Become.com has recently come out with an announcement that they’re offering “Free” logo listings for merchants on their site:

We will be instituting a new policy effective immediately offering logo placement on PSERPs and merchant tables as a premier feature, available only to merchants bidding $0.10 above category minimums.

The caveat here is that it is only going to be “free” for merchants bidding at least $0.10 per click over the category minimum–or basically what it costs to list a logo in the first place.

And while there are certainly instances where bidding can be useful, e.g. a newer client on the engines that’s not getting much traffic and whose primary goal is product exposure–we at CPC Strategy tend to shy most of our clients away from bidding, as it can be a quick way to see your spend on the shopping engines skyrocket.

Also, in light of the state of the retail space, unless of course your name is Amazon, we’re definitely fans of anything the engines do that benefit the merchants, particularly if it’s “free.”

However as we like to warn our clients though, bidder beware.

One of the initial choices that a merchant has to make when signing on to an engine is to decide whether or not they want to display their company logo on search results pages, or simply limit it to a text listing (example below).

Having experimented both ways with our merchants, we’ve generally recommended against posting logos on the listings for a few reasons.

Additional cost is too high

Shopping engines will generally charge an additional $0.10 per click for the privlelege of displaying one’s logo next to their product listings–and if the end goal is to reduce one’s cost of sale, the extra dime per click can add up quickly to a merchants overall spend on the engines.

Benefits are marginal

The goal of attaching a logo on a search result page is to improve brand recognition, or to take advantage of one’s already popular brand.

The issues here are, if you already own a popualr brand whose logo is recognized, then the text version is certainly not any less recognizable–and if you’re not quite a household name, we hardly believe a few small images flashing by on search results can help you become one.

Bottom line?

In the end if you are even moderately happy with your investment on the shopping engines, we’d strongly recommend against posting your logo up on your listings as it can dramatically increases your costs with little return.

However if you’re a merchant with overflowing cash reserves–first of all be sure to let us know some of your secrets and we’ll share some of ours –but secondly if you want to see a potential increase in traffic, adding your logo to the engines may be worth experimenting with so long as you keep a close eye on the increase in spend.

Personally I wouldn’t bet on a proportionate increase in your revenue.

-Tien

Wishing you a happy feeding experience