Tag Archives: bing shopping

Shopping.com Partners with Bing Shopping

It appears that another shopping engine is going to utilizing Shopping.com for their results.  Bing Shopping has just announced a partnership with Shopping.com to power their prime results.  This means that if you advertise on shopping.com, then you will also end up on Bing shopping.  This also means that advertisers lose another free site to the paid model.  Here is the email that I just received a couple of minutes ago.

Dear Grayson

Shopping.com is excited to announce our new partnership with Bing Shopping where we will power highly visible offers throughout Bing Shopping search result and product pages.  As a Shopping.com merchant, you will immediately receive the benefits of these highly targeted featured placements across Bing Shopping.

Our new partnership will allow you to leverage your existing Shopping.com feed to efficiently reach 97MM unique visitors per month on Bing – an industry leading shopping portal.  No additional effort on your part is required.

 

We encourage you to leverage this program to its fullest extent by sending your entire product catalog to Bing Shopping through Shopping.com.

We are excited to add Bing Shopping to our list of premier publishers that make up the Shopping.com Ad Commerce Network. You can expect to see your products in these placements beginning in early October.

View the Bing Merchant FAQ for more details on the program.

Please contact our merchant support team if you have further questions about this new partnership.

 

Sincerely,
Shopping.com Merchant Services

What do you think of this partnership?  Does this just mean that the large engines will be powering everything later down the road?

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The New Bing Shopping

As we stated earlier, Bing Cashback is ending on July 31st, 2010.  It will be replaced by Bing Shopping, which will be just like the cashback program, but without cashback.  It looks like Microsoft will be providing Bing Shopping free to the merchants that want to list on the site.  According to Microsoft, all you have to do to participate is continue to send your feed to Bing.  They will automatically flip the switch on their side to input your products into the new shopping program.  Once piece of advise to anyone that is using Bing Cashback though, if you are not already sending all of your products, you should start doing it on July 31st.  This will be like Google Product Search, so send everything that you do to Google for the maximize opportunity for revenue.  Below are the FAQ’s that are directly from Microsoft’s site.

We are happy to announce a new and currently free Bing Shopping program for our existing Bing cashback advertisers that will begin on July 31, 2010. Now you can drive traffic to your sites for free with Bing Shopping, potentially displaying your online products to over 93.6 million unique searchers who are making decisions on Bing (comScore qSearch June 2010).

Bing Shopping should be an important part of your advertising mix for your back-to-school and holiday advertising efforts since the Bing audience is:

  • 31 percent more likely to make online purchases than the average web user
  • 11 percent more likely to make online purchases than Google searchers
  • 15 percent more likely to make online purchases than Yahoo! searchers (comScore Media Metrix May 2010).

The new Bing Shopping program enables existing cashback advertisers to provide a broad set of products for inclusion in Bing Shopping with little to no extra work required.

How to get started
Shopping on Bing continues to be a key part of our overall search strategy at Microsoft and it should remain an important part of your advertising mix for 2010. With the new Bing Shopping program, you gain traffic to your site for free and it’s easier than ever to participate.

Getting started is easy—all you have to do is to keep sending us your Bing cashback Shopping data feed after July 30, 2010 and it will automatically be added to the new Bing Shopping program for free, subject to the new Bing Shopping program Terms of Use. We recommend you expand your feed to include all your products for broader coverage consistent with the Bing Shopping Terms of Use, which by policy referenced therein may require you to remove some of your products. Contact your Microsoft Advertising representative today to learn more.

What’s next for Bing Shopping?

In addition to current Bing Shopping features like consumer reviews and ratings, and Visual Search, we’re continually improving the Bing Shopping experience to help shoppers discover products and compare offers. Future planned enhancements include a more streamlined Bing Shopping experience, improved shopping scenarios for expanded, targeted reach via social, mobile, and local, and more integration with Bing.com.

