from Comparison Shopping Engines?"

"This is by far the question I hear most from merchants using CSEs. The answer is pretty simple: Improve your conversion rate. Making that happen, however, isn't quite as easy.

First, let's look at why conversion rate is so critical..." <<<CLICK HERE>>> to continue that read.

I hope that both commentaries help small to mid-sized business increase sales, and ROAS (conversions from clicks to sales) when using comparison shopping engines and shopping destination sites.

Welcome back from 4th of July weekend and onward we charge together.

Chip Arndt

Yahoo Shopping Adds Bid-Per-Click Option to Product Listings...Update

Online shopping is here to stay.

Now it is just of matter of finding out which comparison shopping engines, and shopping destination sites, can actually make a profitable business out of online shopping while Google Product Search, Microsoft Cash Back, Live Search, and theFind.com continue to provide their shopping destination sites free to both online merchants and shoppers alike.

Yahoo! Shopping is an excellent comparison shopping engine and certainly has a wonderful worldwide brand (yes, they still do, for all of you cynics out there) which, in turn, brings millions of buyers and comparison price shoppers to their online mall to purchase products.  How many do you ask?  Aprroximately 18-20 million unique visitors a month -- still an impressive number even if it has not grown much beyond that number.

So how does Yahoo! Shopping plan to upgrade, bring more shoppers, and keep online merchants happy when using them  -- as this is the group from which they make their money?

The following read is a follow up to my prior entry about Yahoo! and their additioinal bid supported marketplace I wrote about in May.

What WAS at Yahoo! Shopping

1. Yahoo ranked items based on keyword relevancy, categorization, click history, and customer feedback.

2. Listing has been difficult for merchants who struggle to get traffic to their products from Yahoo’s large database of products.

3. Set-fee-per-click format = merchants pay a flat rate for product listings in Yahoo! Shopping categories and have little control over positioning.

4. Yahoo! used to host the premier comparison engine but has lagged behind in the last couple of years in terms of traffic and interface.

5. "Innovations have been few and far between, traffic has been tepid, and retailers have seen flat sales overall"...states Kevin Packler, eTaildTail friend over at Channel Dollars, a wonderful blog that delves into more technical aspcects of working with comparison shopping engines than I often do! See I love experts, sometimes!

What IS NOW at Yahoo! Shopping

1. Online retailers have more options.

2. Bidding mechanism creates more competition among merchants and more flexibility in terms of how merchants may list their products and the bid-fee-per-click format positions those merchants highest who bid the most of key words, which is similar to keyword bidding using Yahoo!, Google, Ask, or MSN (Live Search) search.

3. A NEW Site redesign that compliments existing "set-fee-per-click" merchant product listings fees and new "bid-fee-per-" model. This additional bid feature means merchants can gain significant history within Yahoo! Shopping's algorithms, and thereby rankings, which will push their products to the top of result pages.

4. Product categories have increased from 64 categories to 1,200+, which allows merchants' products to appear in more places than they could under broader headings - but only if an online merchant maps the categories correctly, ergo try using a Web-based tool to help you.

5. "Category expansion allows merchants to bid on more granular product areas in addition to broad categories. For example, merchants now can bid on “bath towel,” instead of just “home & garden.” The added categories give merchants greater opportunities to improve their position in product rankings," stated Greg Hintz, General Manager of Yahoo!

Finally Greg Hintz adds: "The effects of the fee change on pricing might depend on the merchant. Because we are adding more categories it’s hard to say whether there will be an up or down effect on pricing. Some [categories] will cost more, some less. We are giving merchants the ability to tailor their campaigns to the categories they make the most money on. ROI should go up”

If you would like to read more analysis about changes at Yahoo! Shopping and all of the new Yahoo! Product Submit features, check out eTaildTail friends over at CPC Strategy; they have a great write up, and you can read it for free, promise! :-)

Why Online Merchants Should List Their Product Catalog on Comparison Shopping Engines

I am asked everyday questions about why online merchants should list their product catalogs on comparison shopping engines.

It makes perfect sense that I am asked this question, because I am in the business of data feed management and helping small to mid-sized online merchants increase their return on ad spend when working with a variety of online shopping destination sites, comparison shopping engines, mobile commerce sites, and other marketing channels.

So What is The Answer?

Online merchants benefit from ANY marketing effort that gets their brand and storefront products in front of potential shoppers, wherever those shoppers may be. This includes traditional marketing efforts, as the yellow pages, emails, direct mail, catalogs, and modern marketing efforts as ecommerce, mcommerce (mobile commerce), blogs, bonded shopping networks, and social networking sites (we are still seeing if these work, but you get the point). This philosophy is intuitive, simple, and should be not an issue. 

