This month saw a reduction in the minimum CPC rate for a large number of categories on the UK shopzilla site. Some might say that these changes were overdue as the rates in some categories were quite a lot more than their competitors.
The recent trend of merchants going bust and / or leaving price comparison has been a little alarming for quite a while now. It is refreshing to see a site lowering rates at a time when such an alarming number of massive merchants going bust. Online marketing is actually one of the few areas that hasn’t been too badly affected. Many merchants are still seing double digit growth which is obviously aided by comparison engines.
The major areas for reduction were –
Appliances (average 30% reduction)
Computing (average 20% reduction)
Electronics (average 20% reduction)
Sports (average 20% reduction)
Most notable absentees from the rate reductions were clothing / babies and kids / home and garden. These have traditionally been Shopzilla’s strongest areas, so clearly these areas are on par.
Thankfully, for me, Shopzilla still takes a lot of optimisation, which keeps me in work! When done right Shopzilla can work very well, bringing great cost of sale figures and also strong revenues, however when not done well, as with all the other sites, you pay for it. All comparison engines are still getting strong traffic figures, which always needs to be optimised. Optimisation is a key ingredient in a successful campaign.
Let’s hope this is just the start of the rate re-adjustment with more to come as the recession bites deeper into our pockets. With such pressure from affiliates (with their no-risk approach) for the marketing spend I hope that the shopping sites win out.
Richard
www.onefeed.co.uk
