Shopzilla has already gone back to standard rates, so this should be a prime location for pushing budget to. On the other side of the coin, some engines are not rolling back rates until January 15th, so throttles should be available if needed.

End of Holiday CPC Rate Card

• Shopzilla December 25
• Gifts.com December 31
• NexTag December 31
• Shopping.com December 31
• PriceGrabber January 15
• Pronto.com January 15

Shopping.com

Shopping continues to be the most innovative in billing, by supporting a value based rate card which fluctuates on the measured value of the traffic source that Shopping is using to drive traffic to the merchant site. The formula is defined by Shopping as the following:

 [Rate Card CPC]    x   [Publisher Quality Score]    =    [Billed CPC]

This formula paired with changing rate card CPCs by category and price level, gives Shopping a continuously variable CPC rate which is both innovative and difficult to pin down sometimes. The rate changes went into effect on May 16th, so it’s already out in the wild. The full rates can be seen at: Shopping Rate Card

Shopzilla

Shopzilla aka Bizrate, was the next domino to fall, announcing rate card changes effective June 1. Shopzilla has been good enough to provide a break down of current and effective CPC rates in June. As with many of the rate card changes on the engines, there is a mix of higher and lower CPC rates being put into place. You can find the complete review here: Shopzilla Rate Card Effective June 1

NexTag

Now the ball really gets rolling. A few days later this month, NexTag announced their rate card changes for June 1. NexTag’s changes are pretty heavy toward increases, but there are some decreases as well. Included in this change is the creation of many new categories, so merchants should be aware of the updates since this likely means a change to the product feed to include the new mappings. The NexTag taxonomy can be found here: NexTag Categories. In the update, NexTag did not including a rate card link, so merchants who are looking for new rates should check in their NexTag administrative tools.

Amazon Product Ads

Amazon followed up a few days later by announcing their rate card changes. The rate card changes have been nicely summed up by Amazon in their announcement. There are 36 categories effected, with 117 other categories left untouched. Of the 36 categories, 32 categories are seeing increases and 4 categories seeing decreases. As with NexTag, the CPC rates are located in the merchant’s admin panel, so there is no public link to provide. Amazon is also consistent on the date for the changes, which is June 1.

Become

Only a day behind Amazon, Become announced their rate card changes only a few days ago. There is no summary, so merchants should review to see what categories have been changed and how this effects overall expenses. The good news is that Become is giving more time than the others, making the changes effective June 15. The rates can be found here: Become Rate Card

Overall, any merchant who has tight controls on ROI, should keep June 1 circled on the calendar. More than likely, things will fluctuate on that day and adjustments may need to be made later on the month once the changes have a chance to yield a new pattern. Fortunately, there is no rate change on Google Product Search.

I won’t spend time echoing the study when instead I suggest reviewing SEOClarity’s .PDF yourself:

SEOClarity: Clarity Insights Google Algorithm Change 2/24/2011

That is now changing as HGTV will begin pulling product information from Shopzilla – Bizrate directly. This seems a wise move as HGTV can effectively expand their product selection instead of working to build out processing in house. However, HGTV will continue to accept HGTV formatted feeds on a case by case basis in case a valued partner is not using Shopzilla.

Recently I have seen a huge amount of product matching on Shopzilla for generic keyword searches. That means that when doing a keyword search, the majority of listings that come up are products sold by multiple merchants. The higher ranking of matched listings would make sense, since these product listings would contain higher bids as merchants push for position, and the products would likely have a lot of historical data in place (if there are multiple merchants selling an item, its a good bet that people are aware of the item’s existence and actively seeking it). The key here is that either Shopzilla is getting much better at matching than they were in the past, or Shopzilla is making much more of an effort to match multiple sellers to the item being purchased.

This all leads to some important strategy changes. Merchants should be very aware of their price point in relation to other sellers since a quick and true comparison is more likely. Also, with the increased focus on matching, correct manufacturer information is necessary to make sure Shopzilla can properly match an offer to the correct product listing (that means UPC, MPN, etc.). Lastly, consider sending variations on color and size. Typically I would have not suggested this method in the past, but since this matching wave is emerging, I am seeing more and more listings divided by variation or child item. This means a consumer expects to see a red version of the product since that is the product listing title, so the retailer needs to follow along by making sure the red version is being sent, and not just the main level item. In my experience, sending multiple items before could have made clicks and ad spend spiral out of control, in cases where matching in prevalent, it often pulls in not only more revenue, but also better returns.

