Comparison Shopping Then & Now:

Since the late 90’s, comparison shopping has been an important part of Online selling and eCommerce. Over the years it has changed drastically from what it once was and has now grown far beyond what anyone could have predicted back then.

Initially, CSE’s would gather and collect product pricing information from as many merchants as possible, show Online shoppers which places they could purchase items for the lowest prices and then collect a fee from the merchant whenever the shopper clicked on a listing. The product information collection process used to be a lot harder. Merchants didn’t have the ability to utilize many of the technologies we use today. In addition to price comparison in the most simple form and simple item uploads, they also showed limited product categories or the most popular items such as consumer electronics, books and home decor.

Today, there are over 100 different CSE’s all competing to be the best at what they do. Over the years, as competition has grown in their market, comparison engines have had to make many changes and really expand on the features and sophistication in order to remain competitive. Many of the most used or well known CSE’s now compare more than just price, have expanded their category offerings with things like apparel or shoes, have added reviews for both products and merchants and much more. Many of the shopping engines have also expanded the ways in which you can include your products on their site. Technology like XML and spreadsheet uploads has gotten a lot better and easier for merchants to add into their marketing maintenance activities. Competition has also caused more of the CSE founders to realize the importance of search engine marketing and optimization as the search results have gotten much more crowded with listings from these sites. In addition to expanding on usability features and category offerings, CSE’s have also gone niche. Now we are seeing more and more sites focused on a particular market segment rather than a market whole.

Shopping Portal & Product Listing Benefits:

Merchants benefit from listing in comparison shopping portals in many ways but primarily they help to increase traffic, increase conversion rates, and increase additional revenue through targeted product placement. Additional benefits include increased word of mouth and company brand recognition.

• Helps to gain more product exposure
• Helps to increase brand recognition
• Helps to gain additional traffic from targeted buyers
• Helps to increase conversion rate
• Helps to generate an additional revenue stream
• Helps promote word of mouth advertising
• Helps get direct access to buyers looking for what you sell

Free, CPC & CPO Shopping Portal Pricing:

Many of the comparison shopping engines work off of a cost per click (CPC) based pricing structure. This means that every time a shopper clicks on a listing that merchant will be charged the set price per click. These campaigns can be harder to manage than a free or CPO based pricing model and may require the use of software or tools to manage effectively. CPC based pricing models are common and can certainly generate much more than you spend on those listings.

Besides CPC pricing, there are also product portals that run off of a cost per order/action (CPO/A) based pricing model. CPO based pricing means that each time a shopper buys that merchant will be charged the set percentage based of the order amount. These pricing models are becoming more popular with both merchants and CSE’s and has many benefits for both. It is easier to manage these campaigns and merchants do not have to worry about paying for ads that do not generate sales.

There are also CSE’s that allow merchants to list their catalgos for free. These are by far the most popular since it costs nothing to reap all the benefits. Most free listing still require that you list via data feeds, however many are also crawler based or submission based shopping engines. We always recommend that merchants utilize the free comparison shopping engines first, then move along to the CPC and CPO based models.

eCommerce Data Feeds:

Many of the most popular comparison shopping portals allow merchants to list items via a bulk product upload in the form of a data feed file. Typically these files end in .txt, .xml or .csv and can act as a single file to host and upload your entire product inventory to the compatible shopping engine. Once you have an engine that accepts data feeds and your file is created in the supported format, the most common way of adding your file to the engine(s) is through file transfer protocol (FTP).

Data feed files utilize special attributes, some of which are required and some of which are optional. Product or item attributes are what shopping engines use to classify, categorize and eventually list the items from a catalog. They are also used during a search to bring up the most relevant products for shoppers to see. At the very least, each file will have to have the required attributes in order to utilize that method for including your catalog. Some merchants have found that there are ways to ‘optimize’ their data feeds, which in turn helps them to increase the amount of places they show up and broadens the different search queries they potentially show up for.

Optimizing your eCommerce data feeds, before they are uploaded, is an important factor for getting the most potential out of your comparison shopping engine listing campaigns. Effective data feed optimization ensures that all your products will appear in the correct categories, search queries and refined searches and can help to increase search engine results saturation, including additional brand exposure.