Issues, however, do arise when an online merchant has to weigh the cost and time involved to market wherever a shopper might be using traditional or new marketing methods and strategies.  These marketing methods bring into play three main issues:

1. Where do I market?

2. Do I have the time to maximize these marketing efforts correctly? and

3. What will it cost me?

And then of course, after an online merchant asks these three aforementioned questions comes the most important issue/question:

"Did my marketing efforts work = Did my marketing efforts lead to sales and brand awareness?"

I am here to tell you that any small to mid-sized online merchant should experiment and try comparison shopping engines and other shopping destination sites, because they "can" work, if you find the right marketing channel for your products.

Not every marketing channel is right for your products -- that is why I say "can" work.  That's right. Online merchants have to test, often, numerous marketing channels to see which ones work for their online storefront/product catalog, as not every online shopping mall or comparison shopping engine may attract the right audience/shopper for your products.

[NOTE: Please do not let "experts" tell you that they know all of the right channels for your products, especially if they have not tested your products in a particular channel.]

The good news for online merchants is that there are a plethora of shopping destination sites and comparison shopping engines to pick from, each bringing millions of people each month to their online mall to find your products.   

Some of these channels include: Amazon, Become, buySAFE bonded shopping network, Cooking.com, eBay!, GourmetFoodMall.com, Google Product Search, Greenzer, Like.com, MachineTools.com, Microsoft Cashback, myCoupons.com, PriceGrabber, PriceRunner, Pronto, Shop.com, Shopping.com, Shopzilla, Smarter, SortPrice, theFind, ToolCrib, Yahoo! Shopping, and many others.  I know of over 250 marketing channels, so don't think that only the bigger, well known comparison shopping engines are the only marketing channels available to you.  <<<CLICK HERE>>> for a more comprehensive list from MerchantAdvantage.

And the better news is that many comparison shopping engines have business models that ARE AFFORDABLE to work with right away.  Some comparison shopping engines only charge when a sale is made, others have a flat rate per month, and others are FREE, ergo, not all comparison shopping engines charge on a pay-per-click/pay-per-lead model.  Such examples are: Google Product Search; JellyFish, Microsoft Cash Back; MSN Shopping; myCoupons.com, and theFind.com.

I have many clients who are very selective to which comparison shopping engines they send their product catalog data.  For instance, some of my clients only use niche comparison shopping engines that specialize in selling machine tools, gourmet food, or golf related products. Other clients use over 60 comparison shopping engines in order to saturate the marketplace with their products and be wherever an online shopper might be to build brand awareness.  The strategy each client takes depends on budgets and time, but, in each case, comparison shopping engines work for them.

At all times, when working with comparison shopping engines, online merchants must ensure that the product catalog they send to a comparison shopping engine is perfect and up to date, so that the comparison shopping engine lists your product catalog in all of the appropriate places on their site. 

This can be done directly with each comparison shopping site, i.e. feeding them a file each day that follows their feed specification document, OR you can use a cost-effective, Web-based tool that takes care of these issues for you. But...

Before You Work with A Comparison Shopping Engine

Online merchants must ensure, before using any comparison shopping engine, that their online storefront is worthy of marketing in the first place.  What do I mean by this? 

As an example, I had a client two months ago who was frustrated. He was getting a lot of hits/clicks to his website from comparison shopping engines but these hits/clicks were not converting to sales.  This means that all of his fields were properly mapped to the feed spec document of each comparison shopping engine and he opitimized his data properly, but the clicks to his site were not converting to sales.

When we talked directly and both went to his online storefront, I was dismayed to find that his online storefront was a mess, was not professional looking, was hard to navigate, and the check out process was not easy.  I asked him:

"If you came to your storefront, the way it looked and functioned, would you buy a product from you?"

At that point we made an assumption that most of his problems might not be with his comparison shopping engine marketing strategies. Instead, we agreed that he had to clean up the look, feel, marketing language, pictures, special offers, logos, and functionality of his storefront website before marketing anywhere.

Over the next three weeks, he cleaned up his storefront and then started his comparison shopping engine marketing efforts over again.  I had him look at REI and ProFlowers, two websites/webstores that work very well and can show an online merchant what "not to do" when building your storefront, which is as important as what "to do." He could not afford all of the functionality of each of these sites, but looking at them and learning from them certainly helped.  The results -- sure enough, clicks from the comparison shopping engines started to lead to sales.

The point of this example is that often online merchants fail to recognize that leads from comparison shopping engines do not always equate to sales, for numerous reasons beyond the control of comparison shopping engines, and that their online storefront must be professional and "worthy" to complete a sale. 

Okay, now back to comparison shopping engines and what an online merchant can do right now to gain success on comparison shopping engines.

Comparison Shopping Engines: 7 Steps to Success

1. Professional Look, Feel, and Functionality: Clean up your online storefront/website.  Ask your friends to go to your website and ask them this: "If you were a stranger and you came to my website would you buy from me?"  If they say no, ask them why and remember that you only have one chance to make a good first impression.

