Become

Become Getting Ready for Halloween, in July

 Posted by Tien - July 14, 2010 at 9:25 am

Every kid’s favorite holiday is off to an early start this year, as Become.com is announcing their launching of a Halloween microsite that’ll allow merchants to specifically advertise and promote their Halloween related listings.

From Mother’s Day to Black Friday, Become has generally been in the forefront when it comes to special promotions in the CSE space.

The actual Halloween microsite will launch on September 7th and will be a portal for consumers to find all things Halloween related. To get set up a merchant can submit a limited feed with 50 containing pertinent information such as titles, descriptions, and URLs:

Here’s an example for individual product deals:

Product title: $10 off Grim Reaper Costume
Description: This costume comes complete with your personal scythe (adjustable handle length and engraved pattern of your choosing), now available at $10 discount with Promocode SPOOK10 while supplies last. The cloak is made from soft velvet and features…
URL: www.yourstoreURL/grimreaper00111
Store Description: Your Store has been in business since 2005…

And for specific category deals:

Deal Description: 10% off Harry Potter Costumes with Discount Code HP2010
URL: www.yourstoreURL/costumes/harrypotter

Remember, it’s never too early to start planning for Halloween, whether you’re a merchant, or a trick-or-treater.

Become.com To Promote Brick & Mortar Stores

 Posted by Tien - May 6, 2010 at 10:05 am

There still exists a fair amount of the population who are online purchasing-adverse. They are either the type that are paranoid about the potential security ramifications, or value the ability to see, touch, and use what they’re purchasing over the potential cost savings they could derive online.

Become.com then is attempting to combine the benefits of online comparison shopping, along with the ability to make real-life purchases by allowing merchants to promote their physical presences as well.

In order to enable this feature, all a merchant has to do is login to their Become.com accounts, and under the Account/Store Info tab there is the option to add an address where a customer can make purchases at.

When a customer finds an item he/she likes that a particular merchant sells, Become.com will promote the physical location of the merchant alongside the listing, free of charge.

The main issue that may arise is that a merchant’s online inventory is likely to be much higher than at their physical store locations–but for merchants with large brick & mortar locations, it’s a great way to drive additional foot traffic to their stores.

Become.com Offering Mother’s Day Promotions

 Posted by Tien - April 30, 2010 at 3:55 pm

There’s still over a week before Mother’s Day arrives, and Become.com offers merchants a way to promote their specific offerings and gives consumers a destination to search for gifts.

All merchants have to do is submit a limited feed to Become with the products they want to promote, and Become.com will list these products for FREE.

It is limited to 50 products per merchant, but it stands as a great way to get traffic that’s not only free, but pretty well targeted as well.

Those who are still shopping for this day can go over to Become’s special Mother’s day section: http://mothersday.become.com/.

Become rolls out ‘Guest Blogging’ on PocketChange

 Posted by Nii Ahene - February 22, 2010 at 4:44 pm

Become.com has recently launched the ability for merchants to write a guest post on their Become Blog (http://pocketchange.become.com).  This gives the merchant the ability to promote their products in front of thousands of shoppers who read and subscribe to the blog posts on Pocket Change.

According to the release by Become benefits of writing a guest blog include the following-

* Increase Branding: Promote your products in front of thousands of shoppers who read and subscribe to the blog posts on PocketChange.Become.com (Become.com’s shopping blog).
* Qualify Traffic: Provide product information for the online community and dive traffic to your site and those products.
* Social Media: Posts from PocketChange.Become.com are automatically added to our twitter feed: twitter.com/become, and many shoppers add an RSS feed of the PocketChange blog on their LinkedIn profile, Google reader or other RSS readers. The “Share This” button next to the blog post also allows others to share your article on social media sites like Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Yahoo! Buzz, Reddit and more.
* Link Value: Once your post is published on PocketChange, link to it from your own blog or press page.

