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

Marketing for Holiday Season Should Begin in October

This just in from the "experts." It is a good read for all online merchants! Prepare now for online holiday shopping....or very soon. :-)

From eTaildTail friends over at Internet Retailer and MarketLive:

"While most consumers don’t start holiday shopping in earnest until the day after Thanksgiving, online retailers should begin marketing for the season as early as October, according to MarketLive Inc., an e-commerce platform provider.

During 2007’s fourth quarter, online merchants in the MarketLive Performance Index experienced an overall conversion rate of 4.8%, an 18% increase from the third quarter. The engagement rate (visit-to-cart) ratio rose 9.87%, up 4% from the prior quarter, and cart abandonment dropped 6% to 55.64%."

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

Chip Arndt

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

Using Testimonials/Reviews Effectively: How Credibility Indicators Can Help (or Hurt) Your Conversions

l Yes, I love MarketingExperiments free Webinars.

These webinars have a great track record of helping my clients on numerous issues. 

If you want to learn more about how "reviews/testimonials" can help, or hurt, drive traffic to your webstore and convert visitors to buyers, may I suggest signing up for Dr. Flint McGlaughlin's free webinar July 9.

Details below,

Happy 4th of July weeek and weekend.

Chip Arndt

Join a FREE July 9, 2008 MarketingExperiments Webinar

Topic:  Using Testimonials/Reviews Effectively: How Credibility Indicators Can Help (or Hurt) Your Conversions

When: Wednesday, July 9, 2008 – 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. EDT

Presenter: Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments

Is "testimonial blindness" the new "banner blindness"?

As more and more websites use these credibility indicators,
marketers need to know if these elements really work, if they're
just cluttering up pages, or worse – hurting results.

During this free, one-hour Web Clinic, we will:

– Examine recent tests that increased (and reduced) conversions
– Discuss proven ways to use testimonials more effectively
– Review and optimize attendees' landing pages (time permitting)

NOTE: To be considered for a live landing page review, please
include your sign-up page URL when you register.

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

Quality Product Images on Your Website Can Boost Sales

Good product images can increase conversions from leads to sales on your website...I have thought so, it seems intuitive, doesn't it? Now you have "scientific" proof, well almost.

Here is a great read from eTaildTail friends over at GrokDotCom on how better product images on your webstore/web site help with conversions to sales.

Hope the read helps small to mid-sized businesses with their site redesigns and updates before the holiday season.

And to all all who are leaving early this week for 4th of July, HAPPY 4th OF JULY and please remember our troops who are still fighting two wars...still.

Chip Arndt

by Robert Gorell from GrokDotCom

"One of the most effective — and overlooked — ways to differentiate yourself from the competition and improve conversion is to optimize the images on your website.

Granted, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but online, your customers don’t quite have the luxury of taste, touch, or smell. So one thing we can learn from ProFlowers.com’s impressive conversion rate last month is that images matter. A lot."

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to read full article from eTaildTail friends GrokDotCom

eBay! Changes and What Sellers Should Do

As I say often, I gladly rely on friends of eTaildTail who are far more knowledgable about certain products, marketing efforts and areas of ecommerce than me.

Debbie Levitt, President of AsWas, a company that specializes in helping small to mid-sized businesses work more productively with eBay!, is one of those people.

If any of you out there in ecommerce land work with eBay!, in any capacity, you want to attend this AsWas FREE webinar!

Happy eBay! selling.

Chip Arndt

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to register for this FREE Webinar on how to work more productively and intelligently with eBay!

From AsWas and Debbie Levitt, President and CEO:

Tuesday, July 1: Free webinar on -- "eBay! Changes and What Sellers Should Do"

"eBay! has been making a lot of changes, and more are coming!

Let's talk about what's going on and how you should and need to respond to these. This webinar will look at the announced changes, possible future changes, and how to stay compliant and ahead of things!

We will be live on a phone call and you will be viewing our presentation. So if possible, please be at a phone and computer!"

This webinar is on Tuesday, July 1 at 11am Pacific Time|2pm Eastern Time.

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to register for this FREE Webinar on how to work more productively and intelligently with eBay!

