GoDataFeed specializes in the automated delivery of product data feeds to over 40 major comparison shopping engines for merchants interested in saving time and effectively sending, optimizing and analyzing their feed content. GoDataFeed works together with merchant sellers, search engine marketing and optimization firms, hosting companies and a variety of other service providers, many of which are attracted to GoDataFeed’s affordable, efficient model designed to increase visitors and product/brand reach within the individual shopping channels.

In addition to the data feed automation, optimization and tracking processes, GoDataFeed truly cares about their clients success and always aims to exceed their expectations by offering the support and resources needed to meet the demands of their individual client needs.

GoDataFeed Comparison Shopping Solutions Overview:

• Promote products on more than 40 comparison shopping sites & affiliate networks
• Enhance product placement with built-in shopping engine categorization and validation
• Customize feed campaigns for sale, holiday, free-shipping, brand-name promotions and more

Data Feed Automation

• Easy one-time setup process
• Feed fresh product data
• Full integration with Yahoo! Store, ShopSite and Volusion 5.0

Data Feed Optimization

• Accurate product placement
• Robust field and category mapping
• Built-in categorizations and validation for all shopping engines

Data Feed Tracking

• Engine and product-level performance
• Real time data on clicks, conversions and revenue
• Determine your best products and shopping channels

GoDataFeed Features:

• Automate your data imports via FTP or instantly import your fully-integrated ShopSite, Volusion 5.0 or Yahoo! Stores
• Ensure your product data is always fresh with nightly FTP updates
• Submit your feeds automatically- daily, weekly or monthly
• Enhance product placement with robust category & filter rules that let you customize feeds and merchandise products where customers expect to find them
• Validate feeds against each shopping engine’s requirements to ensure your product data is accurate and complete
• Customize feed campaigns by adding or modifying values to your feed- like adding tracking tags to your URLs or creating targeted promotional initiatives for sale items, free-shipping, brand name and more
• Real-Time feedback on your clicks, orders and revenue
• Monitor your best performing engines and products
• Determine the best shopping sites for your store

GoDataFeed $.99 Trial:

GoDataFeed offers a 30 day trial of their professional comparison shopping engine solutions. The cost for the trial is only $.99. That’s right, only 99 cents to try GoDataFeed for a whole month. Visit the GoDataFeed trial page and fill out the brief form to sign-up for your $.99 thirty day trial offer.

GoDataFeed Pricing:

All GoDataFeed plans include: Two FREE Feed Setups, FREE Analytics Module & FREE Support

• Starter – 3 Feeds, 5,000 Products, $50/month
• Self-Managed – Unlimited Feeds, 5, 000 Products, $75/month
• Managed – Unlimited Feeds, 5,000 Products, $250/month

* Note: Each plan charges $5.00 extra per each additional 1,000 products

GoDataFeed Blog:

GoDataFeed also has a blog running where anyone can go to get the latest CSE and GDF news along with tips and resources from the experts at GoDataFeed. Simply visit their main page and look for the link to their blog in the top right corner.

• Official GoDataFeed Blog

To get an idea of the type of content to expect, be sure to read the latest post: Maximizing Comparison Shopping Site Marketing. It’s a great article full of tips to help merchants or pros effectively use CSE strategies. It’s a must read for anyone in the current CSE space.

Lin Grosman, Marketing/Integration, Answers 10 Questions About GoDataFeed:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

GoDataFeed’s software engineers and marketing specialists have developed ecommerce solutions for online businesses since 2000. Responding to the popularity of comparison shopping channels, GoDataFeed’s team combined its collective knowledge of best ecommerce and shopping channel marketing practices to create a single, user-friendly application to manage the product feed process.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

‘All of the above’ GoDataFeed data feed management service automates, optimizes and analyzes product data feeds to more than 40 comparison engines and affiliate networks:

• Automation: The software simplifies and automates the data feed management process through FTP updates as well as automatic integration for Yahoo! Stores, ShopSite, Volusion (5.0) stores, and AmeriCommerce.
• Optimization: Merchants can optimize their product feeds through built-in categorization and feed validation tools that help them make their product data more accurate and complete.
• Analytics: GoDataFeed’s analytics module helps merchants track product-level and engine performance, which helps determine best-performing shopping channels for their store.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

GoDataFeed supports more than 40 comparison shopping sites and affiliate networks including:

Amazon.com, Become.com, BuyersEdge, Ciao.com, FindGift.com, Gifts.com, Like.com, NexTag.com, Oodle.com, MyCoupons.com, PriceComparison.com, PriceforSure.com, PriceGrabber.com, PriceLeap.com, PriceRunner.com, PriceWatch.com, Pronto.com, Shop.com, Shopping.com, Shopzilla.com, Smarter.com, Sortprice.com, Streetprices.com, Yahoo Shopping, Google Product Search, MSN Live Product, TheFind.com, Dealio, Share-A-Sale, Commission Junction and Performics.

We also provide custom feeds for merchants who submit to specialty sites, such as wine specialty sites, gourmet and affiliate sites, etc.

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We cater to retail clients, hosting firms companies and search engine optimization and search engine marketing firms. Some of our clients include: StuffedAnimals.com, Puppet.com, CoffeeCakes.com, FootwearEtc.com, AffiliateTraction, Lexiconn Internet Services, WebDex Media Group.

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

Data feed management firms should give merchants the right tools to make their product information as accurate and complete as possible prior to submission to shopping engines, tools like feed validation and built-in categorization and customization options.

Data feed management firms should inform and educate merchants — through a transparent process– about the steps involved in optimizing and submitting their products to multiple shopping sites, acting as merchant advocates, and keeping them abreast of industry developments.

Shopping feed software should:

• Automate the data feed management process
• Optimize product information for each individual engine
• Monitor shopping site and product performance

Data feed management firms should provide responsive, unlimited support — GoDataFeed provides unparalleled turnaround time with support requests, live help with feed setups and live chat — all in an effort to simplify the feed management process, get their stores up and running and save merchants time and resources.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

The biggest mistake merchants can make is to look for “set it and forget it” or cookie-cutter solutions—merchants should be involved in the process of preparing their product data, as they know their product information best, and monitor their performance on the shopping sites.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

Each shopping site has its own data feed template, system and resources. We think the most commonly overlooked aspect–which can have the biggest impact– is merchants not tailoring feed campaigns to each shopping site and taking advantage of each shopping sites’ resources—i.e. account manager assistance, shopping site user review programs and shopping site optimization tips.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

The comparison shopping world is definitely becoming more social as shoppers are not only buying, but researching products and looking for ratings, reviews and user experiences. In addition, we think that more shopping sites will adopt a Cost-per-Action model—which is popular with many merchants.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

Our goal is promote a “Power to the Merchant” movement that empowers merchants and SEO firms to understand and take control of their data feed management to unlimited engines—at an affordable rate. We have just launched GoDataFeed’s v2.0—which has an extremely user-friendly interface and appeals to many users, making it easy to customize feed campaigns to more than 40 shopping sites. We aim to grow our business by helping merchants grow theirs.

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

It is impossible to generalize on the best performing comparison shopping engine, because each store and industry are different and perform differently on the shopping sites—however, the most popular shopping sites we currently support are Google Base, Shopzilla, Yahoo! Shopping, PriceGrabber and Jellyfish—now known as CashBack.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Lin: Wow Lin, thanks so much for taking the time and effort to participate in our QandA style interview about GoDataFeed. I really appreciate all the thought and information that went into your responses, well done. I love the fact that you are all about empowering the merchant for success, it can be easily overlooked in this fast paced industry. My favorite part, that is so true, is about the commonly overlooked aspects. You hit the nail on the head by stating, “merchants not tailoring feed campaigns to each shopping site and taking advantage of each shopping sites’ resources.” I can’t count the times I’ve worked with businesses who fail to utilize ALL their resources. The rating and reviews are the biggest, as you said. Optimization of feeds is also a big one. Thanks again Lin. I hope you continue to drop by. Please don’t hesitate to send us updates about your service so we can all stay informed about the progress GoDataFeed is making!!

