Pay-Per-Click and Keyword Search Questions To Ask

Many clients have asked MerchantAdvantage questions about how buying keywords on general search engines - as Google, Bing, and Yahoo! Search - translates to using these same keywords when sending their data feeds to shoppping comparison sites, consumer shopping engines, and other comparison shopping engines ("CSEs"), i.e. if an ecommerce merchant is allowed to send keywords in their data feed to CSEs and other shopping destination sites should they use the key word information they have acquired using general search engines to create those keywords?

This is an excellent question and I have a simple answer.  Yes.

Eventhough it might be best to know exactly what keyword searches customers use on a particular CSE and shopping destination site directly, I believe there is a correlation between search on general search engines and comparison shopping engines.  And besides, you never know exactly what keyword search term a customer might use when looking for your product on a comparison shopping engine.

Therefore, the more keyword search terms you can identify and then send to a comparison shopping engine in your data feed the better.  Right?  So why not use research and keywords identified from your general search adword campaigns?  And besides, it does not cost you anything to send keyword tag identifiers in your product data feed to comparison shopping engines....so the more the better!

So, let's call this process the transitivity game = what applies to one search engine probably can help with another - even if that "other search engine" is focused just on products. 

If you like what you are reading, then the following article from eTaildTail friends at Practical Ecommerce will help you identify some of the best keywords that you can also utilize for your product data feeds while provding valuable advice on managing your keyword campaigns.

- Chip Arndt

Ten Pay-per-click Questions An Owner Should Ask

 

Practical Ecommerce

By: Greg Laptevsky

August 13, 2009

"If you own or manage an ecommerce business, you may not directly execute your pay-per-click advertising campaigns yourself. Instead, you may delegate the execution of them to an employee or an outside firm. But owners and managers need to know that broad outlines and the successes and failures of their pay-per-click advertising efforts, and to help them with this I've assembled a list of 10 questions to ask the employee or outside firm who executes the campaign. 

1. How many keywords do we have running? If the answer is anything less than a few thousand, you’re probably not taking advantage of the longtail game of the business. While there are always exceptions, a few thousand keywords for an ecommerce store are not uncommon when you consider all kinds of product and brand variations.

2. What are our top converting terms (by sales volume and spend)? This one is always interesting....

(click here to continue reading) ..it is very helpful!

5 Data Feed Management Tips To Successful Affiliate Marketing

Earlier this week, I wrote about "Affiliate Marketing" and how working with a myriad of affiliate marketing channels might help ecommerce merchants execute some of their marketing strategies more effectively. 

I ran across an article that goes more in-depth into how an ecommerce can best utlize afiliate marketing channels.

The process is a bit more more complex than I thought to be truly effective, so I suggest reading this advice as it is is very, very helpful and a quick read.

- Chip Arndt

5 Things That Make My Affiliate Life Easier

OutSpoken Media

By Rae Hoffman

August 13, 2009

"If you’re a merchant with an affiliate program (or an affiliate network), you’ll find some tips below for making your affiliates lives easier, and thus your sales volume higher.

Allow Deep Linking To Any Page

There is nothing worse than having an affiliate program only offer you links to predetermined landing pages. Not long ago, I had an issue with a merchant (who is a household name) that only offered affiliate links to their homepage...(continue reading by clicking here)...

"Affiliate" Marketing Help

Some of you have asked: "...what is the easiest way and most cost-effective way to have your products listed across a wide variety of sites without having to manipulate your data feeds daily or weekly and set up accounts directly with certain sites you may want to work with...", i.e. you don't have the resources to manage your data feeds and return on adspend using a tool as MerchantAdvantage, you don't have $ to spend on some pay-per-click campaigns, and you just want to experiement and "wet your feet."

In other words, you are willing to work with/pay fees to a "broker/affiliate" who is able to take your data feed, ONCE it is configured correctly for that affiliate site, and then offer you the opportunity to have that product catalog feed sent to many places for a "structured fee".

I say "structured fee" as each "broker/affiliate" has a different business model, fee structure, contract obligation etc...which I would ensure you understand clearly before working with them.