Here are some general tips and tricks to help you get the most from your CSE listings:

Tips & Tricks for Saving Money:

• Managing Bids: Try to manage your campaign listing bids on a per product or per category basis rather than per CSE. You will find that if you concentrate on the products and categories rather than the engine as a whole you will see better returns and lower costs per click.
• Managing Products: While managing your product listings make sure you remove inactive, poor performing and out of stock products from your campaigns. They will drain your budget and end up doing more harm than good in the end.
• Managing Categories: Try to include your products in the most relevant category. Typically, you cannot list the same product within multiple categories, so be sure to pick the very best one (the one that is most related to the item). Remove any poor performing or outdated categories as they may eat up your budget or lower your conversion rate.
• Managing Listings or Data Feeds: Attempt to refresh or update you data feed file uploads on a daily basis rather than per week or month. Keeping the most current and up to date product information on the engines will help you to convert more buyers and may help increase conversions. If a user sees one thing on the CSE and another on your site you will have a harder chance getting them to buy right then.
• Check Listing Often: Scour the CSE’s on a daily basis and randomly click on some of your listing to get a better idea of what shoppers will see. Check to make sure your images are loading properly, that product information is being updated and that the links are pointing to the right location on your site. You may find that you are getting charged for listings that do not appear correctly or have inaccurate data listed.
• Dynamic Data Feeds: Having a dynamic data feed system will save you precious time and money. You will be able to mange more listing and spend more time improving other areas of your business. In addition, the files will be a lot easier to update over time. You may have to spend more initially to implement this feature, but it will actually save you money in the long run.

Tips & Tricks for Increasing Conversions:

• Manage Budget: Be sure you allow enough of your budget to keep your CSE listings running all the time. You will certainly want to make sure they are listed during your busiest hours, but you can also capture many sales in off hours of the day. If you have done a good job in selecting which places to include your products, it should be easy to know which ones you will allot more of your budget towards. At the very least, you should have the most popular listing running 24/7.
• Plan Budget: Many of the most popular CSE’s increase their prices right before the holiday shopping season. If you know this, and plan for it, you will have no problems making the most out of your holiday budget and seasonal traffic. Even some of the CPO engines will increase the percentage during the fourth quarter of their fiscal year. Of course, you wouldn’t have to worry about this with any of the free CSE’s.
• Name Products Accurately: Create product names that properly identify what the product is. Be sure to use common words that customers are used to seeing and using themselves (know your buyers). Be as specific as possible and consider using brand names along with accurate keyword identifiers. A good example would be, “Artificial Bird of Paradise Flower w/ Decorative Pot.”
• Pick Accurate Categories: Having your products miscategorized in the CSE’s will greatly hurt your budget and conversion rate and should be monitored often. Review the category choices from each of the CSE’s you submit to and make sure your products are listed in the most relevant ones. If you take this step in the beginning you will see more conversions, better results from your ad spend and it will help the shopping engine to display your items in front of the users who are looking for what you sell.
• Complete Company Profile: Be sure that each of your CSE company profile pages are accurate and complete. Keep your company name, address, contact information and other profile fields up to date and accurate at all times. It is a good idea to include optional information about your company shipping, returns and privacy policies as well as any special conditions or extra fees.
• Use Optional Attributes: CSE’s that accept data feeds have special attributes which are unique to each shopping engine. Some are required and some are optional for the merchant. Review all the attributes for each CSE you are planning to list with and include as many of the optional attributes as you can within the data feeds. Payment methods, currency, hours of operation, anything that there is a field for that you can provide is best to include.
• Include MPN/UPC Attributes: Many CSE’s are now requiring these attributes, but even for the ones that aren’t it’s a good idea to include the manufacturer’s part number (MPN) and universal product code (UPC) in all your data feeds. These attributes will help the CSEs to better classify and list your items alongside other merchants in their indexes. They can also help customers who search by MPN or UPC find what you sell.
• Consider Custom Attributes: Some CSE’s allow merchants to create their own custom product attributes within the data feed file. Depending on the items you sell, and the CSE you are creating the data feed for, you may wish to include attributes for size, color, material, style, make or model etc. Consider creating as many custom attributes for specific items within your catalog and make sure the information is accurate.
• Consider Seasonal Attributes: Along with custom attributes, you may want to consider adding in seasonal data feed attributes. Seasonal attributes are for special discounts, sales, coupons, holiday sales and basically any other special promotion that the customer can take advantage of by buying from you. Not al CSE’s will allow you to create seasonal attributes into your data feeds, so be sure you review each ones terms and data feed specifications before adding these types of attributes into your everyday data feeds. You may even wish to show this on certain products only or only during certain times of the year, hence the term “seasonal attributes.”
• Monitor Changes: CSE’s change requirements, specifications, platforms and even ways in which they deliver or receive information. Be sure you constantly monitor CSE’s for updates or feed changes. It is also a good idea to contact them each time you change your feed structure just to make sure that the data feed will still update and publish without you having to worry about errors. If you do get errors, first look for updates, then contact the CSE to figure out what’s causing the error. Some CSE’s have error reporting support.
• Monitor Listings: Consider using a free or paid tracking service within your data feeds so you can track which products are performing the best and which ones may need to be removed or tweaked. Having access to this data will help you to better create and list products in the future and will help you to better understand visitors in each CSE. Some shopping engines have analytics and tracking data included, but typically they show very limited data and it mainly relates to either your bid management or bid tracking (doesn’t help you understand conversions).