To our readers: Well, that pretty much wraps up our latest data feed company interview. I hope you all enjoyed our time with Lin Grosman from GoDataFeed. It always amazes me to see how companies such as this are revolutionizing the CSE industry. I hope it was as informative for all of you as it was for me. If you liked this article and interview, be sure and subscribe to our articles feed or email updates, that way we can send newly published articles directly to you. If you just can’t wait for more like this, and haven’t already, you may also want to check out some of our past ecommerce interviews.

GoDataFeed is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

FeedPerfect, a Solid Cactus company, offers professional comparison shopping engine and data feed solutions to eCommerce sellers interested in getting their product information imported, optimized and published within popular shopping portals and destinations. FeedPerfect’s data feed solutions are designed with ease of use and efficiency in mind. Merchants who use FeedPerfect are able to utilize all of the categorization methods and data requirements for each CSE directly from the merchant application dashboard. Once store products are imported into the app., a variety of tools can be used to mass categorize product groups, pre-validate product data and automatically submit products directly into each supported shopping engine.

In addition, FeedPerfect takes the process a step further by providing useful tools to help merchants optimize their individual data feeds, track product performance and analyze product and engine statistics, making it much easier to adjust data or make changes to improve performance.

FeedPerfect Comparison Shopping Solutions Overview:

• Import – FeedPerfect’s global database will give you the tools to mass categorize groups of products saving you A LOT of time.
• Publish – FeedPerfect will automatically submit products on the schedule you determine to ensure your products’ data remains up-to-date.
• Analyze – FeedPerfect’s analytics provides merchants with powerful decision making tools and the ability to act on these decisions right inside of the application.
• Optimize – FeedPerfect allows you to review product performance across multiple channels and optimize each feed for maximum performance.

FeedPerfect Benefits:

• Completely Web-based Application
• Detailed Analytics Tools
• Easy To Use, Comes Supported
• Feature Rich Interface
• Validation And Categorization
• 17 Major CSE’s Supported

Try FeedPerfect FREE For 30 Days:

FeedPerfect offers a complimentary 30 day trial of their professional comparison shopping engine solutions. Visit the FeedPerfect homepage and fill out the brief form on the right to sign-up for your FREE 30 day trial of their popular data feed application.

FeedPerfect Pricing:

• Starter – 1 Store, 1,000 Products, 3 Engines, $89/month
• Professional – 1 Store, 20,000 Products, All Engines, $179/month
• Enterprise – 4 Stores, 100,000 Products, All Engines, $279/month

About Solid Cactus:

Solid Cactus, a total e-commerce solutions provider, has designed or redesigned more than 2,500 e-commerce sites using the Yahoo! Store platform. Our team of world-class designers and experienced programmers know what makes e-commerce sites successful and strive for excellence in each project we undertake.

Kurt Illian, Solid Cactus, Answers 10 Questions About FeedPerfect:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

After working with online merchants everyday since 2001, we saw the need for a product to help them manage their feeds early on. We originally had a simple feed service that allowed merchants to send their products to each of the engines from one centralized place. As time went on we realized our customers were blindly sending feeds to the engines without watching their spend or optimizing their data feeds accordingly. Basically we saw a lot of customers wasting money. We decided to meet this need by introducing FeedPerfect in early 2007.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

FeedPerfect provides one centralized location to manage products available to be sent to the Comparison Shopping Engines. We then provide a way for the merchant to select which engine they would like to advertise in, as well as a walk-through simplified setup wizard. Not only will you find the ability to select which products you would like to advertise but also a comprehensive list of the different categories available within the engine. Once the feed has been sent out to the engine, FeedPerfect provides analytics to track the conversion down to the product level allowing the merchant to take action (change or remove that product from a feed) from one interface without having to learn each engine’s unique admin.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

• Google Product Search
• Price Grabber
• Shopping.com
• Shopzilla
• Yahoo! Shopping
• MySimon
• NexTag
• Smarter
• PriceLeap
• PriceSaving
• Jellyfish
• Become.com
• StreetPrices.com
• Live.com
• SortPrice
• Pronto.com
• Amazon Product Ads

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We have a large variety of customers ranging from small “Mom and Pop” companies with small advertising budgets who are only advertising in a few engines, to large e-commerce businesses with a dedicated marketing manager watching the spend on a daily basis. FeedPerfect also caters to agencies with multiple accounts/stores by making it possible to manage their customers from one easy-to-use interface.

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

Time and money. We’ve seen too many merchants simply set up their feeds and “walk away.” Your CSE advertising is an important part of your business. If you are not going to take the time to manage it properly, you should look for a solution that can help. Find a solution that will save you time through the automation of data feeds, and money by telling you where your money is being spent. If that is still too much for you, consider using a firm to manage your CSE feeds for you.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

I have found some merchants simply send their products to the engine and never take time to look at the data. Many people send their products to Google Product Search but are not aware of which items are performing well. In fact, many of them do not even have access to such valuable statistics. This is a great way to test new product offerings in the world of Comparison Shopping Engines, and at the same time provide valuable statistics to use across other advertising channels.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

People often overlook how much data they are providing a CSE. Conventional wisdom says the more a customer is informed (by product information), the easier the sale. The CSEs have required fields, but not many people look beyond those fields and populate the fields that are optional. Consider updating your feeds to include as much information as possible.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

Technology changes everyday so the possibilities are endless. With social media being so new I can see more CSE adding in social components into their engines allowing shoppers to communicate with each other. One trend that we have noticed is larger e-commerce stores are starting to compete in CSEs which is making it harder for smaller merchants to compete.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

We continue to add more CSE’s into FeedPerfect. More importantly, however, we are adding new tools that will make it easier to manage your data feeds and see which products are producing the best results, and which items are not producing desirable results for your bottom line.

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

Due to the various demographics that each merchant targets, it varies across each store. However, one feed that continues to not only have the best ROI (since it’s free), but drives traffic and sales, is Google Product Search. The sales many of our merchants get from Google Product Search compare to other CSE’s that you are paying for. Outside of Google Product Search, our merchants have been able to find success within all of the engines we support, depending on the merchants target demographic.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Kurt: I want to personally express my thanks for your participation in the QandA Kurt. I appreciate the time, thought and effort that went into your answers, such detailed responses! I love the fact that you’ve put so much emphasis on technology and tools to make everything so simple and easy. You hit the nail on the head by stating, “some merchants simply send their products to the engine and never take time to look at the data.” I find this to be true in nearly one in five people I discuss current CSE strategy with. Analyzing performance and drilling content down to the product level is so overlooked it’s not even funny. Glad you brought it up and reinforced that it is NOT OK! Again, thank you for taking the time to participate. Love what you’re doing with FeedPerfect and at Solid Cactus, it seems like you’ve got a quality team. Keep up the good work.

To our readers: It’s great to get this kind of information directly from the professionals, isn’t it? I hope you all enjoyed this, and past interviews, as much as I have. We’re almost out of data feed providers to interview, so it won’t be long now before we begin some new QandA series’ and expand on some we’ve already begun conducting. If you liked this structure and the interview content, be sure you subscribe to our articles feed or email updates, that way we can send newly published articles directly to you.

FeedPerfect is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

Awhile back we kicked off a new interview series with top comparison shopping engine and data feed management companies in an effort to introduce our readers to some of the industry players and to inform merchants about the types of services offered by the different providers. This interview is roughly the fourth CSE services one we’ve conducted and I am happy to report that it appears as though we’ve got a few more in store due to be released within the month.

CPC Strategy is a provider of comparison shopping engine and data feed marketing services for merchants interested in leveraging the power of online shopping engines in an effort to increase shopper, buyer and brand awareness in the world of online retail. CPC Strategy’s solution is meant to take an individual approach to CSE selling taking into consideration that different sellers may have separate goals when it comes to marketing through comparison shopping.