2. Start with 4 Free Comparison Shopping Engines: Send your entire product catalog to 4 FREE comparison shopping engines: Google Product Search, theFind.com, MSN LiveSearch, and Microsoft Cashback.  They are free, may lead to some sales, and will certainly help with organic SEO search.  Where else can you get FREE marketing and also learn how comparison shopping engines work before making a larger time and financial commitment?

3. Use a Cost-Effective, Web-based Tool to Handle Technical Issues with Analysis: There are solutions in the marketplace that, for as little as $145 a month and no transaction fees, no listing fees, no revenue share, and no set-up costs, can get you up and running in less than 48 hours on the 4 FREE sites mentioned above (and 21 others, if you choose for the same price), with analytics included. What other marketing methods are available to you for only $145 a month?

4. Test, Test, and Test Various Comparison Shopping Engines: Even after you "worked" a specific comparison shopping engine for 60-90 days, optimized your feeds properly, and used the SKU level bidding feature of some comparison shopping engines, sometimes a particular comparison shopping engine still may not lead to sales. Instead of getting upset, try another comparison shopping engine. There are a lot of comparison shopping engines out there that may have a more appropriate audience for you. And, since most comparison shopping engines charge on a month-to-month basis, can you afford not to try them?

5. Educate Yourself: There are many resources on the web about best practices when working with comparison shopping engines. As an example, as a client of MerchantAdvantage, MerchantAdvantage offers weekly client-side webinars directly from the technical staff of both MerchantAdvantage AND the technical staff of a comparison shopping engine to keep you up to speed on the best way to work with a particular comparison shopping engine, how to use SKU level bidding features where supported, what products sell best, how best to optimize a feed, and the like. You also can access several FREE webinars, whitepapers, and other sources of information, with no obligation, from the front of MerchantAdvantage's website.

6. Catalog Dipping: Not every product you sell will sell well on every comparison shopping engine: we all know that fact. Try adopting a strategy of only sending products that lead to sales and not just clicks. You can do this easily when using a Web-based tool, with robust analytics, to manage your product catalog feeds and start to have some fun when working with comparison shopping engines.

7. Choice: Make sure you have the option and choice to send your product catalog feed to any marketing channel available to you on the Internet.  That includes over 250+ comparison shopping sites I know of, affiliate sites as Commission Junction and Linkshare (that can get you to the smallest of sites where your products can be found), eBay! and Amazon. Why? Because you never know into which comparison shopping engine your product catalog will lead to the most sales. MerchantAdvantage offers the broadest possible choice in the marketplace and you can start with a pretty comprehensive list here. 

I hope this information helps friends of eTaildTail prepare your marketing strategies for the online holiday shopping season over the next few months.

Happy 4th of July weekend.

Chip Arndt

SHOP•COM ™ and MerchantAdvantage Deliver Online Innovative Comparison Shopping Solution to Maximize Sales

Okay I am a little bias...but proud nonetheless of MerchantAdvantage's progress to help small to mid-sized merchants reach potential shoppers where ever they shop. 

MerchantAdvantage's new strategic partnership with SHOP•COM alows online merchants now to work with SHOP•COM in either their cost-per-transaction marketplace or their traditional cost-per-click business model.

MerchantAdvantage continues to be a leader in the ecommerce and mcommerce (mobile commerce) industries helping online merchants optimize and feed their product catalog data to any online marketing channels easily and cost-effectively so that online merchants can reach their customers where ever they shop.

Thanks for the support and onward we charge!

Chip Arndt

SHOP•COM ™ Partners with MerchantAdvantage to Streamline and Push Product Data to Maximize SHOP•COM ™ Marketplace and Cost-Per-Click Platform.

"MerchantAdvantage, a leader in Web-based data feed management and analytic tools, today announced a preferred, strategic partnership with SHOP.COM, the destination comparison shopping site designed for women. With the click of a button, online merchants can cost-effectively send their product catalog to maximize sales opportunities at SHOP•COM.

MerchantAdvantage has been a fully integrated solution into SHOP•COM’s OneCart® cost-per-transaction marketplace since 2006 and has never charged its clients listing, transaction or revenue fees when working with SHOP•COM. Now, MerchantAdvantage is proud to support SHOP•COM’s new Cost-Per-Click (“CPC”) platform. Online merchants can work with SHOP•COM in the manner they desire, expand their marketing reach, increase sales, and manage, analyze and update product catalog feeds instantly within MerchantAdvantage’s Channel Management Professional tool-based offering."

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to read full comments on the SHOP•COM ™ and MerchantAdvantage partnership.

