Shopping search engines are growing at a rapid pace proves a Nielsen//NetRatings study which found that the number of unique visitors to such sites grew by as much as 91% during the week ending May 2nd. The study determined that during the week ending May 2, the unique audience visiting AOL Shopping grew by 91% and the number of unique visitors to Froogle grew by 80% over the previous week. As Mother’s Day shopping neared, nearly 13 million unique visitors from home visited online shopping directories and guides, an eight percent week over week increase.
The top growth percentage of online shopping search engines and directories are as follows:
AOL Shoppping 91%
Froogle (Google) 80%
MSN Shopping 35%
MySimon 14%
Quixtar 8%
Froogle jumped 80 percent in traffic to 613,000 unique visitors, from 340,000 visitors during the previous week. In March, Google decided to add Froogle results to their search engine result pages which may have increased that branding and usage of Froogle this Spring.
Advertising on Shopping Search Engines
Yahoo Shopping: Inclusion in Yahoo Shopping is done on a pay-per-click product feed system. Yahoo Shopping’s product feed requirements is a .txt file that includes product name, description, SKU code, product URL, price and other information dependent on product category.
CPC fees on Yahoo Shopping depend on the categorization of your product, not the price of the product. For example, apparel and book listings cost $0.19 per click, while flowers and diamonds are $1.25 per click. Yahoo Shopping lists all prices at https://productsubmit.adcentral.yahoo.com/sspi/us/pricing.
Shopping.com: Formerly DealTime, Shopping.com is a high-traffic online shopping search engine that claims “over half of online shoppers use the Shopping.com network.” The network also includes DealTime UK and ePinions, a consumer rating site. Like Yahoo Shopping, Shopping.com uses a CPC model for its merchant program with fees ranging from $0.05 to $0.30 per click, dependent on the category. Detailed rate information at http://merchants.shopping.com.
BizRate: BizRate merchants control which categories their products appear in the and to which target markets their listings are shown. BizRate’s Merchant Listings Program operates a more advertiser-driven fee market. Merchants can pay the base CPC price or bid higher for more high profile listings. Minimum bids start at $0.10 per click; office supplies and electronics top the bids at $0.30 CPC. Rate card info at http://cache.bizrate.com/pdf/OA_ratecard.doc
PriceGrabber:PriceGrabber has two programs to assist sellers in reaching shoppers. Merchants can participate in a CPC-based program. Costs vary from product category to category. For more information: http://www.pricegrabber.com/about.php/about=corporate
MySimon: MySimon was one of the first and most popular shopping comparison sites to launch. MySimon is currently owned by CNET and offers CPC listings as well as site and category sponsorship opportunities. More information at http://www.cnet.com/aboutcnet/mediakit/marketing/programs.html?tag=ft
Froogle: Unlike most other shopping engines, Google’s Froogle (pronounced “frugal” and still in BETA development) does not require merchants to pay to have their products listed. Froogle may have already automatically indexed your site, but if it’s not submit your data feed. For more information on Froogle and setting up your listing, see http://froogle.google.com/froogle/merchants.html
NexTag: NexTag claims to be the fastest growing comparison shopping engine and lets shopping sites include their products on a per click basis, here is their minimum CPC rates list. And more info on NexTag: http://merchants.nextag.com/serv/main/buyer/sellerprograms.jsp
AOL Shopping and MSN Shopping inclusion can be set up via their respected advertisting representatives.