CPC Strategy Comparison Shopping Solution Overview:

CPC Strategy understands that each merchant is different and has unique goals for their Comparison Shopping Campaigns. We strive to work with each of our clients individually to ensure that we fully understand and meet your expectations.

A few of the data feed services offered by CPC Strategy include adding custom product attributes, optimizing individual data feeds, automation of data feed submission, proper feed categorization and even micro-management of each campaign. The overall goal of CPC Strategy is to boost merchant ROI by lowering costs associated with CSE marketing and by increasing shopper conversion rates.

CPC Strategy Data Feed Service Details:

Data Feed Optimization

CPC Strategy will create, optimize, and manage data feeds in an effort to take advantage of the individual unique opportunities offered by each of the most popular comparison shopping engines.

Automatic Data Feed Submission

CPC Strategy will automatically upload the most recent data feed as a way to ensure that each CSE will have access to the most recent, up-to-date and accurate information for the entire product line or catalog.

Product Level Bidding

CPC Strategy will use their precise in-house ROI tracking system to determine and help estimate the most appropriate bids for the entire product line or catalog.

Custom Attributes

CPC Strategy will add any custom attributes to merchant data feeds in an effort to increase product relevancy and shopper conversion rates for the entire product line or catalog.

CPC Strategy Case Studies:

• Online Diamond Merchants (PDF Format)

A competitive analysis of diamond merchants and their experiences with marketing on comparison shopping engines.

• Garden Decor Merchants (PDF Format)

A competitive analysis of garden decor merchants and their experiences with marketing on comparison shopping engines.

• Hand Bag Merchants (PDF Format)

A competitive analysis of hand bag merchants and their experiences with marketing on comparison shopping engines.

CPC Strategy Blog:

• Official CPC Strategy Blog

CPC Strategy now has an official blog. Some of the blog topics include topics ranging from product bidding, click fraud, tracking and landing pages to specific engines such as Google Base, Shopping.com and more.

We strive to provide busy merchants with a Comparison Shopping Campaign Management Solution freeing them to focus on the day to day intricacies of running their own business.

Rick Backus, VP New Accounts, Answers 10 Questions About CPC Strategy:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

CPC Strategy was founded in January 2007 by former employees of the comparison shopping engines. We saw firsthand how merchants were struggling to manage their spend and achieve their target ROI. It was frustrating seeing merchants making the same mistakes repeatedly again without even realizing what they were doing wrong. The lack of uniformity between CSEs makes managing multiple campaigns in-house very difficult and thus ineffective for most merchants.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

We do all of the above as we are a true Full Service Data Feed Management Solution. We provide each merchant with an ftp for data feed updates and then we take care of the rest.

New feeds are generated based on the specifications of each CSE, and our system is set-up for daily deliveries and to track the results. A weekly report is also sent out to each merchant which breaks down ROI at the product level for each CSE Campaign.

In terms of specialty services, we pride ourselves on keeping up with the constantly evolving algorithms of each CSE via regular A/B testing. This helps us in understanding what each engine is looking for and enables us to manipulate our client’s data feeds accordingly.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

If the engine accepts a data feed, we can work with them. A few examples include Pricegrabber, Shopzilla, Google Product Search, etc.

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We’ll let our merchants speak for themselves: http://www.cpcstrategy.com/testimonials.html

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

Merchants should understand the difference between companies that provide data feed submission tools and full service firms which handle all aspects of data feed management. There are plenty of excellent tools that help merchants manage their own campaigns in-house but we are not one of them. Our goal is to provide our clients a comparison shopping management solution that frees them to focus on the day to day intricacies of running their own business.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

Underestimating the time and resources needed to build successful long term campaigns. CSEs are not like those rotisserie grills that you see advertised on late night TV, in which you can simply “set it and forget it.”

They also tend to overestimate the similarities between comparison shopping and traditional PPC. While the two share certain similarities, there exists many differences between the two, and requires true niche experts within the field to run effective campaigns.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

A/B testing! Should you alter your titles and descriptions? Should you implement a price floor and/or price ceiling? Should you run all or some of your inventory?

Data feed management is often times more art than it is science, and different merchants may yield different results–even among those within the same industry–so experimentation is a must. Without A/B testing you’ll never truly know what the right marketing mix is for your products on the CSEs.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

We believe that as time goes on CSEs are going to be thought of as less of a stand-alone destination and more as part of an integrated buying experience.

As it stands, a consumer making a purchase must first research a product, decide on a make and model, as well as where/how to buy it. We believe that in the future CSEs consolidate the buying process, allowing the consumer to make a decision without having to first visit a stand-alone destination.

Social networking will also have a major impact in comparison shopping, as applications are currently available for people to learn the buying habits of their friends, and receive recommendations via that route. Facebook already has an application that has reached the million user mark that attempts to recommend its users products that they may be interested in.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

Hopefully we will stay true to our roots and stay focused on comparison shopping exclusively. Most of our competitors were SEO or PPC agencies that decided to offer a comparison shopping branch to their host of services. As far as I know, we are the only full service firm that focuses exclusively on comparison shopping and I think gives us a competitive advantage.

Also hopefully our new blog – http://blog.cpcstrategy.com – will be as popular as yours

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

It’s very hard to make a generalization like this. Performances will range considerably for different types of merchants depending on the engines, and each use different metrics to measure “success”, whether it be on profit margins, or total exposure, etc.

That being said, Nextag has been converting pretty well lately.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Rick: First, terribly sorry for any delays in getting your interview answers published Rick!! I am extremely grateful for your contribution and for you taking the time to provide such detailed, informative, entertaining answers for our readers. The thing I like most about your company and mission is the fact that CPC Strategy was started by ex-CSE employees who saw a need that wasn’t necessarily being fulfilled by competing comparison shopping engine service providers. It shows that your company representatives really do care about the success of your clients and that there is real passion behind the services you offer. It’s a pleasure to advocate for such a firm and quite refreshing to see in this world of “passion for greed” providers. On a side note, glad to see you guys went the blog route, looks like your authors are off to a tremendous start, so keep that up! I look forward to working with you again in the future on more project collaborations such as this interview and wish you a successful future as a leading CSE service provider.

To our readers: We hope you’ve all enjoyed this interview with Rick Backus about CPC Strategy’s data feed and comparison shopping engine services. Remember, we conduct interviews like this one and similar topics on a regular basis so be sure to grab our articles feed or subscribe to email updates so you’re never out of the eCommerce news loop. If you enjoyed this interview you may wish to read additional QandA’s we’ve conducted by visiting our eCommerce interviews category. Thanks again for tuning in everyone, see you next time.

CPC Strategy is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

This interview marks the second of two we have conducted with the folks over at Channel Intelligence. For more insights into the company and their services be sure to check out the first interview we did with Vik Murty about SellPath.

As a core part of their solution, Channel Intelligence offers industry leading comparison shopping and data feed services for merchants and eCommerce sellers who are interested in receiving high-end channel marketing technology from a company with a long standing reputation in this industry. The individual comparison shopping services are designed to make the process of generating, uploading, optimizing and tracking feeds as simple and easy as possible on the publisher. Also, they are setup in a way that makes it absolutely clear which campaigns are producing what, giving additional insight into the campaigns that may need to be improved or tweaked in order to produce the desired results.

Channel Intelligence Comparison Shopping Services Overview:

Channel Intelligence uses proprietary technology blended with years of industry experience to offer a level of service sought out by some of the biggest brands in eCommerce. CI uses a variety of data services that make up their CommerceIQ technology including AttributeIQ, CategoryIQ, FeedIQ, ImageIQ, ItemNameIQ, KeywordIQ, ModelIQ, TaxonomyIQ, UnificationIQ and UPCIQ. Each of the separate intelligent data services is used to generate and provide the most meaningful and complete information about each product and is then distributed throughout the CI supported comparison shopping engines.

Through our patented and patent-pending technologies, we automatically find and group like products together in our database by understanding and interpreting various naming conventions, categorizing each and every product into our Universal Type-based categories and harvesting essential search variables such as attributes and keywords. This optimized product data can be sent and received in all the commonly used formats, integrating seamlessly with existing channels and offering greater possibilities to marketers and publishers.

