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ComparisonShopping Engines

Make Your Products Visible Everywhere!

ASD Las Vegas | March 26, 2012

Ryan DouglasProduct Manager, SingleFeed

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• Quick Intro• What are the Comparison Engines?• Getting Started• How To Implement• Real World Examples• Feed Optimization Tips• Recap• Q&A

Overview

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• Over 6 years hands on ecommerce experience

• At SingleFeed – Customer Development and Full Service Account Management• Worked with directly with hundreds of retailers

• PlumberSurplus.com – Online Marketing for Internet Retailer Hot 100 Retailer.

• Remember - I used to be in your shoes!

Personal Bio

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• Leading data feed management tool for retailers

• Founded in 2006 True Ventures, Acquired in 2011 by Vendio

• Trusted Partner – To Google and many of the leading shopping engines

• Core Customer - Retailers doing $250K to $20M

• Pricing – Flat Rate Service plans from $99/mo

About SingleFeed

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What are Comparison Shopping Engines

Comparison Shopping Engine? Shopping Comparison Engine? Price Comparison Engine?

What's the difference?

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• Traditional shopping engine lists one picture, one title, one description and all of the merchants that sell that particular product

• Product listings help consumers quickly and easily make apples-to-apples comparisons to make smart buying decision

What are Comparison Shopping Engines?

• CSE – Comparison Shopping Engine• There are 25+ Major CSE’s• Google Product Search, Pricegrabber,

Nextag, Shopping.com, Shopzilla, etc

• Pricing – Cost per click (CPC)• Flat CPC rates, determined by each

engine• Variable CPC rates “bidding” at a

category or product level• Budgets managed per engine

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Where to begin

• What do you sell?• Widgets to whatchamacallit’s but no services

• Part of a complete online marketing presence• CSEs contribute 5-20% of total sales

• Increase traffic and sales• Controlled and profitable

• Each CSE spends $$$ on marketing and SEO to drive traffic, adding to your “reach”

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Why use CSE’s

• The Shoppers• CSE’s account for over 200 Million unique visits

per month• Looking for product information,

recommendations, price comparison, retailer reputations

• Price isn’t the only driver in their searches

• Merchants• Thousands of retailers participating, are you?• Promoting millions of products• From small (<$100K) to massive retailers

($50M+)9

Who uses CSE’s

• 100% Free!• The Find, Google Product Search, Bing Shopping,

Sortprice• The “No Brainers”

Free CSE’s

• Bid on products, and categories• Pay for each click, regardless of conversion• Most common variety• Nextag, Shopzilla, Pricegrabber, Shopping.com,

etc

CPC CSE’s

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Types of Shopping Engines

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Getting StartedThe checklist to begin listing on the

shopping engines

Requirements• Access to product data/catalog• Ability to frequently updates feeds• Shopping Engine Accounts• Credit Card for CPC engines• Tax and Shipping Information• 5-10 hours for initial setup/launch

(not including feed generation)

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You Need the Basics First

1. Create Engine2. Fund Accounts (if CPC)3. Create Data Feed(s)4. Upload Feeds5. Review Errors6. Setup Tracking and

Reporting

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Step By Step

• Enter the feed “Matrix”• Most CSEs use 15-20 fields, • Every CSE has different needs- download

feed spec’s from each one• Common and unique data fields• File formats

• Data Feed Management Services

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Data feed Requirements

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• Set a “data standard”• Give your data Integrity!• Any new fields to add?

• Begin Requiring New Fields like UPC, Brand/Manufacturer, model number

• Create a plan to update existing products• Set a Goal and a Target Finish Date

• Separate Out Attributes into New Fields• Color, Model Number, Brand• Extremely useful to have this data “faceted”

• Ask for better product data from vendors

Create a Data Entry Process

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• On Product detail pages for SEO• Print and Online Catalogs• Site Search & Personalization Tools• Sitemaps for Search Engines• In Email Newsletters/Campaigns• Comparison Shopping Engines• Often forgotten!

How is your Product Data Used?

• Conversion tracking per CSE• Use your own Analytics• Monitor closely and regularly• Don’t “set it and forget it”• Watch your Metrics• Develop targets• Measure against other channels

• Each CSE behaves differently• Determine profitability

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Measuring Success

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Real World Examples

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Google Search Results

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Poor Product Title

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Faceted Product Data

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Feed Optimization Tips

There’s no one size fits all“magic formula”

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• Figure out what’s relevant to your products

• Find Keywords from your analytics• Typically includes:• Brand/Manufacturer• Model Numbers• Colors and Sizes• Gender• Keyword Phrases

What Goes In a Title?

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• Logitech K350 Wireless Keyboard & Mouse [brand] [model] [feature] [keyword phrase]

• Vizio 42”LCD TV E420VO [brand] [size] [keyword phrase] [model]

• Levi’s Women’s 501 Dark Wash Denim Jeans [brand] [gender] [model] [color] [keyword phrase]

Mix and Match Components

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TDK 16x 4.7gb 50 pack TDK DVD-R Storage Media 16x 4.7gb 50

pack

Arturo Fuente Chateau Arturo Fuente Chateau Cigars

Mephisto Hurrikan Mephisto Hurrikan Men’s Dress Shoe

Use Those Keywords!

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• Invest In your Product Data• Don’t set it and forget it• No “Magic One Size Fits All” Solution• Don’t submit every product to paid CSEs• Try different product titles• Use Google Product Search if nothing else• Submit, Analyze, Optimize, Repeat.

Key Take Aways

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Question and Answer

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Ryan Douglasryan@singlefeed.com800-705-8852 ext 201www.SingleFeed.com

Contact Info