Considering ROI Sales Tracking Code

The decision on whether to install sales tracking code seems easy, at  knee-jerk reaction type of level. The thinking goes that there is no reason to risk the invasion of privacy in turning over site data to a partner or third party site. The sales tracking code given by a comparison engine or any other company may and perhaps will collect all sales information. Not to mention possible issues with pulling .gif pixels that could slow down a page load, and all of this deters many merchants from bogging down their site with various pieces of java script. However, there are ways to find advantages here.

Nearly all major comparison engines push their merchants to install tracking code. On the engine side, its a valuable resource to know what is happening with traffic. For shopping engines, they work to send high quality traffic that is converting, however they don’t really know what is happening with that referral traffic unless their tracking code is present on the merchant side to show a sale. Seen from the channel perspective, this is an essential ingredient to know what their merchants partners are seeing and how to ensure the traffic service makes sense from a business perspective. This ensures the comparison engine can and does deliver a valuable add financially.

The key is pairing this interest with the more tightly centered interest of the merchant.From the merchant perspective, they are looking for immediate results. From recent experience, then PriceGrabber’s code should be considered.

First, PriceGrabber has managed to greatly extend their reach this year by adding Yahoo Shopping’s network of traffic to their family. While working with other major sites like CNet, PriceGrabber has an impressive network of partners sending traffic. The key is differentiating how this traffic performs. The PriceGrabber code helps report on this network, but then PriceGrabber’s account managers proactively work with the data coming their way. While some companies have greatly scaled back customer service in cost-cutting maneuvers, PriceGrabber has made their staff much more aggressive in 2010, by seeking opportunities and ways to grow client business. By adding the PriceGrabber tracking code, a merchant should expect to see increases in ROI as the data is gathered.

To be fair, there are other important items from other comparison engines. For example, NexTag also does a good job in working with their ROI tracker to improve results, and Shopzilla’s customer survey code can create a huge amount of benefit by aggregating costumer reviews on both the Shopzilla network but also on Google Product Search. However, for this write-up, PriceGrabber’s ROI code deserves a second look if it has not been tried already.

July 8th, 2010