Steven Roth, VP of Strategic Consulting, Answers 10 Questions:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

We entered this market in April 2004 at the request of clients that were struggling to get timely data feeds from their IT departments. Since then our services have evolved into full marketing consulting and product optimization services.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

We provide everything mentioned. From a data perspective we provide enhanced product-level optimization services to help ensure retailers’ products are complete, accurate and properly placed on each shopping engine. These services include automated product-level categorization customized for each shopping engine, harvesting of attributes and keywords, and matching of product identifiers between the product catalogs of a retailer and each shopping engine.

You can see more about the data technology platform behind our services here:

http://www.channelintelligence.com/commerceiq.html

We also provide an option that lets a retailer outsource management of all aspects of their shopping engine activities, from strategic consulting to the management of the legal and financial relationships with the engines. Our services are customized to the unique needs of each client and leverage our unique expertise in this very complex and constantly changing marketing channel.

Our day-to-day management includes analyzing trends for each client and the industry in general and taking action that may include adjusting bids, suppressing products or highlighting promotions. We offer complete transparency in these activities through regular client reviews and detailed reports that drill down to the category, brand, product and order level.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

We work with over 50 destinations including all major and upcoming shopping engines, online marketplaces, affiliate networks and others.

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We have more top-ranked retailers using our service for shopping engine management than any other provider in the industry today. Currently we have over 100 retailers using our SellCast Services including Target, Neiman Marcus, Best Buy, Spiegel, Circuit City, Coldwater Creek, Overstock.com, ShopNBC, West Marine, OfficeMax, Drs Foster & Smith, Skechers, eToys Direct, Northern Tool + Equipment, Smart Bargains, BenchMark Brands, Teleflora, Casual Male and ICE.com.

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

When shopping for a feed generation or management firm, it’s helpful to look at the type of clients a provider works with to help assure a good fit. For example, a typical client at CI is ranked among the Internet Retailer Top 500 online retailers and is committed to profitably growing sales in this marketing channel. Merchants choose Channel Intelligence because of our unique combination of technology and expertise within this marketing channel. There are many low-cost tools from other vendors that smaller retailers can use, but we pride ourselves on providing excellent service and results to the leading online retailers.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

Underestimating the time and effort it takes to make this marketing channel succeed. Our services and technology solutions are much more scalable than a single retailer could develop on its own, which makes our solutions more cost effective with a shorter ramp-up time.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

Good, accurate and complete product data. Techniques like bidding and product suppressions are useful, but only after all products are accurately displayed and placed for optimal performance. It is only after this is achieved that business decisions can be made to fine tune the results on the shopping engines.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

We definitely expect to see the best-known shopping engines maintain their presence and hopefully start to become more innovative again. The smaller shopping engines like Jellyfish and Like.com are driving innovation in this industry, which is creating a more compelling user experience and delivering qualified consumers to merchants.

We’ve already started to see specialization of shopping engines by vertical (HealthPricer, CNET, Builders Square, etc.) and target audience (“green” sites, social networking sites, etc.), and this trend will continue. We’re also seeing the product listings on the shopping engines being distributed to thousands of “mini-shopping engines” that are appearing on sites that include FaceBook, review sites and blogs.

As this marketing channel becomes increasingly complex, Channel Intelligence is leading the industry in innovations that include tracking sales from each distributed listing and supporting all of the emerging shopping engines.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

Our specialization in the shopping engine niche has already been expanded to include paid search, mobile marketing, online rebates and our own CI Ad Network. These services share a patented data optimization platform that will allow Channel Intelligence to continue growing the services offered to our clients – while still maintaining the excellent customer services that our clients have come to expect.

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

Each client has a unique set of goals, so “best performing” could be measured by traffic, sales, profitability, return on ad spend or any number of other success metrics. The “best performing” shopping engine for a client is the one that delivers on its goals, and the best engine for one client could be the worst engine for another. The key is to first identify how success is measured, and then to customize a marketing plan for this channel that is focused on achieving those success metrics.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Steven: I really appreciate all the time and effort you spent writing and providing these answers to us Steven. I can tell by the passion in your words that you really do care about your customers, company, services and the industry, which are all extremely important in my opinion. It was an absolute pleasure learning more about CI’s data feed services from you and I hope that this isn’t the last time we are able to collaborate on a project. It’s funny to see how the answers one person provides differ from the next. I thought you did a superb job on your responses, spot on. My favorite was probably the very last response you provided in regards to the “best performing” engines. Your answer is so right, I’m surprised others fail to realize the importance of their own unique situation rather than comparing their situation to other sites or competitors and how they perform.

To our readers: Well, I for one hope you all enjoyed reading our latest eCommerce interview with Steven Roth of Channel Intelligence. It was fun for me, I really enjoy these write-ups and it’s that much more enjoyable when I get to conduct them with some of the companies I am a major fan of, like CI. If you enjoyed this interview, you may consider visiting our interviews category which features several from all across the industry. Or, you can always subscribe to our RSS feed and we’ll deliver the news and interviews to you each time a new article is published. Until next time.

Channel Intelligence is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

ChannelBrain is Freeportway’s (parent company) service for eCommerce merchants looking to market or sell within Online marketing channels such as comparison shopping engines (CSE’s) and shopping portals. ChannelBrain’s solution is designed to help and facilitate the process of syndicating various products offered by merchants and eTailers to numerous CSE’s all from one, simple to use location and tool. In addition to the formatting, ease of syndication and one-click solution, ChannelBrain also offers users the ability to create their campaigns so that progress, or lack of, can be tracked.

ChannelBrain Comparison Shopping Services Overview:

ChannelBrain currently offers three different levels within their data feed marketing solutions. There is no need to install or download additional software in order to use the service. Instead, all the data feed tools are offered within an easy to use, simple to understand web-based application and software. In short, ChannelBrain’s services help merchants to automate, measure and optimize all their Online channel marketing campaigns.

ChannelBrain Service Level Details:

Standard Package

Cost: $59
Engines: 4
Products: 10,000
Support: Yes
API: No
Back Office: No
Analytics: Yes

Basic Package

Cost: $99
Engines: 8
Products: 10,000
Support: Yes
API: No
Back Office: No
Analytics: Yes

Pro Package

Cost: $199
Engines: Unlimited
Products: Unlimited
Support: Yes
API: Yes
Back Office: Yes
Analytics: Yes

View the ChannelBrain Brochure (PDF Format)

ChannelBrain User Forums:

• Official ChannelBrain Forums

The ChannelBrain user forums cover topics ranging from how-to’s and announcements to tips and information about supported engines. Right now the user-base doesn’t seem to be that large, however there are some good posts about the system in there like setup and starting out topics.

ChannelBrain Blog:

• Official ChannelBrain Blog

ChannelBrain also has a blog, where those interested in finding out more, or receiving updates on ChannelBrain, and the CSE industry, can go to learn about insider happenings. The blog archives go back to March 2007, and although it appears as though it hasn’t been updated recently, I checked it out and there is some really good information about their services and views on the industry on it. Be sure to drop by and take a peak when visiting the site.

Gary MacDougall, CEO, Answers 10 Questions About ChannelBrain:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

Our existing customers were requesting feed output from our shopping cart system. We also so a great need to simplify this process as there were (at the time) no affordable solutions on the market that brought all the facets of channel marketing into one package.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

We provide feed generation, tracking and reporting and optimization / management. We also provide integration tools for back-office and shopping cart systems to further ease the process. We support shopping carts like Yahoo Merchant and back-office systems like Mail Order Manager.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

We support 13 at the moment, but we add new ones periodically.

• Google Products
• Yahoo Shopping
• PriceGrabber
• PriceRunner
• Gifts.com
• TheFind
• MSN Live
• Become.com
• BuyersEdge
• Pronto
• Shopping.com
• Shopzilla
• Smarter.com
• Nextag

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

We have about 50 or so customers using the product.