I followed up with a client recently and had a nice conversation about just this option and with whom they could work. I reminded that merchant that even an affiliate site requires you to format a data feed and send it to them daily (set-up work is required), but if you are just sending your data feed to one affiliate or even two and not updating and manipulating your prices, product descriptions, and analyzing performance on a day-to-day basis then it should be no issue to work with them directly - if they accept you into their netowork and you are willing to pay associated fees.

So here were some of the affliate sites I suggested on my call this am. Please remember that all listed have a different cost structure, some lock you in to work with them for a year, and some may not be appropriate for your stage of development.

Overview of some Affiliates - some of our clients send their product data feeds to at least one of these, some work with many of these listed -

SPECIAL NOTE: Not every affiliate will work with you if they don't think you're big enough to support their affiliate network and they all purport to do the same thing which is broker your products to other sites. Some of these are small, some are very large, and others are niche.

(listed in alphabetical order - NOT in order of importance, ease of working with them, cost, or reach):

www.Avantlink.com
www.BettyMills.com
www.ClassifiedFlyerAds.com
www.ClickXchange.com
www.ClixGalore.com
www.CommissionJunction.com
www.DigitalGoodsDelivery.com
www.GoldenCan.com
www.Google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork
www.Half.com
www.iShop.co.uk (UK-London based)
www.Kolimbo.com
www.Lemonade.com
www.Linkconnector.com
www.LinkShare.com
www.PepperJamNetwork.com
www.PriceScan.com
www.SecretPrices.com
www.Shareasale.com

I am sure there are many more affiliate sites, but this is a start if you decide this type of marketing strategy is right for you.  I hope the above proves helpful as you continue to expand your online marketing efforts.

-- Chip Arndt

FitBase Provides Valuable Information For Ecommerce Merchants

Many of our ecommerce clients at MerchantAdvantage have asked for additonal information to our white papers and client-side Webinars to make better business and online marketing decisons.  We all know that there’s a lot of information out there – google search, MSN search, Yahoo! search, blogs, industry websites, white papers, even newsletters -- which MerchantAdvantage also sends out each month. 

Okay, all of this is good. After all, knowledge IS power.  But what about too much knowledge?  Having so much information that it is all white noise?  The real question is where do we find the "right" information easily that we can act on today.  Albeit, how do we make heads or tails of the abundance of data available to anyone with an internet connection?

Well, friends of eTaildTail at FitForCommerce have pondered those questions – and have come up with a great answer: FitBase.  

In addition to their core eCommerce consultancy business, they have launched an online knowledge base of all things eCommerce. Now before you become skeptical of "another" site claiming to be the "one-stop-shop" for ecommerce related informaton -- I hear what you’re probably saying now: "...just what we need Chip – MORE information!"  

Okay, point taken. 

However, FitBase provides information in an organized, structured and intuitive manner, with apples-to-apples comparisons, benchmarking data on 1,000s of eCommerce features, and easy to follow, categorized "Best Practices" advice and resources in one place.  This even includes surveys, statistics and provider and solution details for vendors in over 30 different categories.   And, it is all presented in an easy-to-use solution finder interface that finds information and resources that most likely to fit your business ecommerce needs.

There’s only one thing to say. Phew. 

And I am glad to point you in their direction. It has been a great help to me, so check it out here and I believe it will help you too.

Enjoy.

- Chip Arndt

Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing - TheFind.com

Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing

eTaildTail is excited to continue its oning series called: Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, over the past several weeks we had great conversations with several shopping destination sites/marketing channels.

eTaildTail knows that using consumer shopping engines ("CSE"s) can help online retailers increase sales at a price they can afford, although many ecommerce merchants still are hesitant to work with CSEs for a myriad of reasons.

The most notable three reasons are:

1. lack of familiarity with a particular marketing channel
2. lack of evidence that a marketing channel increases sales cost effectively, and
3. difficulty of working with a marketing channel

As part of eTaildTail's 2009 effort to educate online retailers as to the many, cost-effective marketing channels available to them to list their product catalog, eTaildTail will interview executives at various CSEs and marketing channels and ask them to help us undertstand their value to growing an online merchant's sales and revenues.

eTaildTail hopes that these online Q&A sessions give you, the online merchant, pertinent information as to a particular marketing channel and the potential benefits of working with them.  And, if you decide to work them then great, please let them know that eTaildTail sent you their way.