Category and Product Level Bids

Like many engines, Shopzilla offers the ability to bid on both a group of products at once (category level bids) or on specific products (product level bidding). The first phase of the merchant bid structure is the category level bid. This will cover the entire range of products within a category, and serve as a sort of bid floor. Products will start at this bid level.

The next level is product level bids, which will effectively trump category level bids. Shopzilla will see the product level bid as the overriding value, and default to the provided product level bid. If none is present, then the category level bid will go into effect.

Product Feed vs. Administrative UI

Another layer of bidding occurs in the functioning of the product feed and the Shopzilla bidding interface located in the merchant admin panel. For practical use, I find bidding in the product feed is the most user friendly. This allows the use of a feed management tool or even Excel to quick manipulate bids across a broad range of products. However, bids in the product feed are not effective immediately and may take up to 48 hours to update.

For immediate updates, the Shopzilla online interface can be used, allowing immediate updates which are functioning within minutes. The key to this tool, is understanding product level bids made through Shopzilla UI will override any bids in the product feed.

So in conclusion, product bids override category bids, and online bids override product feed bids. Hope this helps!

Key Features

Shopzilla offers a wide variety of features, the first of which being the advanced bidding system in place. First, Shopzilla offers both product level and category level bidding. The biding interface also features a snapshot of competitive intelligence, showing what the top bids are within each subcategory. The next bid feature of the bidding system, is the ability to use zero bidding as a filtration tool. If a product is not doing well, instead of removing the product completely, a zero bid amount can be placed to offer free clicks. Mind you, this will only work if Shopzilla has a low inventory of that type of product. Otherwise, the product will be buried under merchants who are willing to pay.

Challenges

Traffic, traffic and traffic. More than any other CSE, Shopzilla will bring an avalanche of traffic. Of course this can be good thing if ROI is strong. However, if not watched carefully, Shopzilla can quickly spiral out of control. To properly mange this engine, a careful eye needs to be kept on product and category performance.

Also, be aware of how products are matching up. Shopzilla is not as aggressive at matching products as Shopping.com is, but still, products can fall in with other merchant sellers, or could fall completely out of the mix. No set rules here, these need to be reviewed.

Lastly, keep an eye on categorization. For most searches, Shopzilla will display a choice of categories after search terms are entered, followed by a potential list of matches. Categorization is crucial, because if a consumer picks on the category list at the top, then a merchant will loose traffic if not in the right placement.

Key Features

One of the most important features for Shopzilla is their bidding system. As with other CSEs, Shopzilla offers the ability to bid on a product level. This is important because in a competitive environment like Shopzilla where many different retailers are competing, bidding become very important.

Using Shopzilla’s bidding UI, bids can be made on a category or product basis. The bidding UI will give a review of the top bids in given categories which gives some indication of where a merchant’s bids should be placed. With non-matching items, a progressive bidding approach is recommended (as usual). If an item is matching, then options become more limited. The results are heavily weighted toward price. To really move up the list, make sure to install the costumer surveys to help work toward featured store status, which will push listings to the top of the results. Hopefully this has already been done, because it takes a while to get there.

Continuing the bidding talk, keep in mind that a zero bidding strategy can be done with Shopzilla. However, know this is only usable for products which are very unique in comparison with Shopzilla’s selection. If more than a few merchants have a similar product, it’s just as good to remove the product from the feed if not performing.

Lastly, keep in mind the dreaded holiday increases. With minimums expected to climb the usual 20% this year for the holiday season, keep an eye on how this effects position items with bids, and also ROI across the board.

Potential Challenges

Ensure category mapping is optimal. Many Shopzilla keyword searches will display potential categories to shop in first, and then a listing of possible product matches from the entire engine. Be sure make keyword searches as a costumer would, and then place products in the most likely category to be searched in. Of course, testing is best in this case by switching category placement for products. However, let’s face it, if a merchant hasn’t done this already throughout the year, it’s not a good idea to start now.

Lastly, keep a sharp eye on traffic surges. During this time of year, and especially on a high traffic engine like Shopzilla, ROI can get out of control in a hurry. Keep a daily eye on performance trending and adjust as needed. Of course reactionary optimization is not the best tactic, but a responsive component is especially necessary in this environment where profitable
products and strategies during the course of the year, can quickly become budget killers.

Next up on the comparison engine optimization task list: NexTag