Frequently asked questions:

Q. Does the new Bing Shopping program replace the Bing cashback Shopping program?

A. This Bing Shopping program is a new alternative to Bing cashback Shopping. We recommend you display your products on Bing Shopping and also run search ads on Bing.com as an important part of your online mix.

Q. What is the cost to send my product catalog through the Bing Shopping program?
A. At this time we are offering you the opportunity to send your product catalog to Bing Shopping for free. In the future, if we charge for use of the Bing Shopping program or change the requirements to use that are free of charge, we will provide notice pursuant to the Bing Shopping program Terms of Use and you may elect to stop participating in the Bing Shopping program rather than incurring fees.


Q. What should I do to transition my Bing cashback Shopping data feed to this new free Bing Shopping program starting on July 31, 2010?

A. All you need to do is keep sending us your Bing cashback Shopping data feed after July 30, 2010 and it will automatically go into the new Bing Shopping program for free, subject to the new Bing Shopping program Terms of Use. We recommend you expand your feed to include 100 percent of your products for broader coverage consistent with the Bing Shopping Terms of Use, which by policy referenced therein may require you to remove some of your products.


Q. How can I optimize the performance of my existing Bing cashback Shopping data feed with this new program on Bing Shopping?

A.  The Bing Shopping relevance engine takes many factors into account when ranking the shopping results. The general rule of thumb is to send us feeds that are rich. For example, we have recently introduced a free shipping tag feature, because free shipping has proven to be extremely important to your potential customers. If you offer free shipping, make sure that your data feed reflects this information, which will help our ranking algorithm better decide the placement of your ad relative to your competition.


Q. How do I get started?
A. It is easy to onboard your products into the Bing Shopping program. If you are an existing Bing cashback Shopping advertiser, all you need to do is keep sending us your Bing cashback Shopping data feed after July 30, 2010 and it will automatically go into the new Bing Shopping program for free, subject to the new Bing Shopping program Terms of Use. We recommend you expand your feed to include 100 percent of your products for broader coverage consistent with the Bing Shopping Terms of Use, which by policy referenced therein may require you to remove some of your products. If you are currently working with an aggregator who is enabled with the Bing cashback program, you can submit your catalog through them if they choose to participate in the new Bing Shopping program.

Q. Will my existing Bing cashback Shopping data feeds automatically transition to the free Bing Shopping data feed on July 31, 2010?

A. Yes, if you continue to send your data feed to us on July 31, 2010 and thereafter. Bing cashback shopping datafeeds sent to us on July 31, 2010 and thereafter will be governed by the Bing Shopping program terms of use, which will be emailed to you prior to July 31, 2010.


Q. Can I send you my Google product feed for the new Bing Shopping program?

A. No, we are currently supporting only the same Bing cashback Shopping data feed format. Continue to send us your Bing cashback Shopping data feed starting July 31,2010, consistent with the Bing Shopping program Terms of Use, which by policy referenced therein may require you to remove some of your products. If we begin to support any new data feed format in the future, we will let you know.


Q. Do I need to modify my Bing cashback feed to remove any products?

A. No, we will accept your current Bing cashback Shopping data feed format subject to the new Bing Shopping program Terms of Use. We recommend you expand your feed to include 100 percent of your products for broader coverage consistent with the Bing Shopping Terms of Use which by policy referenced therein may require you to remove some of your products.


Q. Where can I go to upload and maintain my product catalog on Bing Shopping?
A. At this time you can send your datafeeds to us for the Bing Shopping program as of July 31, 2010 in the same manner that you sent us your Bing cashback Shopping data feeds. For the future we are developing a portal where you can manage and maintain your product catalog on your own. In the meantime please continue to work with your Microsoft Advertising representative.


Q. Will consumers be able to search for my products by my store’s name? Will my store be listed in a directory?

A.Yes, at this time, we are not taking the store space away. There are planned development efforts to redesign and create a more search-oriented experience.