So let's get started with an interview with TheFind.com and its Senior Director of Business Development, Rob Ulveling.  All interviews are conducted by Chip Arndt, an author of eTaildTail. 

If you would like to contact TheFind.com and Rob Ulveling you may email me at tips @ merchantadvantage.com and eTaildTail would be glad to accommodate you, or see below.

Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing – TheFind.com

TheFind.com's Secrets to CSE Marketing Success for Online Merchants

Interview with Rob Ulveling by Chip Arndt, eTaildTail author.

1. When was TheFind.com founded and by whom?

In February 2005, a little over four years ago, theFind got going with its first venture financing. Our CEO Siva Kumar is one of the two co-founders of the company.

2. What sets TheFind.com apart from the other consumer shopping engines?

TheFind is a vertical search engine for shopping that is designed to simply find it all. Our mission is to make every product, every store, every sale, coupon and discount, instantaneously accessible to shoppers.

Just like Google and Yahoo, TheFind crawls the entire Web and finds all of the store Web sites. TheFind also accepts feeds from qualified sources like Merchant Advantage. Then, with patented search technology TheFind helps shoppers discover everything that online shopping, local shopping, and now, green shopping have to offer, so that they can quickly find the lowest price, the best deal, or that hard-to-find item.

Over 320 million products from more than 500,000 stores and online merchants are currently universally accessible through TheFind.com, TheFind Mobile, and TheFind iPhone App, making TheFind the leading source for comprehensive product information in the US.

3. What are the secrets to success for merchants advertising on TheFind.com?

The most successful merchants take advantage of the breadth and diversity of product searches on TheFind, by making sure that every product they sell is part of our index. To ensure that all their items are included merchants can help our crawler by following the best practices for SEO that are recommended for Google.

In addition, merchants can benefit by having robust and detailed product descriptions on their pages, showing clearly marked pricing and sale information, and making sure they have large product images. Merchants can also choose to augment our crawl by working through Merchant Advantage to supply a detailed and comprehensive data feed.

In the feed, they should add in any coupons and shipping offers that they may be currently running as we include those alongside relevant product search results to help drive more sales. In a typical month we send qualified consumer clicks to over 50,000 merchants. By advertising product listings on TheFind on a CPA basis, a merchant's relevant product matches will show up higher than other equivalent products,driving more qualified traffic and more sales within ROI metrics.

4. Who is using TheFind.com and why?

Last month over 11.5 million people visited TheFind, a growth of over 1,200% from a year ago. The feedback we consistently get from shoppers is that TheFind is able track down even the hardest-to-find items, which makes us a trusted and valued shopping destination.

Two-thirds of the searches on TheFind are in the following categories: apparel and accessories, health and beauty, jewelry, home and garden, and sports and outdoors. But with our large index (over 320 million products - over 20 times what is on most comparison shopping engines) we see consumer searches in every possible retail category - from auto parts and craft supplies to musical instruments and pet supplies! So no matter how small or how large you are and what kind of products you
sell, we have qualified shoppers looking for what you have to offer.

5. What are some of the challenges you are seeing in the retail sector during the current economic downturn, and what are you doing to overcome them?

What has been interesting during these tough economic times is that our traffic continues to grow every month. This we think reflects the trend that multi-channel retailers are seeing in that their growth coming from the online sector as opposed to offline sales. Shoppers are increasingly turning online in order to save time and money.

We are also seeing a strong demand for sale items, coupons, and free shipping offers and by including such information directly as part of our product search results, we deliver greater benefits to hard hit consumers in these recessionary times.
We see e-commerce only growing stronger as a channel, and are optimistic about what this will mean for the 2009 online Holiday Season.

Bonus Q: How do I get to work with TheFind.com as an ecommerce merchant?

We probably already crawl your e-commerce site and we would encourage you to follow the set of guidelines in answer #3 above.

You should definitely talk to your Merchant Advantage representative and discuss the ways in which they can help you gain an advantage over your peers in benefiting from TheFind's breadth and diversity of product search traffic.