Tips to Maximize Use of Comparison Shopping Engines with MerchantAdvantage CEO, Michael Lambert

At Internet Retailer 2008 in Chicago two weeks ago, MerchantAdvantage CEO, Michael Lambert, highlighted useful tips to using comparison shopping engines -- as Become, Ciao, FindGift.com, Gifts.com, Like.com, PriceGrabber, Pronto, Shopzilla, Smarter, SortPrice, Yahoo! Shopping and coupon comparison shopping sites -- as myCoupons.com. If you want a comprehensive list of comparison shopping sites, affectionately known as CSE's, then check them out here.

Michael Lambert also provided numerous tips to online mercants to optimize product catalog feed to ensure higher lisiting on comparison shopping engines, which, in turn, can then lead to more sales.

I found the video interview to be informative and concise, so check it out.

Please <<<CLICK HERE>>> to view the full interview on maximizing the use of comparison shopping engines with Michael Lambert, CEO, MerchantAdvantage.

The inteview was conducted by eTaildTail good friend Jason Billingsley at GetElastic, an ecommerce blog which I love to read daily. 

Jason is one of the few "industry experts" that I am very comfortable referring to as an expert. Click on his name above for an overview of what he has done with his life in a very short time = very impressive!

Have a great week!

Chip Arndt

MerchantAdvantage Helps Online Merchants Increase Sales Using Comparison Shopping Engines

Each month, I write a newsletter with advice, information and tips to help online, small to mid-sized businesses increase sales using comparison shopping engines, marketplaces and other marketing channels. I work closely with over 100 shopping destination channels, and some of them include:

Amazon, Become, Ciao, Commission Junction, eBay, GolfPricer, Google Product Search, GroupGain, mPoria, mShopper, Like, MyCoupons, PriceForSure, PriceGrabber, PriceRunner, Pronto, Shop.com, Shopping.com, Smarter, SortPrice, Underbid, Yahoo! Shopping, to name just a few.

I encourage all eTaildTail readers to review some of those newsletters to help grow sales and manage your online business more efficiently.  Each newsletter is free to read. 

Here are some of those MerchantAdvantage newsletters with a hyperlink to each of them.  I hope they help; let me know if you have any comments. You can email me at chip at eTaildTail.com and have a great week!

-- Chip Arndt

Some newsletters from MerchantAdvantage and Chip Arndt, Co-Founder:

• Marketing Methods and Alternative Options for 2008 Part I
• Marketing Methods and Alternative Options for 2008 Part II:
  Print Media & Press Releases and Newsletters
• Marketing Methods and Alternative Options for 2008 Part III:
  E-Mail and Blogs
• Marketing Methods and Alternative Options for 2008 Part Part IV:
  Incentive Programs: Gift Cards, Refer-A-Friend, Coupons and Sweepstakes
• Marketing Methods and Alternative Options for 2008 Part V:
  Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization
• Part 1: Do CSE's And Marketplaces Work For Online Merchants?
• Part 2: Do CSE's And Marketplaces Work For Online Merchants?
• 12 Step Program for Comparison Shopping Engine Management
• Free (and almost free) Internet Advertising
• Channel Feed Basics: Expand your reach and save money too!
• The Online Marketplace Revolution: Reach Millions of New Customers
• Pay Per Click vs. Pay Per Performance Marketing

Yahoo! Shopping Launches Bid Supported Marketplace and Updates Product Submit Features

eTaildTail always trys to alert small to mid-sized online merchants to updates and changes at comparison shopping engines and other shopping destination sites and marketplaces, as Amazon, Pronto, Shopzilla (which had some changes I talked about last week), and many others (see here for a comprehensive list) to ensure that online merchants are marketing their product catalog feeds properly to attain the highest return on investment/return on add spend.

So, please note that Yahoo! Shopping has some changes in the works and I suggest contacting your account rep and asking when these changes will occur. Headlines from an email I received yesterday are:

• Yahoo! Shopping Launching Bid Supported Marketplace (probably July 2008)
• Important Notification: Upcoming Changes to Product Submit (probably before June 2008)

My team at MerchantAdvantage received the following email, which I share with all of you to ensure that you are updated. 

If you are using MerchantAdvantage to manage your product data feeds to any marketing channel, we are keeping track of these new developments at Yahoo! and will be hosting a special, client-side webinar in the next few weeks to go over these changes. 

The Yahoo! changes probably will go into effect in July and new features as SKU level bidding, feed bidding, and hyperlinked ad placed logos will also available as a marketing option probably in June. Check in with your Yahoo! or MerchantAdvantage rep to help you stay one step ahead!

-- Chip Arndt

From Yahooo! Product Submit team:

"Dear Product Submit advertiser,

We are pleased to announce the upcoming launch of a bidded marketplace. With this change, there will be modifications to your Master Terms & Conditions and Program Terms, which will be detailed in a future email notice that you'll receive in the next 30 days.

We expect the bidded marketplace to have an impact on your day-to-day business. Therefore, we advise you and your team to begin planning for the transition to a bidded model.

