Waking to news that Microsoft made the
decision to end the Cashback program wasn’t the best way to start the day, let
alone end a week. We’ve been long time fans of Cashback. We were one of the
first feed aggregators to support it, back when it was Jellyfish, prior to
Microsoft’s acquisition. Microsoft has scheduled the shuttering of Bing
Cashback for July 31, 2010.
After its initial launch under Microsoft,
Bing Cashback quickly became a force to be reckoned with. As a marketing
channel, Cashback produced incredible results for our retailers. Despite all of
its success, they couldn’t break above the number 5 spot. Bing continued to
fall behind Google Product Search, Shopping.com, Shopzilla, and NexTag. Even
though we’re seeing 2000% year over year GMV growth from Bing Cashback, month
over month growth so far this year has been consistently flat.
The death of Cashback doesn’t mean Bing
Shopping is going away. Microsoft understands there is huge opportunity in
continuing to support shopping related search. As Cory Nielsen, Mercent
Performance Marketing Evangelist, reported back in March via Twitter during SMX West, Steve Ballmer made
the announcement that Microsoft would continue to back Cashback, but changes
were coming. Ballmer is keeping true to his word. Within the same email that
merchants received this morning, announcing the retirement of Cashback,
Microsoft states that a new FREE feed program is coming. Yusuf Mehdi, the SVP of
the Online Audience Business Group at Microsoft, provides a little more detail
about the future of Bing Shopping in his blog post where
he talks about “taking all the learning from the [Cashback] effort and putting
it into some new programs […] designed to provide amazing shopping experiences
for consumers and great opportunities for advertisers.”
We’re excited about Microsoft’s move. Change
is good. And, let’s be honest, Bing Cashback was never really a comparison
shopping engine, it was a great directory. The majority of GMV produced by Bing
Cashback for each retailer came from just one link, the “Go to Store” link.
Only 25% of GMV generated by Bing Cashback came directly from product links. We
look forward to seeing what innovations Bing Shopping will bring to the table
in just a few months.
And with that said… Cashback you will be
missed. So long, and thanks for all the free rebates.
