By Ryan Douglas of SingleFeed

1. Comparison
Shopping Engines 101
Getting Your Products Found
IMA Las Vegas | August 13, 2012
Ryan Douglas - Product Manager, SingleFeed 1

2. Personal Bio
• Over 7 years hands on ecommerce experience
• At SingleFeed – Customer Development and Full
Service Account Management
• Working directly with hundreds of retailers
• PlumberSurplus.com – Online Marketing for Internet
Retailer Hot 100 Retailer.
• From 10 orders a day in a garage to 500+ orders a day
with 3 locations
• Product Manager of SingleFeed – help integrate our
tools for Vendio users
• Remember - I used to be in your shoes as a retailer
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3. About SingleFeed
• Leading data feed management tool for small and
medium sized 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
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4. Overview
• What are the Comparison Engines?
• Why Should I use Shopping Engines?
• How to Get Started
• Recap
• Q&A
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5. What are Comparison Shopping
Engines
Comparison Shopping Engine? Shopping Comparison
Engine? Price Comparison Engine? What's the difference?
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6. What are Comparison Shopping Engines?
• 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
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7. Where to begin?
• CSE – Comparison Shopping Engine
• There are 25+ Major CSE’s
• General to Niche
• 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
• Does this work with your budget and cash
flow?
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8. List of Comparison Shopping Engines
And many more!
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9. Google Shopping
www.singlefeed.com 9 (800) 705 8852

10. Google Shopping
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11. Google Shopping
www.singlefeed.com 11 (800) 705 8852

12. Google Shopping
www.singlefeed.com 12 (800) 705 8852

13. Nextag
www.singlefeed.com 13 (800) 705 8852

14. Nextag
www.singlefeed.com 14 (800) 705 8852

15. Shopzilla
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16. Why Use Comparison Shopping
Engines?
What’s in it for me?
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17. Why use CSE’s
• Each CSE spends $$$ on marketing and SEO to
drive traffic, adding to your “reach”
• They have more experience and deeper pockets than
you do. Let them help you.
• Unique visitors per month (comscore April 2012)
• Google Shopping >20M
• Shopzilla >18M
• Nextag >17M
• Pricegrabber >7M
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18. Why use CSE’s
• What do you sell?
• Shopping Engines support Widgets to whatchamacallit’s
but no services
• Each engine has different policies on allowable products – ie no
tobacco or alcohol, digital downloads, etc
• Part of a complete online marketing presence
• CSEs contribute 5-20% of total sales/traffic
• A way to increase traffic and sales on your site
• Controlled and profitable approach
• Own the customer, not like eBay/Amazon
• Relies on your own site conversion experience
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19. Who uses CSE’s
• The Shoppers
• Top CSE’s account for over 200 Million unique visits per
month
• Price isn’t the only driver in their searches
• Seller reputation, product rating, shipping cost are all factors
• Typically already know what they are looking for
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20. Who uses CSE’s
• The Merchants
• Already listing on other channels – Amazon/Ebay
• Actively using online marketing such as SEM (AdWords),
SEO, and email.
• Selling well established brands of products – no obscure
generic/house brand items
• Price competitive to a degree – won’t work well if you’re
selling at the highest price
• Have bandwidth/people to handle Marketing duties
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21. Getting Started
The checklist to begin listing on the shopping
engines
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22. You Need the Basics First
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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23. Step By Step
Step 1 - Create Shopping Engine Accounts
• Typically takes 20-30 minutes to register/setup
• Need basic store information – tax, shipping
rates/rules, store logo, Support phone #, etc
• Pay initial deposit (if required) via Credit card
• CPC fees are set by product category rate cards
• Fees from $0.15-$1.00+ (avg $0.35)
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24. Example – Become.com
www.singlefeed.com 24 (800) 705 8852

25. Step By Step
Step 2 - Create Data Feeds
• Enter the “Feed Matrix”
• Most CSEs use 10-15 fields or more
• Product Title, Description, UPC, Color…
• Every CSE has different requirements - download feed spec’s
from each one and follow instructions
• Common and unique data fields between each CSE
• File formats – csv, txt, xml, etc
• Use Excel to open/create/read files.
• Get a Developer to help create a feed generation script
• Re-useable solution for your website
• Data Feed Management Services
• Streamline/automate the process.
• SingleFeed helps in this area
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26. Step By Step
Step 3 – Upload/submit Feed Files
• Automate this process if you can via scripts
and FTP delivery.
• Will require Developers
• Deliver feed files regularly – as often as
your product data changes.
• Upload via web for small files, FTP for larger
files
• Once per day is our recommendation
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27. Step By Step
Step 4 – Review & Correct Errors
• May take several tries to get the feed file
“just right”
• Strive for >90% approval and move on
• Error messages from CSEs are not always
clear
• Warnings vs Errors vs Recommendations
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28. Step By Step
Step 5 – Setup Tracking and Reporting
• Don’t want to be “flying blind” on performance
• Use Google Analytics at a minimum
• Utm parameters: utm_medium and utm_source will
get you started
• Most CSEs have their own tracking as well, we
recommend you install too
• Helps w/ ranking and bid amounts and conversions to
have this installed
• Monitor performance regularly – look at least 1x a
week
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29. Key Takeaways
• Submit Feeds frequently
• Don’t submit the same feed to all the CSEs
• Set a budget – daily/monthly to avoid overspend
• Remember to check results – “Don’t set it and forget it”
• Start with 1 or 2 CSEs then expand – avoid shotgun
approach
www.singlefeed.com 29 (800) 705 8852

30. Question and Answer
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31. Contact Info
Ryan Douglas
ryan@singlefeed.com
800-705-8852 ext 201
www.SingleFeed.com
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