As part of this launch, we are expanding the number of product categories and improving reporting within your Product Submit account.

These changes are designed to help you to:

1. Better influence the level of traffic you receive from Yahoo! Shopping
2. Gain more control over optimizing your product listings
3. Gain better visibility into your category performance

Stay tuned!

The Yahoo Product Submit team"

Online Shopping, E-Commerce Sales Increase Because of "Perceived" US Recession

eTaildTail friends over at Marketing Vox have an interesting study that mirrors the correlation I hypothesized about 6 months ago of the increase in fuel prices, and the credit crunch, to an increase in internet and mobile shopping. 

In those comments, I stated that people still like to buy/consume and, while they have less money to spend due to stagnant wages and high gas prices, would turn to internet e-commerce and mobile shopping as a means to buy products to save money and avoid spending money on gas to buy products at brick and mortar stores. Furthermore, I stated that once they start to shop online, or via mobile commerce, they would also be introduced to price savings, and other offers, that they were of unaware of before.  In turn, this would lead to increased loyalty to the online and mobile shopping experience into the future from new online shoppers.

It seems that my thoughts now have some credibility in statistics.  The great news for small to mid-sized e-commerce merchants is that a whole new group of people are learning how powerful, cost-effective, and easy online and mobile shopping is and existing online shoppers are still shopping.

What Does This Mean For the Future of Online and Mobile Shoppping?

My next hypothesis, and you can hold me to this, is that as many new online shoppers will shop online because of:

1. adverse economic conditions
2. flat pricing plans to surf online from mobile carriers
3. better shopping interfaces by e-commerce storefronts,
4. better "shopping experiences" from shopping destination portals as Amazon, eBay, Like.com, mShopper.com, mPoria.com, PriceGrabber, Shop.com, Shopzilla, and many others, and
5. ongoing better pricing, special offers, reduced shipping costs, and other incentives from the e-commerce merchant.

New and "old" online shoppers will become more enamored with online and mobile shopping and continue to use these channels/avenues to buy products than ever before, even after the US economy rebounds. 

This, in turn, will result in driving more online sales into the future and help to exceed Wall Street expectations of 13-15% year-over-year growth in online and mobile shopping.  I am still targeting 20% - 25% year-to-year growth into 2015.

We will see!

-- Chip Arndt

From Marketing Vox:

"One-third (33 percent) of online US adults are more likely to shop online, rather than at a store, because of high gas prices, according to a Harris Interactive study conducted for iCongo - writes MarketingCharts.

Some highlights from the study:

Incentives

Consumers give various other reasons they would be more likely to shop online as opposed to a physical store:

• 57 percent cite free shipping.
• 55 percent cite lower prices.
• 61 percent cite the ability to shop at any time.

If a store were..."

Please <<<CLICK HERE>>> to read full article from Marketing Vox.

Bid Goodbye to High Pay Per Click (PPC)

Using comparison shopping engines ("CSEs"), that work on a pay per click ("PPC") business model, can get expensive, if an online merchant does not manage and monitor these marketing campaigns daily. 

I have many clients who get upset when their PPC costs are almost equal to the amount of sales revenues generated from leads from CSEs, or worse, the PPC costs are actually higher each month than sales revenues generated by those PPC leads.

Most of the CSEs, that use a PPC business model, realize that to keep an online merchant as a client they need to make them money by providing a high enough return on investment ("ROI"), often known as return on add send ("ROAS"), or else the online merchant will simply stop working with that CSE.

Shopzilla, Smarter, Nextag, Pronto, PriceGrabber and others, provide online merchants an excellent solution to work with them more effectively by allowing the online merchant to use an "active bidding feature" to manage their PPC bids and get their product catalog listed/ranked higher on their respective CSE. 

I highly encourage all online merchants to take advantage of these features as these CSEs work hard to ensure that all online merchants have a high enough ROI/ROAS to justify working with them. If you are unsure if a particular CSE supports the "active bidding" feature just ask -- many do.

Now, the next step to managing your bids across each CSE, that uses a PPC model, is to ensure that you have a tool which helps you manage these active bids from a simple dashboard solution.  One of my technicians at MerchantAdvantage explains below how and why you should do this. And if you are working with a company that does not support this essential "active bidding" feature ask them why, as it really helps to increase the effectiveness and ROI/ROAS when using a CSE.

I hope his advice helps and if you need a Channel Management, product catalog feed tool with robust analytics, that also supports "active bidding" options on CSEs, please feel to contact Brett, or another MerchantAdvantage technical representative, at 800.550.9466.

I hope this helps!

-- Chip Arndt

by Brett, Technical Liaison at MerchantAdvantage

"As more and more shopping destination sites support PPC bids, merchants are utilizing active bidding to lower PPC. When bidding at Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs), there are two options to define bids.