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

Does the company understand the model and is just not selling a “tool”. Lot’s of factors about CSE marketing are not just about getting the data-feed in, there’s a lot a of things that need to be done to be able to understand how to optimize the feed to improve its performance.

Not a lot of tool providers care about that, they focus on the ability to get the feed up to the engine, and thats it.

Choosing a provider that cares about conversions is something that the customers overlook. They look at the cost of the product, pick the cheapest and really get what they pay for.

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

Not understanding how to measure. Just syndicating your inventory and not being able to optimize or improve your ROI is one of the biggest mistakes merchants make. Choosing a good tool to help you do this is probably one of the most important parts of the process.

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

The increased natural link exposure that your products will get. Many of the CSE’s will advertise your links / products to various places that are typically going to help with improving your sites natural search exposure. For example, Shopping.com will syndicate links to your products in Google, this is considered more “back links” to your site, which can improve your organic search results of your site.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

Broken. Sadly, I think that the CSE’s have gotten a little greedy in that they are not keeping up with technology and focusing far too much on clicks and costs per click vs. trying to provide a valuable service to the visitors of their site. When you look at the landscape, its changing rapidly as Google Base / Products has really leveled a lot of the playing field and made it hard to compete in the space for shoppers. The bottom line, customers are getting “savvy” in that they know if they search for a product, the first couple links are “paid”.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Gary: I just wanted to express how appreciative I am that you were able to participate in this QandA! I am a big time advocate of the services you offer and it’s always great to get introduced and find out more about some of the best ones, such as you offer. I am truly sorry for any hick-ups along the way, like email issues or lost question answers, I am not sure what happened there, but really glad that despite all that, we were still able to get it done and posted. Please don’t hesitiate to drop by and comment or fill us all in on anything new going on at ChannelBrain, or Freeportway. Thanks so much for the quality answers and for getting them back as quickly as you did. Look forward to watching your service blossom and grow.

To our readers: I hope everyone enjoyed reading our latest CSE data feed services interview with Gary from ChannelBrain. I have personally learned so much from these QandA’s, it’s been really fun. I look forward to conducting many more in the future, so be sure to let me know if there’s anything missing in them that you’d like to see in future interviews. As always, if you would like to read past interviews I have posted, simply visit the eCommerce Interviews category on our sidebar. If you’d prefer to subscribe, we offer a full articles feed, email updates and RSS for the interviews category only. Just copy and paste any of those URLs into your favorite feed reader. Thanks for your loyal readership everyone, your the reason I do all this and without our readers, it wouldn’t be nearly as special as it has been!

ChannelBrain is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

We have recently added a new section to our comparison shopping guide dedicated to the top data feed companies that currently offer comparison shopping engine listing services including feed generation, submission, distribution, management and tracking. Some merchants find it difficult to setup, manage and track their individual CSE campaigns and sometimes they just don’t have the time to deal with all that’s involved. For this reason, several companies now offer different services designed to help ease or take-over these tasks for any merchant who may fit into either category.

One such company featured on our data feeds list, DoubleClick Performics, was gracious enough to spend some time with me in order to discuss their comparison shopping solution details more in depth. I hope to eventually take the time to talk with each company on our list so that our readers can pick and choose based on the individual needs or goals of any CSE campaign.

DoubleClick Performics is the search engine and affiliate marketing division of DoubleClick Inc. (recently acquired by Google) Performics is based out of Chicago while the international headquarters of DoubleClick are in New York. The company and subsidiaries feature a host of digital marketing and technology services ranging from affiliate marketing, SEM, data feed solutions and consulting to proprietary tracking or reporting technologies, account management and much more to add to their years of industry expertise.

DoubleClick currently services many of the world’s top marketing, publishing and agency brands including About.com, PriceGrabber, Vegas.com, Ford, Friendster and MTV. Performics also serves as a valued resource for top brands such as iRobot, Pottery Barn, United Airlines and many hundreds more to add to their years of expertise.

Here’s what Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, had to say about the DoubleClick acquisition…

We are thrilled that our acquisition of DoubleClick has closed. With DoubleClick, Google now has the leading display ad platform, which will enable us to rapidly bring to market advances in technology and infrastructure that will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies, while improving the relevance of advertising for users.

(I’ll save comments on all that for another article and topic in the future)

DoubleClick Performics Comparison Shopping Solution Overview:

DoubleClick Performics uses a proprietary feed automation platform to build, optimize, and submit your product catalog. Rapid implementation places power back in the marketer’s hands to better control messaging, promote in-stock items and react to seasonal demands.

DoubleClick CSE Solution Allows Merchants To…

• Upload product data via email or FTP site
• Automatically validate and report errors
• Exclude certain products from select partner feeds

In addition, DoubleClick Performics will distribute your feed across 18 of the top comparison shopping engines and much more.

Performics Blog:

• Official Performics Blog

For updates, news and articles on Performics solutions be sure to visit the official DoubleClick Performics blog. While you’re there, make sure you subscribe to their feed, that way you never miss out on upcoming news or announcements. Performics blog categories include affiliate marketing, emerging opportunities, product features, search marketing and system maintenance.

DoubleClick Blog:

• Official DoubleClick Blog

For more information and updated announcements be sure to check out the DoubleClick blog. They have categories covering all their individual products and solutions including topics on creativity and innovation, industry commentary, news and events, research and tips.

Stuart Larkins, VP of Search, Answers 10 Questions About Performics:

What made you decide to get into the feed generation or management business originally? How long have you been servicing merchants, vendors and Online sellers?

DoubleClick Performics was founded as Dynamic Trade, an affiliate marketing company, in 1998 and launched comprehensive search engine marketing services in 2001.

DoubleClick Performics takes a thinking forward approach to performance marketing for 300 of the world’s top brands. With the right blend of insight, technological investment and response-oriented marketing plans we engage and deliver more consumers for our clients.

What are your specific service specialties? Do you currently provide feed generation, distribution, tracking, management or all of the above?

DoubleClick Performics serves clients with three primary performance marketing solutions: affiliate, search and digital consulting. Its affiliate marketing solutions provide advertisers and publishers large and small with industry-leading technology, superior customer service and exceptional support. The firm’s comprehensive search offering pairs consumer engagement expertise with technical innovation to empower advertisers to think forward about search engine marketing; marketers utilize these industry leading services for a wide range of programs, including integrated search, paid search, natural search, local search, comparison shopping and paid inclusion.

Our comparison shopping solution distributes single feeds to multiple sites, facilitating quick and simultaneous updates across properties. DoubleClick Performics manages programs for more than 100 clients across 13 comparison shopping engines. Our experts utilize advanced technology to enhance program development through a proven methodology.

What comparison shopping engines are supported by your service? Which engines do you work with?

DoubleClick Performics manages client data feeds with comparison shopping engines, Web publishers and participants in the company’s affiliate network, some of which include:

Google, Yahoo!, MSN, BizRate, NexTag, Shopping.com, PriceGrabber, Smarter.com, Gifts.com, Findgift.com, Become.com, Pronto, and PriceRunner.

Who are some of the merchants that currently use you as a feed generation or management firm?

DoubleClick Performics’ data feed management technology helps power more than 100 current DoubleClick Performics data feed clients and offers online advertisers an opportunity to leverage online distribution, improve reach and ranking, and drive sales through search, shopping comparison and affiliate Web sites.

What factors should merchants consider when shopping for a feed generation or management firm?

When selecting a feed management firm, it is important to align with an agency that understands the merchant’s business goals and encompasses the following features:

• Proven expertise in the feed management space
• Scalable technology
• Dedicated account team
• Proprietary optimization methodology
• Strong partnerships with CSEs
• Understand and practice a holistic approach to digital marketing

In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake merchants make when venturing into the comparison shopping world?

Choosing the wrong partner is the biggest mistake merchants can make when venturing into the complex world of data feed marketing.