Tips & Tricks for Tracking Results:

• Product Tracking: Some CSE’s do not allow tracking at the product level and there are some that do. If you can add in your own tracking code it is best to track everything from the product level. You can learn a lot by seeing which products perform the best and which ones need adjusting. Consider also tracking at a category level and per CSE. The more data you can gather and track the more optimal your feeds will become after making changes or adjustments.
• Monitor ROAS: Return on advertising spend is an important statistic to track. Make sure you eliminate poor performing products and track the most profitable items you list. Try to duplicate what you have done with the profitable products on other items within your data feed. If you do a poor job of managing bids and do not show up high enough on the CSE’s you will have little to no ROAS to track. Be sure to manage your bids and monitor where your listing show up on each CSE.
• Compare Products: Search all the CSE’s you use for the some of your current product names to see what other merchants are using for product titles, descriptions, images and other attributes. See how your measure up against theirs and make any necessary changes to your feed file. Learning from what your competitors do right and wrong can really save you a lot of time and energy and may also bring in more sales for a higher conversion. Look for attractive listing that you would actually buy from and use those as prime examples of where you want to be then take the necessary steps to get there.
• Change Bid Amounts: Change the price amounts you bid for to see if there is much difference in sales or conversions based on the placement within each CSE. You may find on some that product listed higher to the top of the page perform better and on others you may find the lower ones are better performing. Adjust your bid amounts on a regular basis and attempt to find the best places for each of your item types. Check any differences in sales and if you have a way to monitor the conversions, look for any changes there as well. Adjust your campaign as needed so that your items are always listed in the right spots across the categories which you bid for.
• Manage Accordingly: If you are like me, you may have some items that sell for hundreds of dollars and some that sell for less than five dollars. Manage different products accordingly depending on how much you charge for those items. You may want to use a different CSE and attribute strategy for lower priced items than you use for higher priced items. Obviously you would want to make sure that you are not wasting part of your budget on lower priced items getting displayed over the higher priced items that could possibly generate higher sales and potentially more profits.
• Fix Data Feeds: Knowing which products are performing the best and wwhich ones aren’t can tell you a lot about the rest of your campaign. If you notice something isn’t working or seem to be at level ground, try to change your feed structure, attributes and other important factors. You can find out a lot about whats working and what isn’t just by adding or removing a few things often enough and long enough to notice whether the change was a positive one or negative one.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

It may seem intimidating for some to think about all the rules surrounding the CSE’s and how to get the most from those campaigns. If you think about it and know a little bit about what you’re doing to begin with, the CSE’s, attributes, file formats, listing rules and ongoing management are pretty common sense.

Remember to come up with a strategy before you begin any campaign and make sure you take advantage of all the different tools, options and attributes the different CSE’s offer as part of their programs. With alittle knowledge, some hard work and a compatible catalog, you can master the world of comparison shopping listings and make a good living selling products at the same time.

If you ever need support or have questions, simply ask us or submit a comment. We would be happy to help anywhere we can.