Shopzilla's New CPC Rate Card
Shopzilla announced an updated CPC rate card that will go into effect June 1, 2011. The announcement from Shopzilla was much clearer than Shopping.com’s announcement last week, plainly stating that they will be “increasing minimum rates in several categories, decreasing rates in Appliances and DVDs and leaving rates in some categories as-is.”
I respect Shopzilla’s straightforward, matter-of-fact announcement of their CPC rate changes, but let’s take a closer look at the actual breadth of the changes. Tien Nguyen was able to break down the rate changes by category and compare them to where they’re at currently. Here they are:
The majority of categories remain flat, but 30% of Shopzilla’s categories will see a CPC rate card increase of $0.10 to $0.15. What does this hold in store for merchants? Hopeful souls might see the CPC rate increase as an opportunity for Shopzilla to improve the quality of their co-brand and affiliate networks. In our 2011 Q1 Quarterly Rankings, Shopzilla led the pack with most overall traffic, but came in 9th place for conversion rate and 8th for Cost of Sale %.
Improving the overall quality of traffic would lead to more conversions for merchants and ultimately justify the CPC rate increase altogether. Whether or not this happens remains to be seen, but I suppose that your faith in the rate increases might depend on what you think of Shopzilla’s new ownership. I guess we’ll just have to wait until the next round of our CSE Quarterly Rankings to know for sure.
In the meantime, feel free to look at how Shopzilla fared in CPC Strategy’s Top Ten Comparison Shopping Engines by Category.
Comments