Merchant Best Practices with Bing Shopping

Posted by on August 12, 2010 in Uncategorized

This blog is a continuation of CPC Strategy’s comparison shopping engine (CSE) spotlight on Bing Shopping. July’s CSE spotlight detailed Google Product Search.

Merchant Best Practices with Bing Shopping:

Bing Shopping recently turned free at the end of July, marking the end of Microsoft’s Cashback program. The new-found freedom from click costs has attracted new merchants into Microsoft’s comparison shopping space who are looking to compete for free product exposure. Here’s some tips to make your products stand out from the rest.

Include the most relevant information in your Bing Shopping data feeds.

For best results adhere strictly to the Bing Shopping data feed specs found at the end of the Bing Shopping program merchant integration guide.

  1. Include as many attributes about your products as possible (UPC, MPN, Brand, Condition, Description, Image, Shipping & Tax Info).
  2. Provide the highest quality information for each product. This includes adding high quality product images and clear product titles.
  3. Make sure your data feed is updated regularly to account for any changes to your inventory. This improves your product accuracy and consistency.

When you’re dealing with free engines, the best strategy is provide the most complete data about your products. These tips mimic our Merchant Best Practices with Google Product Search.

Microsoft’s move to a free CSE is attracting numerous new merchants, and in our quarterly comparison shopping rankings we note the high conversion rates our merchants experienced on Bing Cashback. With the addition of numerous new merchants and products, a larger body of Microsoft’s unique users will be able to shop for what they want through Bing Shopping. Hopefully traffic increases and conversion rates hold steady. Your key to tap into this free traffic source is to have detailed product information in your data feed.

Here’s a trick to boost your traffic taken from a great article at PracticalEcommerce.com: For the upcoming holiday season, personalize your product descriptions and titles with holiday-relevant terms such as “Christmas Gift”.

The links below contain information regarding Bing Shopping.

Internet Retailer says bye-bye to Bing Cashback

Bing Shopping FAQ

Bing Shopping Program Merchant Integration Guide

Bing Community blog that reports on Bing Shopping

About the Author+Andrew Davis is CPC Strategy's Director of Marketing, an expert in ecommerce marketing strategy, product marketing and all things comparison shopping related. In September 2010, Andrew finished writing the first-ever Merchant Comparison Shopping Handbook which teaches online retailers the most effective way to start and manage their comparison shopping campaigns. Today Andrew spends most of his time consulting medium and large online retailers and online marketing agencies. You can contact Andrew directly at andrew@cpcstrategy.com or via phone at 619-297-3798. See all posts by this author here.

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