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

Google Analytics Webinars and Education: A Must for Online Retailers Looking to Increase Sales

eTaildTail friends over at MoreVisibility are offering training on Google Analytics, which I think you all must explore to see how your website is performing. I am a big fan of analytics. It is the only way to really see how potential customers are interacting with your site and marketing campaigns.

I actually helped introduce "Chanalytics", at my company MerchantAdvantage, to assist online retailers analyze how their product data feed marketing campaigns -- using comparison shopping sites and marketplaces -- perform in conjunction with other marketing efforts.  Chanalytics compliments Google, Yahoo! or proprietary analytic packages and acts as an important "check" to other statistics you are receving on a daily basis.

I also think that these webinars (see below) are important to helping online merchants understand how people are interacting with your website in order to improve sales and then act on those findings.

You can also check out Yahoo! Analytics, as they are also free, after attending this webinar by MoreVisibility.

There is a cost for the webinars, but I think these costs may be worth it, especially if you are using Google Analytics or are considering using it.

 

The two webinars are offered at these times:

May 13 & 15 @ 1:00 pm: Launching Google Analytics & Integrating with AdWords

May 20 & 22 @ 1:00 pm: Using Google Analytics Beyond Google

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to find out more and register, if you want. I highly suggest checking it out.

-- Chip Arndt

Optimizing eCommerce Websites (LIVE) Help Session

14eTaildTail friends over at MarketingExperiments are having a webinar that will help small to mid-sized online merchants optimize your e-commerce storefront.

I have attended several MarketingExperiments webinars and they are quite helpful.  Please see below for all details and I hope it helps!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

-- Chip Arndt

Special Clinic: Optimizing eCommerce Websites (LIVE)

Wednesday, May 7, 2008 – 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. EDT

Presenters:

– Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments
– Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research
– Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research

Here's your chance to experience our optimization experts in
action, breaking down what is – and isn't – working on
eCommerce sites.

Join us for this free one-hour Web Clinic and you'll come away
with several ideas and insights to dramatically improve your
site's results.

The eCommerce websites we'll be optimizing live were submitted
by recent Web Clinic attendees. Don't miss this special
optimization session!

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to sign up for webinar.

We look forward to your participation and feedback on this Clinic.

Thank you for your trust,

Dr. Flint McGlaughlin
Director, MarketingExperiments

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

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

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.

In this webinar we will arm you with the information you need to make smart marketing decisions in the online retail and mobile commerce world.

Don't miss the opportunity to attend this complimentary Webinar. I look forward to seeing you there!

-- Chip

Using Your Storefront Data For All Marketing Efforts

Many online merchants have sent me emails recently regarding confusion over what product catalog data they should be using when marketing to CSEs and other marketing channels, i.e. can they use the data directly as it exists within their shopping cart technology or do they need to create another file based off of this data? 

Since you will be marketing your product catalog differently to each marketing channel you are using, it is important that you have a separate file, as it relates to each channel, so you can establish unique business rules and marketing strategies per channel.....BUT....this does not mean that that file cannot be updated automatically from its original destination - it can and SHOULD BE!!!

I contend that many problems of keeping accurate and up to date data, that mirrors exactly what is on your storefront on a daily basis, will occur if an online merchant creates a separate marketing file "based off of orginal product catalog data" and then tries to update that file directly manually to keep it accurate. 

Why not simply have these unique files mirror your product catalog data on a daily basis automatically, while retaining the business rules you have established for each marketing channel?

Merchants were also frustrated over technical process "hitches/issues" involved when using this data to market their storefront using CSEs and were looking for advice as to the easiest process to work with their product catalog data correctly and, most importantly, without having to jump through a lot of technical hoops!

I wrote about much of this in 2007 and wanted to bring some of thoughts back to you today, as they still apply!.

Let's begin... :-)

Many online merchants do not have an effective data management system to market their most up to date product catalog through the various marketing channels. These channels include affiliate sites, comparison shopping engines, mobile commerce and other shopping destination sites available to them online.

Or, if they do have a "data management system" in place, this system relies on methods that often lead to marketing outdated products that are not consistent with the most up to date product catalog information residing within the shopping cart. The result is "outdated" product catalog data marketed into marketing channels which leads to a myriad of issues.

In either scenario, it is essential that:

A. The online merchant understand how critical it is to market data that is functionally the same as the data that is on their online storefront, and

B. That online merchants are provided a methodology and a process to ensure that the data they market is consistent with what appears on their online site.