Q. Where will the Bing Shopping program product catalogs display?

A. The Bing Shopping program product catalogs will display within the Bing Shopping experience similar to how Bing shopping cashback product catalogs displayed. This is where consumers make online purchasing decisions with tools to compare products, opinions, and prices. We also have plans to broaden the display of Bing Shopping program product catalogs within Bing.

Q. Are you going to continue to innovate the Bing Shopping experience for consumers?
A. In addition to current Bing Shopping features like consumer reviews and ratings, and Visual Search, we’re continually improving the Bing Shopping experience to help shoppers discover products and compare offers. These efforts include plans for a more streamlined Bing Shopping experience and better shopping integration with Bing.com.

Q. Do I need to remove the cashback percentage column from my feed?
A.  No, just keep sending us your Bing cashback Shopping data feed format as you do today. We will ignore this column in the free program so you do not need to alter your current cashback feed in any way. We recommend you expand your feed to include 100 percent of your products for broader coverage consistent with the Bing Shopping Terms of Use, which by policy referenced therein may require you to remove some of your products.


Q. Can we have screen shots as to what Bing Shopping will look like after July 30, 2010?

A. Screen shots are not available at this time. The Bing Shopping experience will look similar to how it does today without Bing cashback.


Q. Are we still going to show featured stores on Bing Shopping?

A. Yes, as of July 31, 2010, the name of the Featured cashback Stores section on the Bing Shopping homepage will change to Featured Stores, which will allow users an easy way to navigate to your particular store.

Q. When are we going to have terms of use for the new Bing Shopping program?
A. The terms of use that will govern the new Bing Shopping program will be available and emailed to cashback advertisers prior to July 31,2010.

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Bing Cashback Termination Notice & New Bing Shopping

Today, I received an email from Bing Cashback letting me know of their termination notice.  While I was aware that they were getting rid of Bing, I wasn’t sure what they had planned on doing for all the merchants that were in their program.  Well, inside the termination notice email, Microsoft lets us all know.  They are now starting Bing Shopping, which will be Free to all merchants.  This is going to be similar to Google Shopping, or as some of you still call it, Froogle.  This could be a direct attempt to compete with Google on a shopping platform, or it could be a way to get some research before they start charging merchants.  Either way, it is free, so get in while you can and enjoy from free sales from Bing.  Below is the email:

Dear Merchant,

As we recently announced, the Bing cashback program is retiring on July 30, 2010. This email serves as notice that your cashback merchant agreement for Bing cashback Search and/or Bing cashback Shopping will terminate July 30, 2010, at midnight Eastern Time.

We want to introduce you to our new, free Bing Shopping program, but first we’d like to review the steps you should take to prepare for the discontinuation of Bing cashback.

Take action by the end of July

We’ve noticed that you have not been participating in Bing cashback recently, so most of your preparation may already be complete. To help you achieve a smooth customer transition, you should remove references to the cashback program for your ad copy and all pages of your website by end of day July 30. Please be sure that you have done the following:

  • Remove the cashback logo (bing cashback) and other cashback graphics or references from all pages of your website.
  • Remove links to cashback terms and conditions.
  • Unwrap your cashback URLs from your ads in adCenter.
  • Remove cashback from your ad copy.

You should also remove the cashback pixel-tracking code from your website on July 31. If you are still participating in cashback, doing so before July 31 may cause issues for your customers.

Please sign in to our Merchant Center to ensure we have the most up to date contact information for you. If you have questions about the end of Bing cashback, please see our Frequently Asked Questions or you may contact cashback help at cshbkhlp@microsoft.com.

New Bing Shopping program

As the cashback program retires, we are announcing a new Bing Shopping program that will enable merchants to list their product catalogs on Bing for free*. This program lets you offer a broader set of products. The Bing Shopping program will commence on July 31, 2010 and will be governed by the Merchant Data Feed Terms of Use. For more information, visit the Bing Shopping page.

If you are interested in being part of the new Bing Shopping program, please contact us at freeshop@microsoft.com to initiate the registration process.

We hope that you will decide to participate in the Bing Shopping program. We look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

The Microsoft Advertising Bing cashback team

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