They can help you with advertising options to drive more qualified traffic to your site. Small and medium-sized merchants can especially gain from the many different categories in which our consumers are looking for great products to buy.

Chip: Thank you so much Rob for your time and insights on how online merchants can benefit by working with TheFind.com

If you want to keep up with all entries as they relate to Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, please click on "Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing" under categories on the left hand side of the eTaildTail blog.

- Chip Arndt

Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing - Become.com

Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing

eTaildTail is excited to continue its oning series called: Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, over the past several weeks we had great conversations with several shopping destination sites/marketing channels.

eTaildTail knows that using consumer shopping engines ("CSE"s) can help online retailers increase sales at a price they can afford, although many ecommerce merchants still are hesitant to work with CSEs for a myriad of reasons.

The most notable three reasons are:

1. lack of familiarity with a particular marketing channel
2. lack of evidence that a marketing channel increases sales cost effectively, and
3. difficulty of working with a marketing channel

As part of eTaildTail's 2009 effort to educate online retailers as to the many, cost-effective marketing channels available to them to list their product catalog, eTaildTail will interview executives at various CSEs and marketing channels and ask them to help us undertstand their value to growing an online merchant's sales and revenues.

eTaildTail hopes that these online Q&A sessions give you, the online merchant, pertinent information as to a particular marketing channel and the potential benefits of working with them.  And, if you decide to work them then great, please let them know that eTaildTail sent you their way.

So let's get started with an interview with Become.com and its Director of Business Development & Sales, Lee Cohen.  All interviews are conducted by Chip Arndt, an author of eTaildTail. 

If you would like to contact Become.com and Lee Cohen you may email me at tips @ merchantadvantage.com and eTaildTail would be glad to accommodate you, or see below.

 

  Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing – Become.com

Become.com's Secrets to CSE Marketing Success for Online Merchants

Interview with Lee Cohen by Chip Arndt, eTaildTail author... and check out the photo below of the very helpful and "cool" team at Become.com! We love them!

1. When was Become.com founded and by whom?

Become.com was founded in 2004 by Michael Yang, former founder of mySimon – the web’s first comparison search engine.

2. What sets Become.com apart from the other consumer shopping engines?

Become.com is a site that combines product research and comparison shopping, allowing shoppers to access product information and make better buying decisions.

Users can take advantage of Become.com’s research engine to search over 5 billion web pages of information—buying guides, product reviews, discussion forums and more—and then comparison shop on the same site to find the right product for their lifestyle and budget.

Whether online shoppers are looking for an ATV part or a home theater system , Become.com’s research and comparison shopping engine helps them get the information they need to make the best buying decision. With over 25 million products and over 5,000 stores, we’ve made it easy for users to find everything they need to shop on one site.

3. What are the secrets to success for merchants advertising on Become.com?

There are no real secrets to success, just a simple 3-prong approach –

1. Relevant titles & descriptions
2. ROI Tracker Integration and
3. Use of our marketing vehicles

 Here is a brief explanation of each of these:

1. Relevant Titles and Descriptions – Adding descriptive keyword information to your titles and descriptions helps your products appear for the right user queries. When consumers find what they are looking for, they buy which means higher conversions for our retailers.

2. ROI Tracker Integration – integrating our state-of-the-art ROI Tracker gives us visibility into which products are selling best for our retailers on Become.com. How does this help you sell more? Let’s say you are a jewelry retailer and you list 50 pearl bracelets with Become.com, our algorithm has no visibility into which of these bracelets is a popular, top seller. Integrating the ROI Tracker allows our algorithm to identify the best selling bracelet for a particular query and display it.

3. Marketing Tools – Become.com offers retailers multiple marketing tools to best showcase your products on our site. Here are is list of our most popular marketing vehicles:

Bidding – Become.com is a dynamic bidding system where retailers can bid for preferred placement both on a category level (in the dashboard) or on a product level (in the feed)

Free Logo Placement with a $0.10+ Bid – Retailers can bid $0.10 or more to receive not only better placement on the page but also free logo placement

Promo Text – An additional $0.05 (for soft goods) and $0.10 (for tech products) allows our retailers to place promotional language alongside their listings. Some popular uses of this are “3-Day Sale” and “Free Shipping” . 

