Today (Jan. 19th) is the last day for Yahoo Shopping merchants to sign up on PriceGrabber and be guaranteed placement on March 11th. If the date March 11th doesn’t mean anything to you, you’ve got some catching up to do.
Here is the link to the PriceGrabber merchant registration page – https://partner.pricegrabber.com/.
The minimum initial deposit is $50 and Yahoo merchants can use their xml export to meet PriceGrabber’s technical requirements.
You CAN still sign up for PriceGrabber after today, but they will not guarantee that your products will be live on both PriceGrabber and Yahoo Shopping on March 11th.
CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at
www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to
Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
We often get questions from merchants about the many services offered by Google to drive traffic and sales to their eCommerce websites. Due to the multitude of offerings and similar names making sense of Google’s major marketing channels can be a challenge to the casual observer. Below you’ll find CPC Strategy’s breakdown of Google’s product marketing tools as well as links to the Google page were you can find out more information about the service.
Google Adwords
Google Adwords is Google’s PPC program that allows merchants to create keyword and site-targeted advertising campaigns on both search result pages and websites participating in Google’s Adsense program. Advertisers are charged on a per click basis (usually), and are in control of where and how often their ad is displayed using Google’s bidding interface.
Google Adwords
http://adwords.google.com/
Google Product Search/Base
Google Product Search, formerly known as Google Shopping or Froogle allows merchants to post products online to a product database. Merchants submit data feeds to Google, which Google ranks, scores, and skus up against other sellers based on item relevance. These listings appear both in Google’s Shopping Portal and on search result pages (Onebox). At the time of writing Google Product Search is open to all advertisers and there is no cost associated with submitting data feeds and receiving traffic from this service.
Google Merchant Center
http://www.google.com/merchants
Google Product Extensions
Google Product Extensions is a new feature which marries Google Adwords campaigns with Google Product Search listings. Google Product Extensions supplement a merchant’s regular Adwords search-campaign with titles, images, and prices from a merchant’s Google Product Search inventory. These inventory enhanced ads are displayed in the same right rail area of the search result page as text ads. Even though Google charges the same amount for clicks on Product Extension ads as they would for normal text ads we’ve seen an increase in click through rates for ads when the feature is enabled. This program is available to all US merchants who advertise on Adwords and send inventory files to Google Product Search.
More information about Google Product Extensions
Google Product Extensions Post
Google Product Listing Ads
Google Product Listing Ads are the newest addition to Google’s advertising suite and while they look similar to the ads surfaced through Google Product Extensions Google Product Listing Ads differ in two main ways. First, Google algorithmically chooses where, when, and how often these ads show up and second, the merchant does not pay for the click itself and instead pays only when a transaction is completed on the merchant page. Google Product Listing Ads are current in closed beta, but CPC Strategy will happily provide listing assistance once the product opens up to all advertisers.
More Information about Product Listing Ads
Google Product Listings Ads Post
CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at
www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to
Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
Yahoo has now made it official:
We have important news that will affect your product listings on Yahoo! Shopping and that will require you to take action.
As of March 11, 2010, Yahoo! Shopping is partnering with PriceGrabber. This partnership will provide you with greater access to more potential customers and to enhanced reporting. It will give you the opportunity to list your products either on Yahoo! Shopping only or on both Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber.
Because of this change, your Yahoo! Product Submit account will no longer be available on March 11, 2010. After March 11, 2010, to list your products either on Yahoo! Shopping only or on Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber, you must sign up for a new merchant account with PriceGrabber. To ensure your products are live on Yahoo! Shopping on March 11, 2010, you must sign up for a PriceGrabber merchant account from January 11, 2010, through January 19, 2010. Signing up is fast and easy.
If you sign up before March 11, 2010, any applicable set up fees will be waived!
If you do nothing and do not sign up for a new merchant account, your products will only be listed on Yahoo! Shopping through March 11, 2010. After March 11, 2010, your products will no longer be listed.
PLEASE NOTE: If you already have a merchant account with PriceGrabber, you do not need to sign up for a new account. Your products will automatically be listed on both Pricegrabber and Yahoo! Shopping on March 11, 2010.
Your Key Dates to Remember:
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January 11, 2010
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January 19, 2010
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March 11, 2010
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Sign up for your new PriceGrabber merchant account with Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber or with just Yahoo! Shopping.
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Last day to sign up for a PriceGrabber merchant account to ensure your products are listed on Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber when Yahoo! Product Submit is discontinued on March 11, 2010.
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The Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber partnership takes effect. If you have not signed up for a new PriceGrabber merchant account, this is the last day your products will be listed on Yahoo! Shopping.
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In short, Yahoo Product Submit is shutting down, and listings on Yahoo Shopping will be generated via Pricegrabber data feeds.
This is big news for both companies and should help both in different ways.
What’s held Pricegrabber back from in the CSE space is that the amount of traffic that they get is slightly lower than Nextag’s/Shopzilla’s generally, and with access to Yahoo customers nowthat should help bolster their traffic (though it’s tough to tell if the traffic will be as qualified).