Bid for Pay Per Click (PPC) on the data-feed, and Bid for PPC in the CSE Dashboard (back office). When editing in the CSE dashboard, you must login, find the screen that edits PPC, and edit each specific category or product each time you want to change your bids. An easier approach to modifying your bids is utilizing a data feed tool like Channel Management, from MerchantAdvantage.

PPC Bidding can be utilized to optimize your product appearance on the CSEs. If there is a high margin product or a product that needs to be moved, the bid can be adjusted to be high for higher ranking on the CSEs.

If a product has a low margin, instead of pulling the product from the feed, the bid can be lowered and it will still appear on the CSE at a lower level in the search result. But what if there aren’t many products like yours in that category? If you bid low your product will appear on the top."

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to see full commentary...scroll to the bottom after the jump

12 Step Program for Comparison Shopping Engine Management

Every month I write a newsletter for MerchantAdvantage.  The topic covers information, tips and advice, and coverage of other excellent companies that help the small to mid-sized business with their marketing and technology strategies, when working with over 150 shopping destination sites, comparison shopping engines and marketplaces, such as Amazon, eBay, and Underbid.

This month I am very happy to co-write the April newsletter titled: 12 Step Program for Comparison Shopping Engine Management with our good friend Rick Backus and his company CPC Strategy.  CPC Strategy offers excellent advice and will manage your marketing/channel feed campaigns for you, if you desire a managed solution rather than using Channel Management by MerchantAdvantage yourself.

All newsletters are archived on eTaildTail for all of you to read for free, just click on the link above or <<<here>>> for those newsletters.

Happy reading and I hope this helps.  If you have any questions please contact Rick at rick at cpcstrategy.com or find him at CPC Strategy.

From....April 22, MerchantAdvantage Newsletter, with guest Rick Backus and CPC Strategy

We are proud to co-author this month’s newsletter with our friends at CPC Strategy.

CPC Strategy is based out of San Diego, California and is a full service Comparison Shopping Management Solution. The team at CPC Strategy works directly with online merchants to develop data feed optimization strategies that fit their business model.

When online merchants don’t have the time or personnel available to implement marketing feed strategies on their own using Web-based tools by MerchantAdvantage, we recommend online merchants like CPC Strategy, who execute day-to-day management of comparison shopping engines and marketing campaigns to maximize ROI.

MerchantAdvantage and CPC Strategy speak with hundreds of online merchants everyday who understand the value of using comparison shopping engines (“CSEs”), but remain frustrated with the technical requirements to manage data feeds and struggle to realize higher return on investment when managing marketing channels available to them cost-effectively.

We hope that the following inside tips and our “12 Step Program” help online merchants:

• Understand better how to use CSE marketing campaigns efficiently
• Reduce the cost of working with CSEs, and
• Improve CSE ROI

So let’s get started and get some inside tips from industry experts at CPC Strategy, with comments from MerchantAdvantage.

1. Admit that you may have a Comparison Shopping Management Problem

Your sales are too low, your costs are too high, you're spending too much time on managing, optimizing, feeding and re-feeding data feeds, and overall performance using CSEs has fallen below expectations.

The very first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem, only then can we help to restructure your thinking for optimal CSE performance --so say it with us, "Hi, I'm ____, and I have a Comparison Shopping Management Problem." There that wasn’t too bad, now was it?

2. Focus more time and energy on Comparison Shopping Management

Just admitting that you have a problem doesn't mean that it's going to fix itself. We have always said that just feeding your product catalog data to a CSE does not necessarily lead to sales.

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to continue to the other 10 steps....yes it is free to read, fun, and value-add!

:-)

-- Chip Arndt

NOTE to ONLINE MERCHANTS: Changes in Taxonomy Feed Structures at Shopzilla

A technology representative at MerchantAdvantage asked that I post some "reminder" information for the eTaildTail community so that any online merchant feeding to Shopzilla can ensure that they are feeding their product catalog data properly.  These changes to Shopzilla's feed taxonomy structure changed earlier last month, so, if you have not updated your taxonomies properly, please do so immediately so you can ensure that your product catalog feed is performing properly with Shopzilla.

If you need some help, please feel free to contact the technicians at MerchantAdvantage and/or also see this link at Shopzilla for a full overview of their changes.

From MerchantAdvantage's technical team:

Shopzilla's taxonomy has changed. The categories with the most changes are:

• Office Supplies,
• Home & Garden,
• Sports Equipment & Outdoor Gear,
• Clothing & Accessories,
• Babies & Kids.

There are also some categories that have been broken down into sub categories.  <<<Click Here>>> for all the details on the latest changes to Shopzilla's taxonomy.