For more information on the Guidelines for creating/submitting a guest blog post please follow this link:

http://pocketchange.become.com/become-a-guest-blogger

Become to Extend Free Logo Program Permanently

 Posted by Tien Nguyen - February 2, 2010 at 10:09 am

Back in April of 2009 (has it been that long already?) Become.com began offering free logo listings on their site, provided that a merchant already bid $0.05 over the minimum bids (previously it was $0.10).

Their program has gained so much popularity recently that they’re extending this promotion on a permanent basis.

Thanks for letting us know what you think of our discounted logo program! We received such positive feedback from our retail partners on how the discounted logo performed for them during the holiday season and through January that we had to do it–we are keeping the discounted logo program.

The logo program will remain discounted, and bidding at least 5 cents above the minimum CPCs will allow you to a) take advantage of the positive impact that bidding makes on ranking and b) increase your branding on Become.com.

Happy bidding.

Listing Promotional Messages on the CSEs

 Posted by Tien Nguyen - November 4, 2009 at 3:58 pm

One of the unique aspects of CSE management is figuring out how all the shopping engines’ unique features differentiate themselves from each other.

While columns such as product URLs, product names, descriptions, etc. are generally universal among them all, there are many discrepancies among them that a merchant should know about in order to maximize their listings on the engines.

Below we provide details on practices that will help best promote your products specifically for each engine:

Listing Nextag Sales Price:

- Include MSRP or regular price in feed

Nextag Free Shipping:

- If everything has free shipping, select “Always Free for All Items” in the “Manage Shipping Rules” section
- Otherwise include shipping costs in feed

Nextag Promotional Message:

- For a single message, bid at least $0.05 on the “Message” under “Manage Bids by Category”, then click “Set Marketing Message” and choose from the available templates
- To select different marketing messages by product, include a “Marketing Message” column in the feed and be sure to bid at least $0.05 on the “Message” for all products under “Manage Bids by Category”

Listing Free Shipping:

- Set column “Shipping Rate” to 0 in feed

Shopping.com Promotional Message:

- Include message in “Stock Description” column in feed.
- Free
- 100 character limit

Shopzilla Free Shipping:

- If shipping is free for all products, select “Free shipping for all products” under shipping information.
- If not, set rules through feed, column: “Shipping Cost”

Shopzilla Sales Price:

- Include “Original Price” & “Sale Price” columns in feed
- Be sure to select Contact Us in your Shopzilla login and notify your account manager that you’re adding a column; your listings will temporarily come down while they re-process your feed.

Shopzilla Coupon:

- Go to “Manage Listings”
- “Special Offers”
- Select from the available options

PriceGrabber Free Shipping:


- Set it under the column “shipping costs” within the feed
- In the login under “Your Account” it can be modified in “Shipping and Tax Info” (not available for all accounts)

PriceGrabber Coupon:

- All the info can be included in the feed using their coupon spec sheet.

Google Products Search Tax and Shipping:

-Add a column called “tax” in the format–Country:State:Percent: y/n shipping

So for example if a merchant is based in the United States, California, charges 8% tax, and offers free shipping, that column would read– US:CA:8:y

More info can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=160162

Become Promotional Message:

- Include desired text in feed
- Bid on desired categories in “Bids” tab

Become Sales Price:

- Include the following columns: “MSRP” and “Price”

Smarter Promotional Message:

- Have the two columns: “Regular Price” and “Sale Price”
- Go to “Extras” tab
- Select “Submit Coupons” and fill in appropriate fields

Yahoo Shopping Sales Price:

- Have the two columns: “price” and “sale-price”

Yahoo Shopping Free Shipping:

- Fill in the appropriate SKU with “0” in the column “shipping-price”

Pronto Sales Price:

- Include the columns: “Retail Price” and “Price”

Become.com Rolling out Black Friday Deal Portal

 Posted by Nii Ahene - November 3, 2009 at 2:41 pm

Become.com has just launched a new Black Friday portal to point savvy bargain hunters in the direction of the hottest product deals this shopping season. Unlike some of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday highlight sites we’ve seen in the past from the CSEs,  Become.com will list deals from both online and offline retailers. Here’s a snippet from the consumer facing launch site:

Welcome to Black Friday @ Become.com! You’re now one of the lucky shoppers to have that special edge on great deals in the upcoming holiday season. On November 27th 2009, stores all over the country will open early to offer extraordinary door buster savings to early rising shoppers. If you’re one of those shoppers that enjoys the 4 A.M wake up call and the thrill of large crowds then you’ll enjoy our up to date information on all major stores and their 2009 Black Friday offerings. If, however, you require a bit more sleep after a festive Thanksgiving then you’ll appreciate our extensive online listings that enable you to skip the stores and still get incredible savings.

