Comparison Engines and Data Feeds How to add visitors and revenue to your e-commerce website using data feeds.

What is a Comparison Engine? Comparison engines are websites like Nextag, Bizrate, Shopping.com, and Google Base. You can submit your products to these comparison engines along with price, description and other information that will allow consumers to compare your products to similar products from competitors. Consumers click on the links you supply and land in your shopping cart. You get the sale, the comparison engine gets a few cents for every click.

Google Base Google Base is the most widely used comparison engine. It can be accessed by clicking on the Shopping link on a Google search page. It is free. There is no charge when people click on your links. Also searchable by a regular Google web search.

Other Comparison Engines

What is a Data Feed? Data Feeds are files that are used to upload your product information to the comparison engines. Typical file formats are tab-delimited, comma seperated values, or XML format. It can be generated in a spreadsheet format and then saved as the correct format. Contains columns of information, like price, quantity, URL, image URL, and category. Contains one row per product that you want added to the data feed.

Fields to include in a data feed Any field that is required in the data feed specification Typical required fields are: Title, Description, Price, Quantity, Link URL, Image URL, Shipping Costs Any field that is optional in the specification that you have useful data to put in the data feed.

Upload a data feed Once you create a data feed, you will need to upload it to the comparison engine. They have a management console to do this. Better yet is to ftp the file to them. Ask for the location, username and password. Upload regularly. Daily is best. At least weekly or when your prices change. Best of all is to automate the whole process, by setting up a program to generate the data feed, and ftp to their site on a regular basis.

Cost Per Click Each Merchant will ask you to set up an account. There is a management console to set up the company info, the payment info, and upload products manually or upload the data feed. Initial deposit of $50 or more. Automatic payments to a credit card are usually set up as well. Each category on the site may have a set cost per click. Some comparison engines let you bid on how much to pay per click. The higher you bid, the higher you are listed in the results. If you have multiple products, you may be able to bid different amounts in the data feed or the management console for each category, or for each product.

Why Spend Money on Clicks? Does not replace other techniques like Organic Ranking, and Pay-Per-Click. More visitors equals more sales, but only if that visitor buys. This is known as a conversion. Conversion rates can be in the range of 1-10%. It is worth the cost if the profit margin on the product times the conversion rate is greater than the cost per click.

Additional Considerations Your price needs to be competitive. The engines are a good way to see if your price is in line. You have to have a good satisfaction rating. There is code for popping up a satisfaction survey at the end of the transaction. Not as good with one-of-a-kind items.

How do I track? Comparison Engine Management Console. Can track clicks and sales. Tracking Pixels. Sends analytic information back to the comparison engine for each sale. Landing pages with analytics. Each comparison engine can have its own campaign. A tag can be added to the landing page URL to identify the campaign. www.Yoursite.com/ipod.htm?CMP=Nextag Analytics Programs. Can track hits to the landing page, cart, checkout and confirmation pages.

Tracking Pixel <IMG SRC="https://tracking.comparisonengine.com/ThankYou.js?MerchantID=55&oVal=99.99&OrderID=12345&ProductID=4997,5107&Quantity=1,1" width="1" height="1" border="0"> On the confirmation page. Uses https if your page is secure. Has an orderID, a sale price, and a list of the product ID’s, and quantities. Programming is needed to populate these values from the items in the cart.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics Code <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> try{ var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x");   pageTracker._addTrans(       "1234", // order ID - required       “Electronics", // affiliation or store name       “81.99", // total - required       “6.29", // tax       "15.00", // shipping       "San Jose", // city       "California", // state or province       "USA" // country     ); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script>

How do I optimize? Title is a concise description of the product. Description describes the product and has as many relevant details. Landing page URL is the product page with a buy now button that adds it to the cart. Brand information is added in a field and in the description. UPC codes for each of your products when available. Multiple configurations of the product are listed as separate rows or as attributes of the original SKU. Additional attributes like volts, amps, and capacity are added to the description or additional fields.

Too Difficult? Hire a professional to help. Use a company that specializes in submitting your feed to many comparison engines at once. You will still need to generate one data feed to them, and they will charge you for their service. www.channeladvisor.com. These companies also can manage auction sites like ebay.com and uBid.com.

Summary Data feeds are a good additional source of traffic and profits for e-commerce companies. Data feeds are measurable, and can be a valuable tool to compare prices and satisfaction of your site to competitors’ sites. Each data feed takes some work to set up and maintain. Automate the data feeds whenever possible, so once it is set up, it runs automatically.