If you’re submitting an optimized data feed to Google Shopping, you can get an amazing amount of traffic and sales.  But just as organic placement can fluctuate because of algorithmic changes, your product listings on Google Shopping might fluctuate because of similar algorithmic changes or placement tests.  The old standard of Onebox results showing up below the sponsored ads and above the organic listings is not a guarantee anymore. You might find the Onebox listings in a different form, halfway down the page, or even in the AdWords listings (will share screenshots of these variations soon).

With all these tests that Google is running, your traffic will most likely go up and down and up and down and up and down.  Frustrating when you’re a marketer trying to meet your numbers.  That’s why you can’t put all your eggs in one basket – be it Google Shopping, NexTag, Shopzilla, Amazon Product Ads, or PriceGrabber.

Brian Mark of Toolbarn had a great slide in a SES presentation years ago that showed how he used the shopping engines to make up for a decline in traffic/sales after a site change knocked all his listings out of Google’s organic results.  If he didn’t have the shopping engine listings, he would have been in serious trouble.  In the same vein, as Google Shopping will continue to play around with its listings, merchants should think about listing on other top shopping engines.  Yes, Google Shopping might be at the top of the list in terms of traffic and revenue (and of course, ROI), but NexTag, PriceGrabber, Shopzilla, and Shopping.com can provide a steady stream of traffic and revenue in the face of uncertainty from Google Shopping.

I’ll release some recent SingleFeed numbers discussing aggregate  traffic/revenue #s for the shopping engines soon, but let’s just say that listing on additional top engines can significantly boost results.  Yes, you’ll have to think about PPC costs and not all products will work on all shopping engines, but if you’re smart about your data feed marketing efforts (reporting/analytics!, you can succeed.

Regardless of the topic I’m speaking on, I always talk about using an analytics program.  Without metrics/data, you can’t make informed decisions.

So it’s great that Yahoo! is stressing analtyics at the Yahoo! Merchant Summit (an event for their bigger merchants).  Dennis Mortensen, Director of Data Insights, Yahoo! gave some quick tips, such as scheduling alerts. Yahoo! Analytics is baked into Yahoo! Merchant Solutions (big changes/updates to the analytics product in October of last year and April of this year).

Dennis, Jonathan Garris (ECMTA, Gotham City Online), and Michael Whitaker (Monitus) are now speaking on an analytics panel.

The one thing missing from the discussion, that’s missing from a lot of merchant related analytics discussions, is Lifetime Value of the Visitor.

How well do you track lifetime value…or is everything based on a single, short event?

Say what you want about Bing, but Bing Cashback (or is it Bing Shopping?) has been getting a good amount of buzz the last couple weeks. Why? In part because of a cashback offer from the AT&T Store. AT&T is offering a pretty incredible 35% cashback offer. This is the richest cashback offer I’ve seen on Cashback. Add to that the launch of the new iPhone, which you can pre-order through AT&T, and at least the twitterverse has been abuzz over Bing Cashback.

I’m still waiting to hear back from some companies like Converseon that monitor ‘conversations’ on the web, but this offer seems to be attracting a lot of attention on twitter and deal sites. Out of the other Bing Cashback advertisers who have a good offer (HP, eBay, Backcountry, etc.), only eBay seems to be generating as much buzz according to Google Trends:

SingleFeed is in Boston this week for Internet Retailer. We do not have a booth this year, so if you’re a merchant who would like to meet up to discuss the shopping engines, data feeds, or SingleFeed, please contact me at brian@singlefeed.com. Also, we’re getting together with some friends @ Lobby Bar & Kitchen Tuesday night from 7:30 – 9pm for drinks and dessert. Just email me if you’d like to join. Thanks!
-brian

If you watch CNBC these days, it seems that the economy is on a road to recovery and things will be looking pretty good in early 2010 or maybe even by the end of this year. It’s not that the housing market is hot hot hot or the unemployment rate is dropping, but these economic indicators and others are easing (not looking as bad as in Q1). And with the stock market (often seen as a leading indicator for the economy) up over 30% since its lows in March, it’s easy to start thinking good thoughts.

