Retail Performance Marketing - The Mercent Blog: CSE Best Practices: Brand it!

Question: What do shopping comparison sites and online marketplaces have to do with retail branding?

I'm interested in your answers based on your experience. As for me, this post (the seventh in our series of CSE Best Practices) will deal with this question and offer insights from our experience with merchants on ways to leverage your retail brand on CSE shopping sites.

My opinion, based on the merchants we work with, is that branding does matters in the success of online shopping site marketing. The conventional wisdom has been that comparison shopping engines ("CSEs") diminish the value of retail branding and tilt the balance of power in the buying cycle in favor of the consumer and the unbranded direct marketer. While this thesis is certainly true to an extent, I believe that the facts suggest a more 'nuanced' answer... one that accounts for the value of a merchant's brand equity.

CSE sites as a Killer App, not a Brand Killer

With the reach of shopping comparison sites growing by over 40% a year, more and more consumers are looking to them before making a purchase decision. In fact, the rate of the growth in the use of online shopping sites is three times the rate in which ecommerce in general is growing. Comparison shopping information delivered over the Internet to mobile and desktop computing devices is clearly one of the killer web applications of our early Web generations [1.0 & 2.0].

Consumers not only use CSEs to make online purchases but to research offline purchases as well. Having an offline retail brand online at the points of highest purchase intent is a really really smart idea. This is one of the biggest reasons why branded merchants need to have a well managed presence on the shopping comparison sites.

What we find is that branded merchants thrive alongside unbranded merchants on these CSE sites. In fact they thrive in a way and to a level that is not found on eBay but appears to be unique to comparison shopping engines, including Amazon.com and SHOP.com.

Retail Brand as a CSE Marketing Advantage

Comparison Shopping Engines allow a retail brand to speak in unique ways. A merchant's brand can be given voice on CSEs with: 1) brand logos next to each product listing, 2) branded advertising banners (often appearing in contextually relevant SERPs), 3) branded site sponsorship placements, 4) branded marketplace 'storefronts' (in the case of Amazon's Merchants @ program for instance) and 5) the actual display URL of the merchant containing the retail brand name.

What a branded retailer can expect is that the power of their brand will increase their click through rate (or conversion rate if you're on a self-contained marketplace like Amazon or SHOP.com) independent of the strength of their offer. It gives the merchant an opportunity to merchandise to the consumer on their web site even if they don't necessarily have the best 'published offer' on the CSE.

The strongest marketing formula we've seen on the CSE's is: Strong Retail Brand + Strong Merchant Ratings + Best Offer. This provides a rock solid basis on which to further optimize shopping channel marketing with CSEO, CPC bidding and product & performanced-based merchandising techniques.

In summary, we find that the lack of a strong retail brand may be compensated for by strong merchant ratings and a competitive offer... but where a great retail brand is present it often takes precedence even over a stronger offer.