Say what you want about MSFT and Bing, but if you’re a merchant, you should be submitting your data feed to Bing Cashback right now. Why? While some people think that Bing will do nothing for MSFT’s search market share, there’s a strong possibility that at least in the short term, with all the money that MSFT is throwing at its advertising campaign that Bing will gain consumer adoption. If that’s the case, then Bing Cashback will also benefit. And at this point Bing Cashback does not have the merchant coverage of the other shopping enignes which means less competition for each merchant. Add the fact that Bing Cashback is cost per acquisition (CPA) and there’s no risk to submit your feed. Now, there is the cost of getting up and running (creating a data feed and implementing Bing Cashback’s tracking solution), but now might just be the right time to go for it.
At the Microsoft Search Summit, the pundits had plenty of harsh words for the Bing team, but they also had some good ideas for Bing Cashback. As I tweeted today (#badabing), there were three great ideas: integration of coupons (take a look at Yahoo! Shopping, Smarter, and TheFind), addition of video reviews (take a look at Smarter/ExpoTV integration and heck, take a look at Ciao, which is part of the MSFT family), and clearer view of bottom line price (right now it’s not clear if the price listed is before or after cashback). I need to add to the list comprehensiveness (more merchants needed), addition of tax/shipping info, and social features. Ok, this last point is a little strange for me to even mention as I feel that most of the web x.0 ‘social shopping’ experiments have been a complete waste, but with the runaway success of Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube and the obvious social aspect of shopping offline, there has to be a smart way for Bing Cashback to experiment in this area. Could be a nice differentiation point…maybe take a look at Pronto’s work in the area…or just talk to the team at Ciao.
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Posted by Brian Smith 
