Show Me Your CSEs

Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) are growing evermore popular, especially at the agency where I work, Zeon Solutions. We used to pitch the idea of expanding into CSEs, but after we had a solid paid and organic search strategy underway. But as more and more clients began experiencing success selling their products in shopping engines, the clearer the revenue stream became to us, and the more we integrated CSEs into the our standard online marketing mix.

Now we tell eCommerce clients about CSEs right away and even have prospective clients coming to us solely for CSE feed optimization.  We at Zeon have some solid experience with comparison shopping engines, and we use that to our advantage by optimizing and streamlining the data feeds. We can save customers time and prevent costly mistakes in the feeds, then yield high returns for a low cost of entry.

OK – enough about Zeon and CSE details. The real beauty of CSEs is the data you can collect prior to making the investment – from a source you may not think of right away. Thanks to Google’s shopping rating system, you can do competitive research prior to creating a feed or signing up for a single service.

The Google Product Search store ratings consist of an aggregate ratings score and snippets of customer reviews from third party sites.

Do you know what counts as a third party site? Comparison shopping engines!

*The Good Stuff Starts Here*

To do your competitive research, just do a Google search for a product you are selling. “Nike Shoes” is my example.

You will then see Google AdWords PPC ads, some of which have Google Product Ratings (I added red arrows to the ratings). Just click on the Reviews or Rated link on the ad.

Click for Full Size

Once clicked, you will be taken to the store’s rating page. This is where Google spills the beans. On the right side, you will see a list of sources from where the ratings are aggregated.  A number of the sources listed are comparison shopping engines. This is where you can see what your competition is using.

Seller Reviews - AND - List of CSEs

Simply work your way through your competitor’s ratings and see which service is most popular among your competition.

CSE "Competition Lineup"

No reason to reinvent the wheel. Start with the most popular amongst your peers (green check) and work your way down as you expand your online footprint. The Green Check means you’re already behind…go sign up and build your feed!

Your CSE Roadmap to Success

I have mentioned Google Product reviews in a previous Search Marketing blog post if you would like more information on Google Product rankings. If you are not using CSEs, I highly recommend looking into them as another customer acquisition source. Online consumers compare prices on nearly every purchase. So even if you don’t sell a traditional eCommerce product, it is worth a try. And as always, I’m here to help if you have questions -or if you need help from the pros at Zeon Solutions, reach out with an email or phone call. Cheers!