Having the correct taxonomy helps your marketing and also ensures that your products get placed in the category you deem most appropriate.  -- MerchantAdvantage Technical Team

-- Chip Arndt

Online Merchants Can Afford to Work with Comparison Shopping Engines and Shopping Sites

I wanted to thank so many of you in the eTaildTail community for attending the webinar I gave last week and also give special thanks to Joe Schaefer, MSN Product Specialist at JellyFish.com, and Rob Ulveling, Sr. Director of Business Deveopment at theFind.com who hosted the webinar with me.

If you missed it, you can download the webinar presentation for free by clicking on this link. <<<CLICK HERE>>> to download webinar...there are no obligations! Promise!

I think the webinar proved usual in helping online merchants forumulate a good marketing strategy to use shopping destination sites, begin to use comparison shopping engines to market their storefont products cost effectively and start, basically for free, by using theFind.com and JellyFish.com immediately.

Please feel free to download the entire webinar, slides and audio or either/or.

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to download the webinar for free...there are no obligations! Promise!

Have a great week.

-- Chip

Reminder: Webinar Thursday April 10 with theFind, JellyFish, and MerchantAdvantage: How Online Merchants Can Afford to Work with Comparison Shopping Engines

Just a quick reminder about the free webinar with theFind, JellyFish and MerchantAdvantage this Thursday on April 10, 2008.

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to sign up, yes it is free and no you don't have to buy anything.  Promise. :-)

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to sign up, yes it is free and no you don't have to buy anything.  Promise. :-)

-- Chip

Pay Per Click versus Pay Per Performance Marketing

Hello eTaildTail community.  I have gotten some mails this week about Pay-Per-Click ad/marketing campaigns versus Pay-Per-Transaction/Performance ad/marketing campaigns.  I wrote some thoughts in a newsletter for MerchantAdvantage and I wanted to share those thoughts with you. There is also a free webinar that you can download associated with these thoughts if you prefer to get your information that way.

I hope these thoughts help.

-- Chip

"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:

1. Marketplaces, such as Amazon.com, Shop.com, JellyFish.com, and Underbid.com
2. Comparison Shopping Engines, such as Pronto.com, PriceRunner.com, PriceGrabber.com, Pronto.com, Shopping.com, Smarter.com, Shopzilla.com, Yahoo! Shopping, and over 100 others. For a complete list please see MerchantAdvantage.com
3. Mobile Commerce Engines, such as mPoria.com and mShopper.com
4. Couparison Shopping Engines, such as MyCoupons.com and CouponMountain.com
5. Product Review Sites, such as PowerReviews.com and Buzzillions.com, and
6. Hybrid Sites: 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,..."

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to continue reading the free newsletter written by Chip Arndt for MerchantAdvantage. 

It is a good read and I think the advice in it will help online merchants with their PPC campaigns across the board.  And when you click over, there is nothing else you have to do but to enjoy the article, promise!

And here is a link to the other helpful free newsletters. <<<CLICK HERE>>>.

-- Chip

Comparison Shopping Engines Continue to Satisfy Customer Demand: HealthPricer Leading the Way

This morning I read with some joy that comparison shopping engines continue to figure out better methods to work for, and with, online consumers through better site navigation.  The article I read was about a niche comparison shopping engine called HealthPricer, which many of you may know about already.

<<<CLICK HERE>>> for that article, written by Kristina Knight at BizReport, which is excellent and short and to-the-point.

Basically, HealthPricer is improving how customers can find products using their shopping portal by creating a more robust search feature that matches "general search terms" with products as opposed to just hoping that consumers type in the product name correctly.

I indentified this as an issue in a prior blog on how comparison shopping engines will compete with general search engines as Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo! Search to show their value add to online consumers in order to gain loyal customers and differentiate themselves from just "general search engines."  I am happy that HealthPricer.com is leading the way by implementing more intuitive search methods. 

Comparison shopping engines can be valuable to the consumer, as these marketing channels focus on products rather than just listing "any information" related to a product.  But in order to continue to keep and grow market share -- and move customers to use their portals to find products rather than just looking for a product on Google, MSN or Yahoo! general search engines -- the comparison shopping engines have to be fun and easy to work with to help find the products customers want with "very few" clicks, albeit the CSEs have to think more like an online shopper.

I like what HealthPricer.com has done.  Check their site out. I typed in the word "diabetic" and loved their sub menu that came up to help me find what type of "diabetic" product I was looking for within the general category of "diabetic health needs".

I think if the comparison shopping engines ("CSEs") keep on improving how they interact with their potential customers, to make it easier and fun to find the products they are looking for, they will maintain their value-add in the marketplace to consumers and continue to be a good place for online merchants to market their products into the future. 

It is a crowded CSE landscape out their but as I have always said: "Why not list your product catalog on sites that may have customers you are unable to reach through other marketing strategies?"

I went to some other CSEs and did some similar searches as I did on HealthPricer.com, but none were as intuitive as HealthPricers' new methods.  You can bet that other CSEs will follow.