In the following writings, I will try and answer these questions:

• Why using your storefront data should be the "initial" access point to use when marketing your online storefront, anywhere and anytime?
• What key elements of the data you use for marketing needs to be consistent with what you have on your online storefront "right now", and which should not be consistent (there are times for this too)? and
• How often does your marketing information need to be updated to maintain concurrency?
  Why Using Storefront Data Should Be The "Initial" Access Point For All Marketing Feeds

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to see the full piece I wrote --- I think it is pretty helpful and thorough, so check it out.

(Yes, it is free -- you don't have to enter any information to read it all, PROMISE!!!)

Happy Reading!

-- Chip

Infopia Gives Merchants Access to More Buyers Through MerchantAdvantage

Hello eTaildTail:

I just returned from a few days in New York City, where I was meeting with clients and comparison shopping engines as Pronto, owned by Mr.Barry Dillar's IAC Interactive, and Underbid. While there I was witness to the extraordinary buy-out of Bear Stearns investment bank by a friend at JP Morgan who was working on the deal 24-7.  I also met with Wall Street analysts about the state of e-commerce and m-commerce for 2008...so excuse the delay in getting a post up here. 

[Just as a reminder, if I don't post for a few days, please check back daily for relevant news on the right hand side of this blog, as I do try to update that daily].

In NYC, I was pleasantly surprised to learn from these analysts that both e-commerce and m-commerce are expected to grow, despite the "poor economy", over the next few months, precisely because online and m-commerce buying can save people money.  Now that is not to say that people will be buying a lot more, as we are all hurt by high gas prices and are nervous about where the economy is heading and whether or not we will get bonuses at the end of this year, but rather that people will shop form their computer and wireless devices more because it is easy, it is becoming fun, and you can save money -- albeit better prices online and saving gas driving to the malls and stores.

In the meantime my company, MerchantAdvantage continues to help small to mid-sized online merchants grow their business with valuable feed management Web-based tools and it is wonderful to see so many clients successful and growing ROI.

To that end, I am proud to announce a partnership with Infopia, a shopping cart and business platform technology company, that helps online merchants works easily with eBay.  Now, with this partnership, Infopia clients can work with hundreds of other comparison shopping engines and marketing channels to increase sales and brand awareness.  It is an honor to work with Infopia and see that CNBC News  and Yahoo! Finance thought our partnership important to report on this week.

<<<CLICK HERE>>> for CNBC's story.

<<<CLICK HERE>>> for Yahoo!'s story

We have had a very productive 1st Q here at MerchantAdvantage and I look forward to bringing the e-commerce and m-commerce industry wonderful, new, products and services to help you grow your business into 2009....stay tuned! :-)

-- Chip

Here is the announcement from Infopia:

Infopia Merchants Get Expanded Merchandising Power To Over 100 Comparison Shopping Engines and Marketplaces by Using MerchantAdvantage

SALT LAKE CITY, March 17, 2008 -- Infopia, the leader in multi-channel, online selling, announced a new partnership today with MerchantAdvantage, which gives Infopia clients the ability to market their products to over 100 comparison shopping engines (CSEs) and marketplaces. The all-in-one, integrated solution from Infopia and MerchantAdvantage empowers merchants to send product data to marketing channels, update information in their data feeds within minutes, analyze sales, and respond to marketing campaign issues in real-time. This partnership is the newest effort by Infopia to ensure merchants get the highest ROI from their technology and can accept orders through a multitude of CSEs.

"Effective CSE strategies that focus on category, subcategory, and individual SKU performance can increase ROI up to five-fold," said Chip Arndt, co-founder of MerchantAdvantage.

"What MerchantAdvantage gives Infopia merchants," said Bjorn Espenes, CEO at Infopia, "are the tools to manage profit-margins on marketing campaigns at a product level -- essentially giving them the power to reach millions of new buyers through a user-friendly, Web-based tool."

Infopia and MerchantAdvantage enable merchants to do the following:

-- Send product information to over 100 online marketing channels such as Become.com, Ciao, JellyFish, MSN Live Search, myCoupons, PriceForSure.com, PriceGrabber, Pronto, Shopzilla, Shop.com, Smarter.com, SortPrice.com, theFind.com, Google Product Search, and Yahoo!

