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

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

Eric Ward's Advice on Deploying Link Building Budget for Maximum Impact

Industry experts in the world of ecommerce and mcommerce are often those who speak the loudest...and are not necessarily experts.  And then, sometimes, I come along those people whom I highly respect and love reading their commentary and advice to help small to mid-sized business with their marketing efforts.

This week, on "Dr. Ralph Wilson's Web Marketing Today", Eric Ward offers excellent insights on how to build traffic and credibility using "links."

Happy Reading!

Chip Arndt

By Eric Ward and as posted on "Dr. RalphWilson's Web Marketing Today":

"By now you know you need links -- links from other sites, pages, bloggers, bookmarkers, editors, Diggers, Stumblers, and others.  These links help your site in a number of ways, not the least of which is the potential they have to improve your site's search engine rank.
   
With so many different types of link building related services available, how do you know which ones make the most sense for you? How do you decide how much of your budget should be spent on each one?  Are link bait strategies a sound financial investment for your site?   What about press releases, paid directories, paid links or paid reviews?  Which links should you be willing to pay for and how much?  And what in the world is a widget link?

The bad news is that there is no one-size-fits-all link building budget deployment that will assure your success.  This is also good news, because it means the site with the biggest link building budget does not always win the link building game.  Having a million dollars to spend doesn't matter if you spend it in the wrong place.  There's a reason you don't see a lot of Travelocity.com ads in the San Quentin library.

How do you decide which approach should get what percentage of your link building budget?  Here are a few guidelines..."

<<<CLICK HERE>>> for full advice, story and fantastic strategies for "link building on a budget" to grow your brand, awareness and eventual sales.

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

Top-Rated Products: An Online Merchant’s New Best Friend

I have a special treat for the eTaildTail community to end the week.

Our friends over at PowerReviews and Buzzilions, most notably Jay Shaffer, have some great insights for online merchants using reviews to power customer trust and loyalty, which leads to sales.

There are some great references to what works and does not work, so I hope this read is helpful.

SPECIAL NOTE TO eTaildTail READERS:

The below commentary is part of eTaildTail's ongoing guest commentary series for 2008. If you would like to share you insights with the eTaildTail community, please email me at (chip at eTaildTail.com) and let's help online merchants grow their business. 

International folks are encouraged to share their thoughts as well!

Have a wonderful weekend and "God Bless" our troops, please remember them in your prayers.

-- Chip

Move over Best Sellers, a More Powerful and Proven Enticement Has Arrived!

"As a former merchant, (former VP of Marketing at Wine.com) I understand the power of merchandising and the important role that the merchandising of most popular and best selling products play in getting your customer’s attention. 

That’s why I am thrilled to be sharing with the eTaildTail community the latest “hidden gem” that comes from leveraging customer reviews on your websites:

I want you all to meet Top-Rated Products.

The marketing of best sellers, up to now, has probably been the surest and easiest way for merchants to generate quick sales.

Let’s face it, somewhere at the core of our buying public is the notion of “having what everyone else has,” so advertising what is most popular in the form of best selling items is a “no brainer” of sorts.  There are some inherent problems with this approach, however, as a product’s selling popularity can be due to a myriad of reasons, the most often being discount or sale pricing.  So while best sellers can often drive sales, they don’t often drive matching profits!

Now let’s meet Top-Rated, or as my friends at Mountain Gear say, "User-Approved Products" -- you have got to love that one!

These items all have one thing in common – customers rave about their off-the-shelf performance.  And one thing we have heard over and over, and over, again from our clients is that shoppers are willing to pay for guaranteed performance. 

These items, then, are often sold at full price with no need for coupon or discount incentives to drive heightened consumer interest.  They garner attention simply by being rated as standouts by the customers that use them.

Here are some interesting data points and/or general trends associated with Top-Rated vs. Best Seller email and website campaigns, as shared by clients including: Brookstone; Staples; REI; Onlineshoes; and Mountain Gear.   

Highlights of top rated merchandising include:

• Open rates with Top-Rated subject lines outperformed Best Seller campaign and open rates for email Equal and or increased click-thru rates for email campaigns
• Mountain Gear saw a 50% higher AOV with Top-Rated email campaigns
• For website merchandising efforts, REI saw their Top-Rated category outperform corresponding Best Sellers by a $20 higher AOV as top-rated items are often sold at full price (yea!)
• Top Rated as a presentation sort on category pages (dropdown menu choice) is becoming the preferred customer experience

The rate at which our clients are sharing these wins with Powerreviews is all the proof I need to say to the rest of you online merchants out there: "Let me introduce you to your new best friend – Top Rated Products."

I hope this helps get your Q2 ’08 off to a rousing start!"  -- Jay Shaffer

If you would like to contact Jay directly for more advice, please do. Also ask him about Buzzillions, a site that lists reviews and works in concert with Powerreviews.

Here is Jay's information and tell him eTaildTail sent you!

Jay Shaffer
VP Sales & Marketing
PowerReviews.com
(jay at powerreviews.com)