When they do, CSEs should continue to attract online consumers to their site and build marketshare, as it will always be more comprehensive and easy to navigate and find the best products you want from a site focused just on products rather than a general search on Google, or the other general search engines.

Oh, and if you sell medical related products, HealthPricer is a nice CSE to consider listing your product catalog.  Check them out at HealthPricer.com, and if you need any help, let me know!

-- Chip

 

Improve Results and Increase Sales and ROI in Comparison Shopping Engines

Hello eTaildTail community.  First of all thank you all for your emails and questions. I hope that I have been able to answer some of your questions in a manner that helps you better utilize comparison shopping engines and other marketing shopping destinations. 

Going into the weekend, I thought I would leave you with 5 tips to improve performance, and ROI, when using these marketing channels.

1. There are over 150 shopping destination channels that I know of which you can use to market your storefront.  Some are large, general, and well known channels, as Amazon.com, eBay, Shopping.com, Shopzilla, Shop.com, Pront.com, and PriceGrabber while others are smaller, general players, such as SortPrice.com, Become.com, myCoupons.com, Smarter.com, and PriceForSure.com and others are niche sites as Healthpricer.com, BobVila.com, HGTV.com, Cooking.com, GolfPricer.com, GourmetFoodMall.com, ToolCrib.com and many others. 

They all can lead to sales and many of them can work for you but you need to test which channels work best for your product catalog and manage each channel as you would separate marketing campaigns.  I recommend testing several channels and, after 3-6 months, compare each channel against the other and then only work with those that perform best for you. (Q: How? A: Use an analytic tool)

2. Improve the quality of each feed to each shopping channel by filling in all of the required fields that the shopping comparison engine requires. Then, update those fields weekely to ensure that these marketing feeds reflect the data that resides in your shopping cart technology.  This means cleaning up fields, especially where possible redundancy occurs, and defining new items accurately and thoroughly. In other words, make sure you map each shopping channel competely to the comparison shopping engines required taxonomy so that they can list your products accurately throughout their shopping comparison engine.

3. Make sure that the data feeds your are managing to each comaprison shopping engine, or shopping marketplace, reflect exactly the inventory and products that you are selling online. If you delete a product on your shopping cart, or run out of inventory, ensure you have a system in place that will "automatically" update these changes in the data feeds you are managing for each shopping channel. DON'T rely on doing it manually, as you will make mistakes and probably forget to make the "global" changes needed in each product catalog data feed file you are sending to multiple comparison shopping engines.

4. Manage each comparison shopping engine and marketplace differently.  They are unique channels that perform differently which requires that you create a separate data feed for each channel from which to market from on a weekly, if not daily basis.

5. Understand the economics of each comparison shopping engine and the options they offer to ensure that you manage to the highest ROI possible when using that channel.  Shop.com now givs the online merchant options to work on a commission or cost-per-click basis, JellyFish allows the merchants to set the "cash-back discount" they want to give a consumer for each product, SortPrice gives you a flat fee option per month, myCoupons.com gives you a flat "cost-per-redemption" model, theFind.com is free all around and now has introduced a CPC pricing model and Amazon.com is incredible but can charge large commissions for credited sales, so ensure that you are feeding products to them that are in line with the margins you can afford to give up.

Working with comparison shopping engines can be incredibly lucrative but you will need to do some work.  I think it is fun, especially when you see the sales roll in!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot:

Bonus Help: FEED IMMEDIATELY to 3 free comparison shopping engines: Google Shopping, theFind.com, and MSN LIve Search. You can only win and pay nothing, ever!

Have a great weekend.

-- Chip

How Online Merchants Can Afford to Work with Comparison Shopping Engines: A Webinar and Education to Saving Time and Money

Okay, you ask and I "try" and listen.  A request came to me via email to eTaildTail yesterday simply stating:

"Chip, I know I want to work with comparison shopping engines, I think I can afford to work with some of them, and I think I have some time to devote to this form of online marketing, but I don't know if I have the technical skills to do it, can you help?"

I am going to try and answer this question, and address much more, in a webinar discussion with my friends over at theFind.com (a free CSE) and JellyFish.com (an easy and fun pay-per-transaction CSE). It is a free webinar and you will get some really great tips on how to increase your storefront's exposure and increase sales in a very short period of time.

Rob Ulveling, Senior Director of Business Development at theFind.com, Joe Schaeffer, MSN Product Specialist with JellyFish.com and I will cover:

• Leveraging Marketing Channels that List for Free
• New Online Marketing Opportunities:
  a. Case Study: Free Marketing by theFind.com
  b. Case Study: Intelligent Pay-Par-Transaction Marketing by JellyFish.com
• Feeding Your Product Catalog Today to Marketing Channels That Matter to You

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to sign up for the webinar on April 10 with MerchantAdvantage, theFind.com and Jellyfish.com. It is free and only 30 minutes. You can also call 800.550.9466 for more information about this event.