Shopping.com’s New “Maximum” CPC Bids

Posted by David Weichel on May 9, 2011 in Uncategorized

Shopping.com recently announced an updated CPC rate card in an email that was sent out to merchants Thursday, March 5^th (click here to see the announcement).   The updated rate card which goes live on May 16th introduces new subcategories that should provide better targeted CPC rates and a rebranding of their payment structure with new “maximum CPCs”.

What Does Shopping.com mean by “Maximum CPC”?

When you set a bid in Shopping.com, you are setting the maximum CPC you will pay for that click. Depending on the quality of that click, Shopping.com will charge you either the maximum CPC or a fraction of it. You will be charged a discounted CPC from sources that send you less qualified traffic, saving you money.

How it works

The “Maximum CPC” works in conjunction with Shopping.com’s Value Based Pricing (VBP) program. This program calculates a quality score for traffic being sent from co-brands, or Shopping.com network affiliates, to your website. If traffic from a particular co-brand doesn’t result in actual sales for the merchant, their quality score will depreciate and Shopping.com will only charge the merchant a fraction of the Maximum CPC.

Shopping.com understands that not all clicks are created equal and charges you accordingly.

Note: All comparison shopping engines (CSEs) supplement their direct and organic traffic with traffic from a network of shopping partners and affiliates.  These partners receive a percentage of each click that they send to CSEs’ merchants.

Click here for more info on Shopping.com’s Value Based Pricing.

New Category Minimums

You may have noticed that some of the minimum CPC rates in Shopping.com’s new rate card are higher than before.  These higher rates are being counteracted by the implementation of the VBP program and should actually result in lower average CPC rates for the majority of merchants (according to preliminary testing by Shopping.com).

Bids will be reverted to the new category minimums (or were they “maximums”?) on May 16^th so make sure to check in and adjust your campaigns accordingly.

Check out how Shopping.com compared to other comparison shopping engines in our Q1 2011 Comparison Shopping Engine Rankings. For the first time ever we feature a Top Ten Rankings by category!