Yahoo will also benefit by allowing their merchants to use Pricegrabber’s tools, which are much more thorough than Yahoo’s, which in turn will let them more effectively manage their campaigns.
Also, as a company that’s been struggling over the past few years and have been cutting corners wherever they can, this should further help reduce their overall operating costs.
We’ll keep a close eye on this over the next few months and see how this move affects both companies.
CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at
www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to
Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
Users logging into their Nextag account this new year were greeted by a couple of new features on their screen:
The bidding history feature is a nice touch, but it’s the clicks by categories that merchants will find the most useful, as the performance of their products is broken down by specific categories:
For merchants with a highly diverse array of category listings this can be especially useful to figure out what products they should cut from their campaigns, or at the very least what to keep an eye on.
The other top-tier paid engines, i.e. Pricegrabber, Shopzilla, and Shopping.com already offer this on their sites, so merchants who are on the other engines should find this feature easy to use.
CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at
www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to
Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
Lesser known shopping engine Shop.com has just announced that they’re letting merchants list their coupon offerings on their site.
Customers on their site can go to their special coupons & offers and view what sort of deals are being offered, similar to Bing’s Cashback page:
An icon will also be posted alongside merchants participating in the program giving specific details of what a merchant is offering.
It’s a great move for an engine that doesn’t receive as much traffic as the top-tier ones, but enough for a merchant to consider listing on them, that will provide greater participation and interaction for both merchants and consumers alike.
CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at
www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to
Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
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Shop.com Tags:
It was inevitable that comparison shopping would eventually reach mobile devices.
Amazon currently has an app out where consumers can shop for products on their iPhones, and it’s been reported that an eBay user purchased a Lamborghini as well as a boat on his iPhone as well.
Yahoo then has just announced that they’re introducing their own iPhone app for the Yahoo Shopping platform:
We are pleased to announce the launch of a Yahoo! Shopping iPhone app, which will be downloadable by iPhone users. Because mobile shopping is fairly new to most users, all clicks on your product listings delivered through the Yahoo! Shopping iPhone app will be free of charge until further notice.
We’re not sure how well this will work though, because unlike the marketplaces and eBay, the purchases will be made on the merchant’s webpage which may not be quite as well optimized for mobile browsing–while a customer will never have to leave eBay or Amazon when making a purchase.
Plus, consumers may be more leery making purchases via their mobile devices on a site they’ve never been to compared to more trusted names such as Amazon/eBay.
At least with the latter two, a user’s purchasing information is usually stored/linked to their login, while on a 3rd party site they would have to register for a new account or enter a credit card on their phone, which presents another barrier to purchase.
That may perhaps be why this traffic will be free, but as consumers begin to further adopt mobile technology it may eventually become just second nature.
Update: PriceGrabber follows Yahoo! Shopping’s lead by launching their own iPhone App today – http://www.pricegrabber.com/iphone_promo.php
CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at
www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to
Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
With Q4 shopping either right around the corner, or having already launched in full force depending on how you ask, now is just as important a time to take advantage of all the shopping engines have to offer right now.
Smarter.com is introducing a featured merchant program then, which at an additional rate of $0.20/click features:
- Premium placement on product page – a sure fire way to stand out amongst your competitors!
- Smarter.com Featured Merchant Logo
- Merchant Logo listed alongside all of your listings – excellent branding opportunity!
- Highlighted on category and search result landing page
- with the ability to opt-in at the account and category level
In essence then, merchants who participate in the program will be more prominently listed in search results, making consumers more likely to click through.
Normally for the larger engines inflating one’s traffic isn’t always the best idea since the costs will iust increase significantly, but as a smaller engine getting more traffic is generally a greater challenge.
CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at
www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to
Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
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Smarter.com Tags:
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”
CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at
www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to
Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
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Become, CSE Management, Google, Nextag, Pricegrabber, Pronto, Shopping.com, Shopzilla, Smarter.com, Uncategorized, Yahoo Shopping Tags:
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
CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at
www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to
Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
Nextag has just announced that they’ll follow in Pricegrabber’s footsteps and increase and raise rates by 25% across all categories:
The holiday season is around the corner and we would like to inform you that NexTag will be increasing your costs per click by 25% for all categories and all bids effective November 4, 2009 through January 6, 2010.
This change will affect all your clicks from NexTag. For example, if you have a bid of $0.60 per click, you will be charged a fee of $0.75 per click during this seasonal period. Your actual costs per click will be accurately reflected on your cost reports, but the bids will be displayed in the bidding tools without the 25% included until January 6, 2010.
This marks the last of the paid top tier shopping engines to announce how they’ll handle CPC rates for Q4, with nothing too surprising being announced.
We don’t anticipate to hear news of any rate increases from Google Product Search.
CPC Strategy was founded by former employees of the comparison shopping engines and understands first hand what it takes to manage a successful comparison shopping campaign. You can check out our webpage at
www.cpcstrategy.com. Don’t hesitate to
Contact us to find out how we can make the shopping engines work for you.
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