Free %-Off Sticker – When retailers provide us the MSRP as well as the selling price in the feed, our system will automatically calculate the % off and display that saving free of charge to the users. This is a great way for retailers to showcase great deals and low prices!

4. Who is using Become.com and why?

Become.com has over 10 Million unique monthly visitors. 60% of our visitors are women searching for great deals on the latest shoes, clothing and household items. Our male users tend to search for discounted gps systems, HDTV and computers. 

Here are some success stories of shoppers on Become.com: http://www.become.com/success_story.html 

Become.com’s shopping blog is frequented by online shoppers looking for the latest in fashion, gadgets, gift ideas for events and product reviews.

5. What are some of the challenges you are seeing in the retail sector during the current economic downturn, and what are you doing to overcome them?

Consumers are more deal focused than ever before and retailers need to use every vehicle available to showcase these deals. One of Become.com’s newest features is % Off – this is a FREE tools retailers can use to showcase their low prices and great deals. Additionally, even in this down economy, retailers still need to make sales.

At Become.com we are committed to driving the highest quality, most qualified traffic to our retail partners to ensure that ROI and conversion metrics are met.

Bonus Q: How do I get to work with Become.com as an ecommerce merchant?

We are happy to answer any questions you have about listing your products on Become.com. We can even set you up right over the phone! You can give us a call at 408-215-4700 ext. 2 for Sales or email us at sales@become.com and if you mention “etaildtail” we’ll give you $50 in FREE CLICKS!

Chip: Thank you so much Lee for your time and insights on how online merchants can benefit by working with Become.com

If you want to keep up with all entries as they relate to Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, please click on "Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing" under categories on the left hand side of the eTaildTail blog.

- Chip Arndt

Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing - SortPrice.com

Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing

eTaildTail is excited to continue its oning series called: Insider Edition: The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, over the past several weeks we had great conversations with several shopping destination sites/marketing channels.

eTaildTail knows that using consumer shopping engines ("CSE"s) can help online retailers increase sales at a price they can afford, although many ecommerce merchants still are hesitant to work with CSEs for a myriad of reasons.

The most notable three reasons are:

1. lack of familiarity with a particular marketing channel
2. lack of evidence that a marketing channel increases sales cost effectively, and
3. difficulty of working with a marketing channel

As part of eTaildTail's 2009 effort to educate online retailers as to the many, cost-effective marketing channels available to them to list their product catalog, eTaildTail will interview executives at various CSEs and marketing channels and ask them to help us undertstand their value to growing an online merchant's sales and revenues.

eTaildTail hopes that these online Q&A sessions give you, the online merchant, pertinent information as to a particular marketing channel and the potential benefits of working with them.  And, if you decide to work them then great, please let them know that eTaildTail sent you their way.

So let's get started with an interview with SortPrice and its Founder, Doron Simovitch.  All interviews are conducted by Chip Arndt, an author of eTaildTail. 

If you would like to contact SortPrice and Doron Simovitch you may email me at tips @ merchantadvantage.com and eTaildTail would be glad to accommodate you, or see below.

 Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing – SortPrice.com

SortPrice's Secrets to CSE Marketing Success for Online Merchants

Interview with Doron Simovitch by Chip Arndt, eTaildTail author.

1. When was SortPrice.com founded and by whom?

Sortprice was founded in 2004 by Doron Simovitch and Asaf Klibansky, both of whom have backgrounds in technology and e-commerce.  The aim was to establish a shopping search engine that offered merchants a fairer, more cost-effective means of expanding their online advertising reach while giving shoppers a site that is fun, easy-to-use and provides real value.

2. What sets SortPrice.com apart from the other consumer shopping engines?

We pride ourselves on building and maintaining very strong relationships with our merchants. We genuinely want them to succeed and everything we do, from sales to our tech support team, is geared towards establishing trust with them in a personal way.