• Over-automation: Strong technology is only one element of data feeds; experienced practitioners are crucial to successful programs
• Underestimating the value of new-to-file customers; feeds provide the highest NTF rates
• Under-utilization of search, affiliate and other online marketing data to strengthen data feed program
• Too broad an ROI focus; merchants should closely manage ROI at the product level

In your opinion, what is the most commonly overlooked feed aspect, that makes the biggest difference with CSE’s?

Robust tracking and analysis drives more efficient programs. Using analytics to the fullest potential grants deep insight into why some products sold more effectively than others and creates opportunity for correction. DoubleClick Performics analyzes data down to the SKU level, and leverages search and affiliate data to optimize feeds. Knowing what you didn’t sell and why allows you to optimize and correct problems.

In your opinion, what will the comparison shopping-scape look like in the future? Replaced by traditional SE’s? Better than ever? Hardly used? More social? Anything?

As consumers become more sophisticated online and increase their use of comparison shopping engines, advertisers will allocate more resources and budget towards feeds. DoubleClick Performics has superior relationships with the top comparison shopping engines, enabling advertisers to expand reach, improve relevancy and cost effectively connect with more consumers. Through audits of current client initiatives, DoubleClick Performics also provides an understanding of the market landscape and potential opportunities within emerging media and offers strategy based on clients’ capabilities.

What goals do you hope to accomplish and where do you see your firm heading in the next 1-3 years?

DoubleClick Performics continues to strengthen and invest in its teams, technology, proprietary methodologies and strategic partnerships to deliver qualified consumers for clients. Emerging media, mobile, etc.

What is the single best performing comparison shopping engine you currently support? Who earns the most revenue on average for your merchants?

As a leader in the feeds, search and affiliate space, DoubleClick Performics works successfully with thousands of publishers and engines to earn optimal revenue for our advertisers.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

To Stuart: Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer a few QandA questions about DoubleClick Performics for our readers. I especially like your stand on empowering the merchant, keeping control in their hands (that is important to the point that they know everything that’s going on with their campaigns in order to properly track ROI). I am really relieved to see that you continue to reach out and inform potential clients about your services and that the recent acquisition hasn’t seemed to put any cramps in the way things are done at your company. I personally can’t wait to see some of the newer innovations a company like DoubleClick is capable of creating, it should certainly be a fun and exciting year in the comparison shopping space. Once again, thanks for taking the time to spread the word about your comparison shopping engine and data feed management solution. Please don’t hesitiate to send us any developments or news about feature releases or company happenings, I would love to work with you again in the future.

To our readers: I really hope all the readers out there have enjoyed this interview with VP of Search at DoubleClick Performics about their services. Keep in mind that we hope to eventually conduct more QandA type interviews like this with other data feed management and service companies. If you liked this interview be sure to check out the others in our interviews section and if you don’t want to miss out on any in the future, you can always subscribe to our articles feed or email updates, that way we can send the next one to you!

DoubleClick Performics is featured as one of the data feed companies on our Product Listing Guide!

Google Base Blog announced today that they are changing the name of their ‘bulk uploads’ tab to be more in line with eCommerce publisher and merchant terminology. The tab will now be called ‘data feeds,’ which still appears under the My Items tab next to Active and Inactive Item links (see screenshot above).

According to Chris Azalde of the Google Base Support team, the change is part of Google’s effort to listen and implement their users’ feedback. Apparently, the terminology, bulk uploads, isn’t as clear to some as the more commonly used term, data feeds. The change only affects the name of the specific content submission service, the functionality will remain the same, and still sports the recently updated data feeds dashboard look and feel.

This is only a terminology change, so just know that when we refer to your ‘data feeds’ or ‘feeds,’ it’s what we used to refer to as ‘bulk uploads’ or ‘uploads.’

I think it’s good that Google continues to improve their system, functionality and features. Personally, I didn’t think the name was too confusing, however I do think that the term data feeds is more commonly used among industry professionals and long time merchant sellers. I think it’s important to continue to use industry standard terms or terminology whenever possible, so overall I do think this will help to keep everyone on the same page. I find myself explaining to merchants what data feeds/bulk uploads are all the time, so the fact that Google is moving towards the standardized term makes me happy.

If you ask me, this name change is not about being more clear and keeping sellers on the same page. I think it’s a move on Google’s part to rank under the term data feeds (in order to beat out some of the data feed service providers) and to increase exposure to their Base data feeds service. I also believe that they changed the name because of the increasing number of service providers who started using the term bulk uploads when that tool was originally launched.

We saw the same thing when they re-branded Froogle to Product Search. It’s not about being more clear, it’s about trying to rank under the terms ‘products‘ and ‘product search‘ in their own search engine (which they currently do rank for, but didn’t until the name change back in April 2007).

I love Google, don’t get me wrong, but don’t let them fool you into thinking changes like this are solely for the good of the industry, in my opinion, they always have ulterior motives that accomplish more than one thing.

There was a post yesterday afternoon on the Google Base blog announcing the re-introduction of the model_number attribute. Model numbers are similar to the MPN (manufacturers part number) or UPC (Universal Product Code) data feed attributes.

Model numbers are basically unique numbers or codes that get assigned to a particular product by the item manufacturer. Some of the attributes are required, some are not. The model_number attribute is optional, but it is a good idea to include it within your data feed so Google can see even more information about the products you offer. Product attributes are primarily used to help classify different items and to help shoppers find what you offer. Remember, just because you include extra attributes doesn’t always mean you will rank higher in Google Product Search or Base results, including the Onebox area.

In case you aren’t already familiar with Base attributes, here’s a list (with links) to the required, optional and item specific attributes…

Base Upload Program Policies:

• It’s always a good idea to review the Google Base Program Policies

Required Attributes (All Products):

• product_type
• brand
• title
• description
• price
• image_link
• link
• id
• mpn
• upc
• isbn
• condition
• expiration_date

Optional or Custom Attributes (All Products):

• quantity
• model_number
• payment_accepted
• payment_notes
• price_type
• shipping
• pickup
• tax_region
• tax_percent

Specific Item Type Attributes (View Attribute List Links), click [+]‘s:

Each specific item type has its own list, click “View Attribute List Links” above to see attribute specifics.

• Apparel (color, department, made_in, material, size, style)
• Books (author, binding, edition, genre, pages, publisher)
• Consumer Electronics: Cell Phones (color, functions, height, length, tech_spec_link, width, wireless_interface)
• Consumer Electronics: Computers (battery_life, capacity, color, height, length, operating_system, optical_drive, processor_speed, recommended_usage, screen_size, tech_spec_link, weight, width)
• Consumer Electronics: Digital Cameras (color, focus_type, height, length, megapixels, resolution, tech_spec_link, width, zoom)
• Consumer Electronics: Monitors (aspect_ratio, color, display_type, height, length, resolution, screen_size, tech_spec_link, width)
• Consumer Electronics: MP3 Players (capacity, color, functions, height, length, tech_spec_link, width)
• Consumer Electronics: Printers (color, color_output, functions, height, length, memory_card_slot, tech_spec_link, width)
• Consumer Electronics: Televisions (aspect_ratio, color, display_type, height, length, resolution, screen_size, tech_spec_link, width)
• Consumer Electronics: Video Cameras and Camcorders (color, height, length, screen_size, tech_spec_link, weight, width, zoom)
• Consumer Electronics: Washers (capacity, color, height, length, load_type, tech_spec_link, width)
• Consumer Electronics: Other (color, height, length, tech_spec_link, width)
• Home and Garden: Furniture (artist, department, feature, height, length, made_in, width)
• Home and Garden: Kitchen Appliances (capacity, height, installation, length, made_in, width)
• Home and Garden: Rugs (feature, length, made_in, material, width)
• Home and Garden: Other (department, height, length, made_in, width)
• Jewelry (artist, department, material, occasion, style)
• Music (artist, edition, format, genre)
• Movies (actor, director, format, genre, rating, year)
• Shoes (color, department, heel_height, made_in, material, shoe_width, size, style)
• Toys (age_range, made_in)
• Video and PC Games (genre, platform, rating)

There are many attributes to keep track of and update, especially if you offer any of the specific item types like consumer electronics or home and garden products. Keep this list handy and check the Google attributes page often so you can offer up the best feed possible. It is very important to choose the correct product_type to begin with, that way you know which attributes to use (both required and custom) for your data feed.

