Listing on Price Comparison Sites
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Listing on Price Comparison Sites

How to go about listing your products on price comparison sites.  Most price comparison websites charge per click for listings on their sites.  A limited number offer free or limited listings.

Free or limited listings

Google's Froogle lists merchants for free and runs adverts alongside merchant listings.  Google Base has instructions on how to upload feeds
http://www.google.com/base/help/sellongoogle.html

Feeds are simple files containing lists of product names, prices, urls and image locations.

Pricerunner claim to list merchants for free
http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/userguide.html#faqbusiness1

Most shopping search engines/price comparison sites require their merchants to pay on a per-click basis.

Paid-For Listings

Most comparison sites work on a pay-per-click (PPC) model.  This is where the merchant pays a fixed rate for a click on their products.  The price will vary for different product types.  It is important to track the source of visitors to your site and how much your visitors are buying to identify your return on investment. The software you are using or your hosting company may be able to provide you with statistics on this.

See the UK comparison sites page or the US and International comparison sites page for lists of price comparison websites to advertise on.  Bear in mind that smaller sites may not be able to drive as many visitors as larger sites.

Creating a Product Feed

Shopping.com's guide (applies to their Dealtime brand too):
http://merchants.shopping.com/welcome_faq.html?cc=1&PartnerId=1#16

Yahoo US's submission guide:
http://productsubmit.adcentral.yahoo.com/sspi/us/spec

Shopping Providers

If you are uncertain of how to create a feed or don't want to do the technical running of your site, you may want to sign up to a company that hosts shops for merchants.

Ebay's merchants list on Kelkoo (and presumably soon on their recent purchase, shopping.com):
www.Ebay.co.uk

Shopcreator's merchants automatically list on Kelkoo, Tradedoubler and Pricerunner:
http://www.shopcreator.com/partners.cfm?routine=content&channel=Z%20Affiliates&contentid=225 

Edirectory.co.uk also list on Kelkoo:
http://www.edirectory.co.uk

How Much Does it cost?

Nextag UK:
http://merchants.nextag.com/serv/uk/buyer/CPCCatMinsPopup.jsp
Nextag US:
http://merchants.nextag.com/serv/main/buyer/CPCCatMinsPopup.jsp

Shopping.com US CPCs for various categories (their Rate Card):
https://merchant.shopping.com/enroll/app?service=page/RateCard
Shopping./com UK Rate Card
https://ukmerchant.shopping.com/enroll/app?service=page/RateCard

Yahoo US rate card:
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/shopsb/shpsb_pr.php

Shopping Software with Feed Export Features

Marketworks have a product that exports to Kelkoo, Froogle etc.
http://creative.marketworks.com/news/news_0412_landing.htm 

Switchplane also have a product that exports to kelkoo, froogle etc.
http://www.switchplane.com/docs/calubrum_engine_change_history.php 

Canadian SitePosition also exports shopping feeds
http://www.siteposition.ca/solutions/shopping-sem/shopping-feed-services/ 

Juretic can build a script to export shop products:
http://www.juretic.com/internet_marketing/shopping_channels.asp

Crisp's Commerce platform produces Froogle/Kelkoo feeds.
http://www.crisp-ebusiness.com/index.cfm/webdesign/Promotion.Home

Popular Methods of Advertising on the Web

PPC keyword advertising such as Yahoo's Search Marketing (was Overture) and Google Adwords allow the purchase of adverts that will appear when visitors search for keywords that you have selected.

Affiliate networks such as Commission Junction and Tradedoubler pay affiliates to list links to your site (see the adverts page for more).  The networks can act as a third party to monitor purchases and pay commission on the purchases made by visitors referred by affiliates.

Search engine promotion - see the page on Promoting your Website.