While I’m hoping for a recovery in early 2010, I think whatever recovery we might see will be muted. Basically, I’m not expecting to suddenly see GREAT numbers from retailers. OK numbers. Maybe GOOD numbers. But not great.

There really is a new reality in the US (and probably abroad). Consumers are scared. We’ve lost our jobs, our houses, and our savings. This combination means that Americans are saving again. While saving is good in a lot of ways (and I can hear my father’s sage advice not to live beyond my means), if we’re saving, we’re not spending. And if we’re not spending, retailers are not going to knock their top or bottom line numbers out of the park.

So pay attention to the personal savings rate which is now at 5.7%, the highest since 1995.

Piper Jaffray’s eCommerce forecasts are always of interest to me because Gene Munster and his team have correlated sales of certain retailers to overall eCommerce revenue. In the latest report (June 4), Piper Jaffray expects “May eCommerce Sales 0% to (1%) y/y” which would be “Slight Negative for eCommerce” based on Target’s same store sales for May. Next report to be on the lookout for is comScore’s eCommerce sales out on June 15th.

Say what you want about MSFT and Bing, but if you’re a merchant, you should be submitting your data feed to Bing Cashback right now. Why? While some people think that Bing will do nothing for MSFT’s search market share, there’s a strong possibility that at least in the short term, with all the money that MSFT is throwing at its advertising campaign that Bing will gain consumer adoption. If that’s the case, then Bing Cashback will also benefit. And at this point Bing Cashback does not have the merchant coverage of the other shopping enignes which means less competition for each merchant. Add the fact that Bing Cashback is cost per acquisition (CPA) and there’s no risk to submit your feed. Now, there is the cost of getting up and running (creating a data feed and implementing Bing Cashback’s tracking solution), but now might just be the right time to go for it.

At the Microsoft Search Summit, the pundits had plenty of harsh words for the Bing team, but they also had some good ideas for Bing Cashback. As I tweeted today (#badabing), there were three great ideas: integration of coupons (take a look at Yahoo! Shopping, Smarter, and TheFind), addition of video reviews (take a look at Smarter/ExpoTV integration and heck, take a look at Ciao, which is part of the MSFT family), and clearer view of bottom line price (right now it’s not clear if the price listed is before or after cashback). I need to add to the list comprehensiveness (more merchants needed), addition of tax/shipping info, and social features. Ok, this last point is a little strange for me to even mention as I feel that most of the web x.0 ’social shopping’ experiments have been a complete waste, but with the runaway success of Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube and the obvious social aspect of shopping offline, there has to be a smart way for Bing Cashback to experiment in this area. Could be a nice differentiation point…maybe take a look at Pronto’s work in the area…or just talk to the team at Ciao.

I’m at the Microsoft Search Summit today and tomorrow. Some of the information is not for public distribution, but I’ll share what I can. For those of you who have been living under a rock, one of Bing’s 4 main focuses is Shopping/Product Search. More soon.

If you want to follow on twitter: #badabing

Just finished up my presentation.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Back in July, I wrote that the shopping engines needed to just go back to basics and play up the fact that they are price comparison engines where consumers can save money.  Well, in a sign of the times, some of the shopping engines are finally talking about savings.

In particular, Become has done a great job at highlighting savings.

Throughout many sections of the site, especially in Electronics, you can now see big red circles which point out % savings for consumers.  The savings must be 5% or higher to show up.   Become calculates this data on their end based off of information supplied by the merchant in the data feed: MSRP & Sale (List) Price.

While showing % Savings is a great step, and Become will be testing and expanding this feature in the future, I’m actually more interested in the price drop feature Become added.  At the top of the product pages, you’ll now see a link which says ‘Email me when this price drops’.  Yes, PriceGrabber and others have had this feature, but Become’s implementation is smarter (and will get more use) as it doesn’t require the user to set up an account.

The interesting question is how the data Become collects is put to use.  Does Become email merchants selling the product informing them that they could sell the product at price X and therefore get the merchant to submit a lower price through the data feed?  Could Become act as more typical lead gen company, putting the two parties in touch for a fee?  Is this just a better way for Become to form a relationship with consumers (retention tool)?

p.s. yes, i know the images are messed up.