The Google Base blog has a new post today announcing the addition of a new bulk upload dashboard within Base user accounts. This announcement comes shortly after an interview I conducted where I was told they would be adding some features and continuing to improve what they already have. I was just commenting with one of our readers about the lack of posts on Base’s blog, it’s nice to see them post again so soon.

Here’s what Dimitris Meretakis, Base Product Manager, had to say…

Be it products, housing, jobs or vehicles, we want to make it easy for you to upload and manage your content in Base. A number of useful features are underway, starting with today’s release of a new dashboard for bulk uploads. The new dashboard provides a better overview of the status of your bulk uploads and your items.

The part of that quote that caught my eye was that “a number of useful features are underway.” This is great news for Base users, whether it be for products or real estate. I personally didn’t think the User Interface was that bad and in need of a redesign, but I am sure Google had a very good reason for doing it. Hopefully it’s the first of a flurry of new features.

Here’s a screenshot of the New Google Base Dashboard…

I will be sure to keep you all updated as new Base announcements surface. You can also subscribe to the Google Base blog for announcements or feature releases.

Announcing Google Product Search Partner Program

Google recently added a new page and a new partner program to their services menu. The program is meant for data feed companies who allow online sellers to easily integrate with Google Product Search (formerly Froogle) and Google Base. So far, three companies have been named official Google Product Search Partners. ChannelAdvisor, Channel Intelligence and SingleFeed all made the inaugural list and now appear alongside the bullet points outlined on the new partner page.

Google Product Search works with leading partners to build and submit your bulk uploads, making it easier to drive traffic and sales to your online store. Our approved partners are leading providers of data management and solutions in e-commerce, allowing you to manage your products online with greater confidence and convenience.

Google Product Search Partners:

• ChannelAdvisor

• Channel Intelligence

• SingleFeed

Google Product Search Partners Overview:

The idea behind partnering with data feed providers is to give merchants like you an additional resource to support you in uploading your products. Our partners can help you in many ways when it comes to getting your products onto Product Search, including submitting your feeds with all required attributes, uploading catalogs daily, and supporting you with a dedicated technical team. This program is also great because we’ll be able to give people who are searching more relevant results by ensuring quality feeds.

• Submit expert feeds with all required attributes, allowing your products to be better matched to relevant search queries
• Upload product catalogs daily, ensuring that your items remain active and up-to-date
• Have a dedicated technical team to support your business needs

Google Product Search Partners Ode:

This announcement even inspired Jessica Ng, Product Marketing Manager, to write an ode…

How do I love thee, Google Product Search Partner Program? Let me count the ways.
I love thee for expert feeds to the depth and breadth
My products may need, if ever out of sight
For the grace of ease and ideal data management
I love thee to the healthy levels of
Qualified traffic, whether by impression or click-through.
I love thee conveniently, as your dedication allows;
I love thee smartly, as up-to-date products achieve.
I love thee with all catalogs put to use
In my once solitude and memories of overtime.
I love thee with a confidence I seemed to lose
With my misplaced spreadsheets and feeds, – I love thee with trust,
Daily Updates, Attributes, for all my items! – and, what’s more,
I shall but love thee better by visiting here.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

This is a great program to be a part of, especially if you already offer an easy integration into Google Product Search and Google Base. It reminds me of the Google Checkout Preferred Providers program in that it gives others a chance to get recognized by Google as a premier provider of Google’s services. Who wouldn’t want that kind of recognition? I know I would. I look forward to seeing how much these companies brand and business grows from the link and recognition on Google’s new program page. If any of the compaines mentioned could provide us with some recent numbers, that would be great! Feel free to leave a comment or email me.

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.

Live Search was officially released from beta in September of 2006 when it began to power MSN search results. Since then we have seen many more beta projects from Windows including feeds search and even one for products. Windows Live Product Search is meant to compete with other online comparison shopping giants including Google Product Search, Yahoo Shopping, Shopping.com and more.

Live Product Search and MSN Shopping are comparison shopping engines powered by Microsoft and Windows systems. They allow web searchers interested in buying items online to find and refine product results based on keyword or phrase queries and user features. Both sites are capable of aggregating millions of product offerings from a variety of merchant retailers across several categories. Users have the ability to sort products or narrow search results in a number of different ways including price, rating, reviews, brand, store and relevance.

MSN Shopping launched it’s new public beta nearly two years ago in summer 2005 while Live.com Product Search has only been in existence since May 2006. The results on each site are very similar and the refinement features are exactly the same with a slightly different user interface on each. This makes sense as Live Product Search now powers relevant MSN portals including their comparison shopping engine. This is good for both users looking to buy and merchants hoping to get listed and sell. Shoppers who were used to using MSN Shopping can still go there and may prefer to use that interface and layout rather than the Live.com results. Users who are already on Live.com searching have nearly instant access to product results so there is a way to get there from either portal or page. Merchants get to have their products listed in multiple places and the chances of users seeing their items increases.

Where Your Products Get Listed & Found:

Live.com Product Search Engine

Live Product Search enables you to find products available for purchase on the web from a broad selection of merchants. We obtain our products both directly from merchants as well as from crawling the web. As the results are determined automatically, the name, image, description and price may not always be up-to-date and accurate.

MSN Shopping Comparison Engine

Comparison shopping made easy – Users can compare 35,197,504 products from over 8,000 stores, all in one place. MSN Shopping is fed by listing that are submitted directly by merchants and also from crawling the web. Live.com is tied directly into MSN Shopping.

Live.com Products Onebox on General Web Searches

Today I was surfing like normal and happened across a results page on Live.com that looked strangly similar to something I see often within Google’s search results, a Onebox for products. Live.com has been beefing up their search results, relevancy and UI lately and this move comes as no surprise to many in the industry, however I don’t think anyone expected to see things happen this quickly.

Comparison Engine Features & How Users Find Items:

Comparison shopping engines allow users to find, sort and compare items of interest and then direct them to the eRetailers or merchants that sell those items. Live.com Product Search and MSN Shopping have several useful comparison shopping features to assist users that are searching for products within either portal or site. How users find your items is important since there may be several competing businesses within a niche selling the same or similar products online. As mentioned above, users can sort and filter results in a number of ways including by price, seller rating, brand, relevance and more.

Use the corresponding numbers next to each feature as a referrence when viewing the screenshot below:

• (01) Large, fresh selection of products updated often.
• (02) Quality merchants and popular products.
• (03) Multiple views including grid (default), list with images or list without images.
• (04) Enhanced preview option on image hover for quick review.
• (05) Related terms refinement option to narrow results.
• (06) Brand refinement option to narrow results.
• (07) Seller refinement option to narrow results.
• (08) Low price refinement option to narrow results.
• (09) High price refinement option to narrow results.
• (10) Relevance refinement option to narrow results.
• (11) Products load quickly so shoppers don’t have to wait.
• (12) Results options for number of listings shown per page (default 10).
• (13) SafeSearch options to filter out explicit content.
• (14) Location options to identify default geographic location of the searcher.
• (15) Language options to limit searches based on spoken languages.

Adding Your Products To Live.com & MSN Shopping:

Adding your products to Live Product Search and MSN Shopping is very easy, especially if you already have an upload file that follows any of the accepted file formats (.txt or .xml). Live.com has created a special place called Live Product Uploads for merchants to upload items from an online catalog quickly and easily. Live Product Uploads is an account managment system that allows merchants to upload an entire catalog or one item at a time and manages the whole process including the catalog status, tracking, potential upload errors and important updates.

Get a Live ID or Login using an MSN passport, Hotmail.com or MSN.com email. From the Product Upload homepage simply click the “create an account” link to get a Live ID. Sign in with your Windows Live ID, if you do not have one, simply click “Sign up for Windows Live” and get one.