-- Discover which marketing channels, product categories, and individual products meet expected ROI and be able to adjust accordingly

-- Manage SKU-level bidding at supported CSE sites

-- Expand buyers reached under current budget.

<<<CLICK HERE>>> for  the full press release and story.

You Can Afford to Work With Comparison Shopping Engines: Tips and Tricks

Several emails came in this week to eTaildTail with similar calls for help. They went something like this:

"Chip, I am not having success with some comparison shopping engines and I don't know what to do. Some cost me a lot and the ROI is not worth it. Help. Is there any way to use these sites cost effectively, even when I have limited resources and money?"

The short answer is YES! YOU DO!....ergo...please read onward.

Managing (some) Shopping Comparison Sites to Ensure Excellent Return on Investment

I have 1,000 reasons to work with marketing destination sites, as www.Amazon.com , www.eBay.com , www.Shop.com, and other shopping destination sites as www.Ciao.com, www.PriceGrabber.com, www.NexTag.com, www.Shopzilla.com, www.Shopping.com, www.PriceRunner.com, www.Smarter.com, www.PriceForSure.com, and over 50 others.  The main issue to making these sites "work for you" is that they require daily upkeep and work by the online merchant -- just listing to these sites won't work very well.

When I looked further into who was sending me these email calls for help, I found out that many of the online merchants were smaller merchants who simply don't have the time, resources, or money to work with many shopping destination sites properly and, for lack of a better term, "figure them out."

No one ever said that just listing your products to marketplaces and comparison shopping engines will lead to sales and greater return on investment -- and whoeever did tell you that, disown them! LOL

Remember that dozens, if not hundreds, of other companies that sell similar products to you are also listing products to these shopping sites. So to ensure that these aforementioned shopping destination sites work well for you requires work and basic knowledge of their "taxonomies" and how these sites can work more efficiently for the online merchant (confused yet?)

At the end of the day, many comparison shopping engines/sites have made many, many online merchants a lot of money, but this usually only occurs when the merchant is willing to "work at" and "understand" the nuances of each comparison shopping engine/sites internal workings.

Most of my successful clients, as Carols Candy Corner (very small and very successful), Calloway Golf or ProFlowers, optimize their data, manage SKU level bidding on sites that support it, and monitor their shopping comparison sites every day to take advanatge of their internal methods to ensure that products get listed higher on their sites than their competitors.  So what next?

After reading all of the above many small merchants say to me that they simply cannot justify the time or money it takes to manage their product catalog data feeds to ensure proper ROI and compete and they stop using any comparison shopping engine. 

This is not the answer and let me tell you why.

[Special Note: Please keep reading, but if you want to understand my more in-depth thinking about this (beyond this blog) check out a free webinar I did a few weeks ago.]

you can <<<Down Load it Free Here>>>...okay back to my thoughts.

Start Small, Work Intelligently

I have a better solution for small to mid-sized businesses, start small and work with FREE shopping sites.

There are five shopping comparison sites that can help a small to mid-sized business without costing you a dime. They are either FREE or only charge you when a commission is made. To make things even better they are all easy to use and manage.  So there is no reason not to list your entire product catalog to these sites.  They include:

Free:
Google Product Search
MSN Live Search for products
theFind.com

Pay Per Sale/Pay Per Coupon Redemption (and really, really easy to use):
www.myCoupons.com and
www.JellyFish.com

The first group above are free to list to and any (yes any) leads or sale that comes to your site doesn't cost you a penny!  So why not work with them?

 

If setting up a feed is complicated for you, use a tool based software to help you. www.MerchantAdvantage.com is one choice and only costs $145 per month all in. MerchantAdvantage does not charge the merchant any revenue share, transaction cost, or set up charge, so basically for $145 a month you get marketing on these three sites that have combined unique visitors of 85+ million a month....yes, 85+ million. You may not reach them all, but you will reach some!

Even if you get one sale a month, listing your products on these sites is cost-effective, as you also get branding (customers see your brand and can click over to your site), and you will eventually be found by general search engines, as Google and Yahoo!, thus helping your overall seearch engine optimization.

Basically there is no reason not to use these channels.  The best part of all of this is that the online merchant also learns how comparison shopping sites work and can "experiment" with these free channels before using pay-per-click shopping