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

Online shopping is here to stay.

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

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

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

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

What WAS at Yahoo! Shopping

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

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

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

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

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

What IS NOW at Yahoo! Shopping

1. Online retailers have more options.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Chip Arndt

From Yahooo! Product Submit team:

"Dear Product Submit advertiser,

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

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

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

These changes are designed to help you to:

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

Stay tuned!

The Yahoo Product Submit team"

Yahoo! Search: New Minimum Bid Factors

eTaildTail friends over at SearchEngineLand posted some valuable information in regard to Yahoo! Search CPC pricing and I thought it was important for readers of eTaildTail to be aware of those changes.

-- Chip Arndt

From SearchEngineLand:

"Yahoo recently announced that they are moving away from a $0.10 fixed minimum CPC to a variable minimum bid. However, there are some differences in how Yahoo calculates minimum bids tcompared to AdWords. These differences are important to note as you switch between these PPC engines so that each account is properly optimized for each engine according to how the bids are calculated

Yahoo's New Minimum Bid Factors

Yahoo uses two main factors for determining minimum bids:

• value of the keyword
• quality

The value of the keyword factor will frustrate many marketers. This value is calculated by many indicators which include the number of advertisers and those advertisers' bids. This means that for keywords with high competition, the keywords can have higher minimum bids. If there are a few bidders, but they are bidding high amounts, the minimum bids can also be different.

The second factor..."

please <<<CLICK HERE>>> to continue reading entry which continues over at SearchEngineLand.