Unlike most of our competitors, we do not use a pay-per-click pricing model for our merchant listings. Instead, we offer monthly flat-fee based pricing.  This model negates the possibility of click fraud, which we’ve seen can have a devastating impact on a retailer’s advertising budget and ultimately, their bottom line.  Merchants can list as many products as they want on Sortprice and not have to worry about paying for fraudulent clicks on particular product listings.  It’s a fairer, more transparent way of doing business and our merchants collectively love the peace of mind they get from us.

We also strive to give shoppers and merchants alike the best shopping technology and tools on the web.  We were the first to expand the online shopping experience to Facebook with our enormously popular Wishlist shopping application, which allows users to build gift lists directly from Sortprice.com and share them with friends and family on their Facebook pages.  Similarly, we built a Facebook Store application for merchants that gives them the ability to sell their products through a virtual store on their individual Facebook profile.  Both of these applications are not only one-of-a-kind, but free to use.

Sortprice is continuously searching for ways to improve the online shopping experience.  In the last year alone we’ve added a Shop-by-Color feature that makes it even easier for a shopper to find what they’re looking for on our site and we’ll be rolling out a few more new technologies as well in the immediate future.  Our commitment to being an industry leader on the technology side almost borders on an obsession but the results speak for themselves.

3. What are the secrets to success for merchants advertising on SortPrice.com?

The Sortprice engine works by relevance and results are driven by what our shoppers are looking for. We use advanced algorithms to display the most relevant search results. Most successful merchants optimize their product data feeds by adding the relevant keywords such as model number/brand/manufacturer/product type and color in the name and description fields on their data feeds.

We strongly recommend that our merchants take advantage of all the benefits that working with Sortprice.com provides. This means finding a price package that best fits their budgets and online advertising goals.  Some merchants choose to list everything while others selectively target certain products, but either way, our pricing structure gives them the flexibility to figure out what works best.  It also means utilizing tools like the Facebook merchant store application, which is free to add and easy to set up with the help of our support team.

4. Who is using SortPrice.com and why?

Because we have thousands of product categories—everything from jewelry to medical supplies to even auto parts—anyone can (and does) utilize Sortprice.  We’ve designed Sortprice to be incredibly easy and even fun to use, so whether you’re a novice online shopper or a seasoned veteran, you will find exactly what you’re looking for.

Additionally, we have one of the most diverse client bases in the shopping search engine industry, encompassing merchants of literally every size and scope.  Of course, you will find the larger national established retail giants on Sortprice.  But we also host thousands of smaller, specialized “mom and pop” retailers that you won’t find anywhere else.  These merchants might otherwise not be able to expand to the internet if not for the value our flat-fee pricing structure provides.  By including them on Sortprice, we’re not only doing our part to level the playing field for merchants.  We believe we’re offering consumers the most choices to make an educated decision when shopping.

5. What are some of the challenges you are seeing in the retail sector during the current economic downturn, and what are you doing to overcome them?

On the merchant side, the obvious implication of a flailing economy is that many retailers are being forced to slash, or even cut entirely, their online advertising budgets.

We’ve stayed in close contact with many of our merchants throughout these troubled times and have tried to work with them to keep them in the fold while still respecting the financial hurdles they are facing, mostly through promotions or by changing the advertising packages they have with us.  We’re also strongly encouraging them to take advantage of the Facebook merchant store application, since it is provides free exposure to them and is something we assist them in setting up.  Additionally, by working with our partners such as MerchantAdvantage, we’re able to do most of the heavy lifting for merchants in maintaining their product listings and data feeds on Sortprice, giving them time to focus on other matters critical to their success.

The interesting thing about the current economic climate is that people are still shopping.  They’re just being smarter about it.  People are genuinely doing their research now and looking for every opportunity to save some money, which makes online shopping, and by extension Sortprice, an even more valuable resource for them.

Bonus Q: How do I get to work with Sortprice.com as an ecommerce merchant?

Setting up an account on Sortprice.com is extremely simple.  Just visit this page to learn more and get started: http://www.sortprice.com/enhanced.html

Chip: Thank you so much Doron for your time and insights on how online merchants can benefit by working with SortPrice.com.

If you want to keep up with all entries as they relate to Insider Edition:  The Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing, please click on "Experts' Guide to Channel Marketing" under categories on the left hand side of the eTaildTail blog.

- Chip Arndt