Posts Tagged ‘CSE’

How To Setup Conversion Tracking In Magento

December 2nd, 2009

3rd Party Conversion Tracking

Magento Commerce has the ability to track eCommerce sale with Google Analytics out of the box (more on that in a future post). Something that a lot of merchants struggle with is how to set up conversion tracking for other tracking software or comparison shopping engines.

ConversionTracking

How To

Here is an easy hack to track conversions for Shopzilla, PriceGrabber and the likes:

Open the file: app\design\frontend\XXXX\XXXX\template\checkout\success.phtml

At the end of the file, add the following code, this will create two variables with the order number and the order total:

<?php
	//Get Order Number & Order Total
	$order = Mage::getModel('sales/order')->loadByIncrementId(Mage::getSingleton('checkout/session')->getLastRealOrderId());
	$amount = number_format($order->getGrandTotal(),2);
?>

After the above code snippet, copy and paste the tracking code from the third party analytics software of comparison shopping engine. Insert the following variable where they suggest placing the order ID and the order total:

<?php echo $amount; ?> // Order Total
<?php echo $this->getOrderId() ?> // Order Number

Here is a code example for the Shopzilla conversion tracking tool:

<script language="javascript">
	var mid            = 'XXXXX'; // Your Shopzilla Merchant ID
	var cust_type      = '';
	var order_value    = '<?php echo $amount; ?>'; // Order Amount
	var order_id       = '<?php echo $this->getOrderId() ?>'; //Order Number
	var units_ordered  = '';
</script>
<script language="javascript" src="https://www.shopzilla.com/css/roi_tracker.js"></script>
<script language="JavaScript" src="https://eval.bizrate.com/js/pos_193511.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Image Credit: Search Engine Journal

How To Manage Your Price Comparison Data Feeds

November 18th, 2009

What’s The Problem?

Every eCommerce business wants to advertise on as many channels as possible. When it comes to comparison shopping, you will want to syndicate your products to the top shopping engines. The problem is that every comparison shopping engine has a different data feed format and category structure. This creates an extra headache for the business owner. You have no choice if you want your products on their site…

The Many Solutions

Depending on the size of your company and your skill set, you have many different options ranging from hacking scripts and full service management.

D.I.Y. Style

  • Download your products into Excel and copy and paste until you got it right. Any business that means business cannot do it this way. It is too time consuming and you won’t be able to update it often enough.
  • Hack together some scripts to automatically create the files for each CSE. You get bonus points for automatically uploading to each CSE via FTP.
  • Use a third party self service tool to syndicate your feeds self service style. MerchantAdvantage is a great desktop tool for this, it is priced at $695 per month with no limits on websites, products or CSEs.

Third Party Syndication

Use a third party system to automatically create and syndicate many feeds from one file that you upload. This is ideal for smaller eCommerce sites with approximately 5-10k products. Here are some companies that provide this service:

  • GoDataFeed — Plans available for $50/$75 per month, with a 5,000 SKU limit.
  • SingleFeed — Plans starting at $99 per month, with a 100,000 SKU limit.
  • VersaFeed — Plans starting at $195 per month, with a 10,000 SKU limit.

Full Service Syndication & Managment

I would suggest using a small but reputable agency to syndicate your feeds, they are generally prices better than the big guys but give you a lot of personal attention. Here are a couple of such companies:

Another option is to go with a full service management solution from one of the big guys. I’ve had pretty good success with ChannelAdvisor specifically.

Do you have any experience with any of the companies listed above? Do you know of another company that provides such a service? Please let us know in the comments.

Photo Credit: alles-schlumpf

Boost Your ROI & Get Your Money’s Worth From PriceGrabber

November 12th, 2009

PriceGrabber.com LogoPriceGrabber is one of the top-tier Comparison Shopping Engines, they command 5 million unique monthly visitors (it jumps up to about 8 million during the holiday season). Out of all the different shopping engines, I have seen the best ROI from PriceGrabber. Here are some ideas on how to boost your performance on PriceGrabber.

PriceGrabber Traffic Chart: Compete

Product Categorization

The hardest part about syndicating products to all the Comparison Shopping Engines (CSE), is categorizing products properly according to each individual taxonomy. When you invest the extra time and categorize everything correctly, you will definitely see a boost in your click-through rate and conversions. If you have a large data feed you should consider mapping your categories to the corresponding category on PriceGrabber.

Merchant Logos

When a customer comes to a page comparing product prices from 10 sellers, the merchant logo option will help your listing stick out. Logos are not free though, PriceGrabber charges an additional $0.10 per click logo listings. However, like everything else in life: you get what you pay for. Logo listings have historically show higher conversion rates than products listed without them.

Merchant Reviews

It is imperative to maintain a positive rating on PriceGrabber as well as all CSEs. Not all customers shop by price only, sometimes a customer will pay a few dollars more to purchase from someone with a higher rating than you. The best idea is to push your customers to review their purchase.

PriceGrabber is one of the few CSEs that offer the ability to have your products listed with a Featured Seller status. You will need to talk to your PriceGrabber account representative to get pricing information and sign up for it. In the categories that I have tried Featured Seller product listings I have seen a boost in conversions, although I’m not sure what kind of performance it would have in a heavily saturated category such as digital cameras and iPods.

PriceGrabber-Featured-Seller

Does PriceGrabber work for you? Tell us in the comments.

Product Categorization On Comparison Shopping Engines

October 6th, 2009

Data Feed Sample

Categorizing your products properly on each comparison shopping engine is one of the most important parts of your product listings. Sometimes having a product in the wrong category can get you many wasteful clicks and will cost you an arm and a leg at the same time. On the other hand, having your product in the correct categories will get you more relevant clicks with a higher chance of converting into a sale.

There are a couple of ways to ensure that your products are displayed in the correct categories.

Manually Tag Items

Most shopping cart systems allows for many product attributes. You can use this to create a hidden attributes for each product, and then set the value of each comparison shopping engine category name or ID number. You want to do this inside of your shopping cart system so that the data is saved and exported with your newly generated feeds.

This solution is ideal for small product catalogs where entering the information manually is easily done.

Map Categories

If you have many products and entering the category information one by one is not an option, try mapping your categories for theirs. You will basically create a list of all your categories and the corresponding CSE category. Every time you generate your feed files, have it look up the category name based on your mapping.

If All Else Fails

Alternatively you can just submit your category names and let the CSE do the mapping. Just keep in mind that this may have poor results.

If you utilize your own category names in your feeds, you will want to bid 0.00 on any items that somehow wind up in completely irrelevant categories. This will save you from unnecessary spend.

Bottom Line

Do it once and do it right.

How To Lower Costs On CSEs With An Inclusion Only Feed

August 24th, 2009

Comparison shopping

When you have a large feed, there is usually a very long tail of products that send traffic to your site. Sometimes you can get one or two clicks on a thousand different products. You may not notice the cost of each click on it’s own, but it starts to add up. With a standard Kill Report it’s hard to get rid of the long tail because you don’t have enough metrics.

When & Where

In extreme cases where you cannot stomach the excessive costs of a specific shopping engine (CSE) and you are unable to lower the spend through other methods, it is recommended to send a feed with only the brands that have performed well historically. Keep in mind that by running an inclusion only feed, you are also getting rid of products that may perform well. So keep testing the feed by adding new products and monitor it for changes.

Bottom Line

You might stop a lot of quality traffic by sending an inclusion only feed. You might also save your business a ton of money. Keep your eyes open and watch the performance.