Visit Merchant Pre-Registration and fill out the required form fields to pre-register. To receive an invitation for the beta program you must fill out the form and click “Submit.” Once the form is sent Windows will validate your site and the authenticity of the request before sending the invitation, which also provides more detailed instructions on how to use Live.com Product Upload.

Provide contact and company information including your eCommerce store url. On the Product Upload registration page fill in the required contact and business information including a company name, country or region, postal code, web address or url and optionally your business description and phone number. Use the more information section for any additional notes and click “Accept” on the Windows Live Seller Agreement to complete the account activation.

Establish catalog settings and create a new catalog to upload to Live Product Search. On the catalogs tab click “create new” and fill in the required catalog setting including a title, the name of the upload file, the file type (.txt or .xml) and optionally a products category, tab delemiter (only applies to .txt files) and a catalog description. Once the settings are established click “Save” to continue to the upload.

Create a catalog file using one of Windows Live accepted file formats including .txt or .xml files. Catalog files describe your item offers and allow you to add attributes like price, images, model numbers, brand, item descriptions and seller information. This file needs to be created in one of the accepted formats and can include a number of required and optional attributes. Accepted file formats are .txt or .xml, but merchants who already list items on Google Base can use the same file for Live Product Upload.

To see specific formatting instructions and file structure examples visit the following.

• Creating .txt catalog upload files
• Creating .xml catalog upload files

Upload your catalog using Quick Upload HTTP for small files or FTP for larger files. One you have established your catalog settings and your catalog file is created in one of the supported formats you can choose from either HTTP or FTP to upload the catalog into Live Product Upload. HTTP method is typically used for small files with few item offers and FTP upload is the best method for large files with many item offers.

To see specifics for either file upload method visit the following:

• HTTP upload method
• FTP upload method

Once the catalog is published your items will be searchable within Live.com and MSN. Approximately 24 hours after you upload the catalog file Live.com will either approve or disapprove your upload depending on whether there were formatting errors and to make sure it follows their content guidelines. If the upload is approved you will see an published status in your Live Uploads Account. You can manually check to see if your products have been published to Live.com and that they are displaying correctly by searching Live.com Product Search (site: command is best if searching for offers from one domain).

To search for published offers from your Live.com Product Upload account use the following steps:

1. Login to Live.com Product Upload with your Live ID
2. From the Catalogs Tab, click “View Published Offers”
3. If you don’t see all your offers published try searching manually with site: command

If the upload fails you will get access to detailed error reporting features including troubleshooting help and answers to frequently asked questions so you can edit the file to follow the formatting guidelines. Common reasons for failure may include non-matching filenames or extensions and trying to upload a file that is already processing. Once you have made any recommended changes try your upload again.

Detailed Catalog Status & Error Reporting:

One of my favorite aspects of Live.com Product Upload accounts is the status tracking and icons that are shown through each step of the upload and catalog approval processes. Sellers with one or more catalogs can see the current status of each catalog and where it’s at in the process. The status icons on the Catalog Page will be grouped according to the catalog status.

• New : You have successfully created a catalog, but it has not yet been uploaded using either HTTP or FTP.
• Processing : You have successfully uploaded the catalog file and it is currently awaiting verification before it is published. Processing may last up to 36-48 hours before the catalog is published depending on the size and intensity of the file. You can’t edit or delete catalogs that are being processes. Other things Live looks during processing may include the formatting, the required fields and the appropriateness of the data in required and optional fields.
• All Published : Your catalog formatting, attributes and data has been verified and all of your product offers have been successfully published. Soon you will see your item offers on Live.com Product Search and MSN Shopping.
• Published w/ Errors : Your catalog has been verified and all of the product offers that passed verification have been published successfully. Any products that didn’t pass verification are reported as offers with errors or warnings.
• Rejected : The catalog you uploaded has not passed verification and will not be published successfully unless corrections are made. Rejection of your catalog could be due to formatting errors or the type of content within your data file. Review the errors or warnings, formatting requirements, data fields and content guidelines to make sure you follow them all.
• Expired : The catalog has been published and it exceeds the 30 day limit for uploads and requires a new upload using either HTTP or FTP. You should recieve an email notification 3 days before your catalog upload expires but you also have the choice to track the status through really simple syndication (RSS) or by logging into your Live account.

Live.com Product Upload shows detailed error reports when your catalog file format is not correct or doesn’t match the required upload attributes. Errors that occur throughout the entire catalog file will be displayed along with errors for individual product offers including the item attributes associated with your offers. Merchants may also get catalog upload errors or warnings if the content within their file, or one or more of the offers in the catalog, is found to be inappropriate, illegal, malicious or copyrighted material. These types of errors are more like alerts that are designed to warn merchant sellers and give them an opportunity to correct any errors for the next upload. COntinual uploading of this type of content may result in rejection of the catalog upload.

Catalog RSS Feed & Status Subscription:

There are currently several ways to subscribe to status updates for one or more catalogs in your Live.com Product Upload account. Each time the status of your uploaded catalog changes you automatically recieve an email notification that tells you the current status of each catalog in your account. One of the newest and most popular ways sellers can subscribe to recieve regular updates is through RSS subscription and an RSS feed reader. RSS, or really simple syndication, sends regular updates directly into your feed reader of choice so you never have to worry about checking the status emails or logging into your account to check each catalog(s) status. We recommend using Google Reader or a desktop feed reader like Google Desktop for RSS updates.

To subscribe via RSS use the following steps once you are logged in to your Product Upload account.

1. Look for the universal feed icon displayed in the lower left of your account pages.
2. Click on the “View RSS feed” link under the descriptive text and feed icon.
3. Copy the feed address from your browsers address bar exactly as it appears.
4. Paste the feed address into any RSS feed reader (desktop based readers are best).

Complete Support Docs, Help & User Feedback:

Live.com Product Upload offers several different avenues of support, documentation and help depending on the issues and errors encountered by individual merchant sellers during the catalog creation and upload processes. In addition to multiple forms of support they also enourage feedback from merchants who regularly use the Live.com Product Upload services, account and features.

You may aquire support or help for Product Uploads using one or more of the methods below.

• Use the detailed Help and FAQ section to search for support topics by keyword or phrase or by using the list of contents or questions on the left side of the open window.
• Use the Product Upload Support form to request help or give feedback directly to Windows Live Product Upload team.
• Submit feedback from each page in the Help and FAQ section by selecting an emotion icon () and typing in your feedback directly then clicking on “Submit.”
• Visit the Live Product Search team blog for updates to features, account services or any other news related to this Windows beta.
• Visit the Live Product Upload homepage for links to important sections, news or updates including additional support methods or feedback forms.
• Use eCommerce Optimization’s comparison shopping guides to find answers about Live Product Search and Uploads.

Additional Sources & External Links:

Invitation Request Form (Needed for beta users)

Live ID Sign Up Form (Needed to use Product Uploads)

Live.com Product Upload Beta (Information about the beta)

Live.com Product Upload Homepage (Get started here)

Live.com Product Search Blog (Get updates and info from Live)

MSN Shopping Insider (Blog dedicated to MSN Shopping)

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

Live Product Search and Live Product Uploads may not be the newest or most popular comparison shopping service, however they certainly have done an excellent job of putting the tools in place to offer one of the largest, most relevant and easy to use interfaces offered by current comparison product engines. The only way shopping engines can become more popular and remain competitive is by offering great tools, numerous product offerings, several different major categories and by getting feedback from users. Live knows these rules and has taken the stpes necessary to implement many of them into their shopping engine. Since it’s release there have been many improvements and I expect them to stay around for quite awhile, especially if they continue to progress the way they have.

Don’t expect the same amounts of traffic from Live that you may get from places like Google Product Search, but certainly expect an increase in traffic and potential customers interested in the products you sell. If you can manage to get established within this newer shopping engine before it becomes more popular you will gain access to tons of potential buyers before your main competitors begin to list their product offers.