Both Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become increasingly important for retailers looking for an early signal on how retail sales will trend for the rest of the holiday season. The New York Times reported  last year that “spending on Cyber Monday was $846 million, up 15 percent from a year ago. For the four-day period from Black Friday through Cyber Monday spending jumped 13 percent” for online retailers compared to the year before.

In the spirit of season it also looks like clicks from Become.com’s Black Friday portal will be free for merchants.  Interested merchants can take advantage of the offer by contacting Become.com directly at MerchantHelp@become.com

Pricegrabber, Shopzilla Announce CPC Hikes, Become.com Remains Flat

 Posted by Tien Nguyen - October 21, 2009 at 9:55 am

Not long after Shopping.com’s announcement of new CPC Rates, Pricegrabber and Shopzilla have this week announced their own increases, though both are taking different approaches.

From November 1 until January 15, 2010 Pricegrabber will increase rates across all categories by 25%, which is identical to what they did last year.

Shopzilla on the other hand is taking an approach more similar to that of Shopping.com’s and only increasing rates in certain categories.

The chart below shows how many of their categories are affected:

Just under half of their 443 total subcategories will not be affected at all, while just under a fourth will be subjected to a 25% rate increase.

Click here for a complete list of categories affected.

And finally to jump from one extreme to the last, Become.com has just announced that they are not going to raise rates at all during the holiday season.

Become.com is proud to announce that we are not raising our rates for the 2009 holiday season!

We recognize the need for retailers to make the most of this busy shopping season, and are happy to offer our partners our tools and features in order to help you optimize your holiday campaign

It’s a great move to encourage potential merchants to sign up on their lesser known engine, considering that most of the other big players in the market are going the opposite approach.

Sample Data Feeds and Feed Specifications for Comparison Shopping Engines

 Posted by Nii Ahene - October 7, 2009 at 10:21 am

Below you’ll find both sample data feeds and links to data feed specifications for the major shopping engines (As of 10/3/2009). It’s highly recommended that you read over the latest specification at the engine resource site before deploying the feeds for your campaigns.
-Nii

Google Base/Google Product Search
- Sample Data Feed for Google Base/Google Product Search
- Google Base/Google Product Search Data Feed Specifications Page

Shopzilla
- Sample Data Feed for Shopzilla
- Shopzilla Data feed Specifications Page

Pricegrabber
- Sample Data Feed for Pricegrabber
- Pricegrabber Data feed Specifications Page

Nextag
- Sample Data Feed for Nextag
- Nextag Data feed Specifications Page

Shopping.com
- Sample Data File for Shopping.com – Varies By Category, see Specification Page
- Shopping.com Data Feed Specifications Page

Bing Shopping
- Sample Data Feed for Bing Cashback
- Bing Cashback Data Feed Spcifications Page

Yahoo Shopping
- Sample Data Feed for Yahoo Shopping
- Yahoo Shopping Data Feed Specification Page (Must be a Yahoo Shopping Merchant to View)

Become
- Sample Data Feed for Become.com
- Become Data feed Specifications Page

Smarter.com
- Sample Data Feed for Smarter
- Smarter Data feed Specifications Page

Pronto
- Sample Data Feed for Pronto
- Pronto Data Feed Specifications Page

Amazon Product Ads
- Sample Data Feed for Amazon Product Ads
- Amazon Product Ads Data Feed Specifications Page (Need to have an Amazon Product Ads account to View)

Become to Offer “free” Logo Listings

 Posted by Tien Nguyen - April 16, 2009 at 3:35 pm